This integration has the overall aim of enhancing the education of students in the following ways:
- improving the learning experience of students
- facilitating their ability to critique and engage with the planning and transformation of cities and regions in new ways
- learning skills of film creation and gaining experience in film editing and media dissemination in order to broaden their skill base and enhance future employability.
The integration of digital technology to CPLAN is particularly appropriate given the research and teaching focus of the School. The planning, transformation, and management of the spaces, cities and regions around us are not only inherently visual, but they also engage us in a range of emotional, cultural, and political ways. The geographical imaginations of students are shaped by their engagements with this world yet, as Morgan (2001:284) identifies, education in the social sciences is at risk of becoming increasingly detached from the ways in which student knowledge is mediated in the everyday. As a ‘popular knowledge’ medium, films (produced for television, movies, travel documentaries, youtube, etc) have often been regarded with suspicion by the social sciences (see Morgan, 2001), yet they offer remarkable potential to engage, (re)position, and educate students in a variety of ways (see for example Gold, Revill & Hague, 1996; Pink, 2001; Cresswell & Dixon, 2002; Gandy, 2009). The disciplines of geography and planning are beginning to recognise these advantages and the DIGITAL centre harnesses them within CPLAN.
DIGITAL has already secured a number of objectives that enhance the student educational experience. It has:
- Diversified students’ learning experience by gaining insights from contemporary research projects. Film shorts have been produced for use within i) subject modules: in order to outline how theoretical ideas can illuminate real-life examples, and ii) in research skills modules to illustrate how questions, methods, and case studies can be put into operation in practice.
- Deepened and extended students’ learning experience through the production of documentary shorts especially for teaching. This new lecture material has synergised with traditional PowerPoint communication and slides (through the use of Camtasia software). Lecturers produce lectures ‘from the field’ in order to illustrate, communicate, and evidence key ‘classroom’ debates and theoretical points.
- Field study visits have been enhanced through the production of digital and audio film material (for example, soundwalks (see Savage, 2009) and filmwalks (see Wrights & Sites, 2006), as well as documentary shorts and digital case studies). Access to this material before, during, and after students’ field study visit enhances the understanding of particular places and their development. These advances will complement the strong emphasis on field study teaching within geography and planning in CPLAN where undergraduate field study visits include: Gregynog (Year One), Belfast (Year Two), and Istanbul (Year Three).
Integration of digital technology has also been introduced into student assessment in a range of subject modules:
- Student-led film shorts are produced for particular subject modules. Such tasks give students the opportunity to engage with the places around them in new ways as well as communicating this knowledge to each other, and other interested publics (through screenings and online forum, see below). These films form part of their assessment and align with learning outcomes from the modules in which they are embedded.
- These films are also posted on multimedia interfaces (e.g. Blackboard and the World Wide Web). This posting allows students to ‘tag’ and comment on the films, add an interactive element to these documentary shorts (see below), and teach new skills regarding the digital presentation of material.
- The use of film technology also facilitates the video recording of student reflexive journals (currently being used in the award winning Sustainability in Practice MSc module, Module Leaders Dr Jon Anderson and Dr Richard Cowell. NB: This module was recently awarded the Royal Town Planning Institute award for Excellence in Teaching, 2009).
