Creative Academic Magazine #19 April 2021

Creative Ed-ventures in Online Teaching & Learning
 
Open invitation to contribute to CAM #19
Johanna Payton and Lisa Clughen
 
If imagining is ‘seeing’ new things, creativity is bringing those new things into existence

One of the consequences of Covid-19 has been to trigger an unprecedented increase in online teaching and learning in higher education across the globe. We may have been forced into this systemic change, but many higher education teachers believe that the change is here to stay: a view that is also widely held by other professionals that support students learning and academic teachers.
 
Now it's down to ‘all of us’ involved in teaching and supporting students’ learning, with the help of our educational  development and educational technology teams, to adapt and find the most effective ways of facilitating and inspiring learning online and building relationships that encourage learners to imagine and create. Creative Academic would like to support academics/faculty/teachers who are making this profound change by bringing together a curated collection of shared experiences and practices that seek to engage teachers and learners in using and developing their imaginations and creativity in a digital space.
 
We invite expressions of interest from higher education practitioners and students who would like to contribute to our curated collection of educational adventurous practices in one of three possible ways:
1 a 1,200-1,500 word article
2 a short video (5 mins max) to share their creative on-line ideas and experiences,
3 an image that captures your online creativity (with explanatory notes)
 
We have identified several overlapping themes that we might explore but we encourage you to explore other ideas if these do not embrace your practice and experiences.
 
Creative connections & relationships: the benefits of synchronous teaching, using our creative selves in a digital context, expressing 'digital care', fostering trust and growing identities (sometimes new identities). We are interested in how imagination creativity enables and facilitates engagement and the formation of powerful and productive learning relationships, cooperative cultures and ecologies for learning.
 
The tech challenge: some (perhaps many) academics/teachers are put-off by the very idea of technology and are worried about teaching online - this could be a barrier to creativity. We are interested in discovering what the barriers are to using technologies for both staff and students, and how such barriers have been overcome. We are also interested in finding out which technologies are easy to use and are shown to encourage imaginative and creative engagement.
 
Inspiring creative experiences: personal narratives can be a powerful influence on other people. We are interested in the stories of teachers and learners that share engaging and inspiring experiences of teaching creatively and being creative using online technologies.
 
Playfulness: we know that play is a powerful force for engaging people through on-line media. What experiences have you had as a teacher or learner that might encourage others to invent their own playful experiences?
 
If you would like to join our collaborative adventure please share your ideas with Johanna  -                                   [email protected]  or Norman [email protected]