Learning Resources: What are they and how do we use them?
Course Handbook for Resources
This is the Course Handbook; it hosts learning resources for you to engage with each week.
Resources are intended to be ‘drip-fed’: generally speaking, this means that resources are there to be accessed one week at a time rather than all at once (try not to skip ahead!)
So, while this course has its own Resource List that you can consult at any time, the Class Assignments and related e-tivities specific required reading need only be used when required.
Why are the resources ‘drip-fed’?
In this course, it’s crucial that you and your peers progress at a consistent pace. This synchronisation is essential because it enables everyone to learn together effectively.
Each week of this course offers a variety of learning resources, and many of these resources are not found on the Resource List, primarily because they aren’t books! Again, maintaining a shared pace of learning is key, as it allows the whole cohort of MA CATs to collaborate and learn together seamlessly.
Glossary of Resource Types
Here is a quick glossary:
Media Presentations & Media Hopper Replay
During the course, you’ll encounter short media presentations, which can take various forms such as videos, audio recordings, slides, or mind maps.
You have the flexibility to review these presentations as often as you like. Additionally, these media presentations often link to external resources beyond what’s included in the course materials provided by your tutors. These external resources encompass readings, fieldwork, and experiential learning opportunities.
Most of the short media presentations are hosted on Media Hopper Replay, with the Echo360 player serving as the interface for viewing. An important feature of this player is the ability to leave questions at specific points within the presentation.
It’s crucial to recognise that these external resources hold more significance than the media directly provided by the course tutors. They serve as live examples of open artistic learning in action. As open learners, we must learn how to curate and make use of existing content in the world, a process that aids in creating your Personal Learning Environment (PLE).
See also Media Hopper Replay: Q&A discussions, flagging confusing content, and bookmarking (link)
Reading
Reading signifies Academic journals, books, art magazines, websites. There are two types of reading:
Resource Lists: You will find your general reading in Resource Lists; an online bibliography linked to the Edinburgh University Library.
Weekly Reading: You can use, and share, this list as you wish. However, you should be careful to follow the specific resources that are set in the Course Handbook. You will find bespoke reading embedded within Media presentations and e-tivities
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is learning by ‘doing’. Some of the things that you are asked to do are called ‘experiential’ forms of learning. This means that you need to actively do something in order to learn. In such cases, your learning resource is ‘experiential’; this means that you learn from what you experience. Course media and e-tivities can signpost how you might initiate a learning experience, but it is you that has to act in order to have the experience.
Fieldwork
Fieldwork involves you investigating a particular field; it means leaving the studio/study to engage with a non-artistic/non-scholarly space. When you conduct Fieldwork, you need to make some Fieldnotes so that you can later report on what you found out. Fieldnotes are placed in a Fieldnotebook. This is similar to a sketchbook or regular notebook. Your notes can take whatever form works for you.
This is a good introduction to fieldwork:
Christopher Pole; Sam Hillyard. What is Fieldwork? Doing Fieldwork, ISBN: 9780761959649 https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/10.4135/9781473966383
You might also want to read this to place it in an artistic context:
Marcus, G. E. (2010). “Contemporary Fieldwork Aesthetics in Art and Anthropology: Experiments in Collaboration and Intervention.” Visual Anthropology 23(4): 263-277.
Diagnostic
Media presentations normally scaffolded within a weekly ‘learning module’ in Learn Ultra.Media might be proceeded by a diagnostic (most commonly a short quiz or Q&A) to determine what you understood and what you still need help with. This diagnostic enables your tutors to engage and support you with anything that’s not clear, or that you are struggling with.
e-tivities in the Learn VLE
In this course, e-tivities are presented as ‘learning modules‘ within the Blackboard Learn Virtual Learning Environment (Learn VLE). These modules are designed to guide you through important theories, tools, and tactics necessary for learning-to-learn.
Within the Learn VLE, a learning module serves as a structured pathway that you will navigate and finish. It combines various educational resources to lead you on a learning journey. It’s important to follow this pathway sequentially and complete all its steps before your next class.
How are we going to use these resources?
Many of the resources are ones that you will engage with on your own initially. This will shape and help you build your PLE (Personal Learning Environment). However, in most cases, you need to bring what you learn from the resource back to your group and do something with it as a group.
We are a team
Our task, in this course, is to practise building, then sharing our Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) with our Basho to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN). The aim here is to nurture our own personal learning within a shared and supportive learning network. With generous peer support our learning is improved and, crucially, put to the test. What is initially subjective (our own learning) becomes intersubjective. This approach will support you in learning how to engage with specific audiences/participants.
To aid this, you can take notes in your Portfolio (blogs.ed.ac.uk WordPress) to share them with your tutors and peers.
You can use the web annotator we will all engage with during the course to swarm author notes and queries on all of your reading…..
Finally, you can use Miro to whiteboard and map out what you are looking at. Miro is the best tool for sharing your thoughts with tutors and your peers.
A few things to remember….
Your assignment is (nearly always) a group (Basho) task.
Most weeks you will be given a specific colour-coded resource designed inform how contribute to the week’s learning. Preparation is very important. You need to complete your own colour-coded task before you meet as a Basho to fit the pieces together. Think if what you are making as akin to a jigsaw puzzle – you each hold an important piece of the puzzle. The puzzle cannot be completed without your input.
No lurkers!
If you let your group down, you will let yourself down. If you let yourself down, you will let your group down. Remember we are all responsible for pulling our weight to our mutual benefit as learners. If you are a ‘lurker’, your peers will suffer as a whole. The group’s ability to learn will be impeded. If you are a ‘lurker’, you group can choose to call out as a poor team player and this will impact upon you when it comes to assessment, feedback and, ultimately, your grade!
We are researchers
Media and e-tivities are designed to trigger you to engage in your own research towards fulfilling the learning goals of this course. Again, we must remember that the short media do not provide you with teaching or ‘content’; rather, they signpost what you could to do to learn what you might need to know to complete the short weekly assignment.
