Following on from Digital Present’s article about the meaning of data, this post tries to reveal the meaning of digitally related institutional jargon. UAL’s Digital Integration into Arts Learning project (DIAL) has been doing much work over the past two years investigating multiple aspects of digital literacy within arts and design HE. In the DIAL project year one evaluation report an issue was raised of “structural presentation and communication beyond DIAL’s immediate interlocutors within UAL and beyond JISC. There is a tendency to assume a shared understanding of terminology and of decisions to change use: for example ‘open educational resources’ have at different times been called ‘open education’ and ‘open resources’.” (Year one DIAL Evaluation Report Duna Sabri October 2012). Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2014
The meaning of data
Image by Buster Benson on Flickr
The word ‘data’ is used regularly across a range of areas – science, technology, politics, film, art or media. Some people see each and every one of us as a collection of data, files upon files of information to be interrogated.
Data terminology is part of our everyday lexicon. With data-related issues seemingly omnipresent in our lives, it’s important that we understand what these data-related terms mean in order for us to make sense of our enmeshed physical-digital landscape.
In this article, Sarah Kante explores the meaning data and some of the associated terms.
Considering ‘university futures’: post one, of many…
Punch: Sky-signs of the Times: 6 Sept 1890.
Considering the current radical disruptions, eg economic, socio-technical and environmental, when imagining the future university do we assume a continuity between the past, present and future, or is our present so disturbed or ‘messy’ that we should reframe entirely? What are the set of assumptions that we might use to explore the future university, and what are the core questions for higher education? And, as this blog explores digital literacy, what are the implications for future ‘digital pedagogies’? It is within the realm of the digital that this article is located. Continue reading
Digitising the Museum at Central Saint Martins
Untitled photograph by Fagner Bibiano, 2008
For many years now the prevailing message to the cultural and heritage sector is that digitising collections is good. Good for access, good for reaching out to new audiences and good for communicating with young people (who if you believe the rhetoric are completely disinterested if it doesn’t come with an app). Judy Willcocks, Head of CSM’s Museum, asks ‘Should we be celebrating or commiserating?’ Continue reading
CSM MA Interim Show 2014: work in progress
The New Year and new term kicked off with a reminder that CSM final year students are half way there, as four MA courses showed their ‘Work in Progress’ at this year’s interim show. MA Textile Futures, MA Industrial Design, MA Communication Design and MA Narrative Environments exhibited their projects at the end of CSM’s Street – to gain insights, feedback and critique from colleagues, students, staff and visitors. Here, second year MA Innovation Management student Rita Fernandez describes the work of some students who are exploring relationships with digital technologies. Continue reading
Visual Literacy – is a picture worth 1000 words?
Exhibit in the Aho Art Gallery, May 31, 2006
Image by New Media Consortium on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nmc-campus/)
Literacy grabs the headlines every now and then, and whilst this is a major political and social issue, the type of literacy we are exploring here is slightly different.
Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of images. This is based on the idea that meaning can be communicated through images, and that they can therefore be read.
In this article, Sarah Kante looks at visual literacy in the digital age. With most of the tools and media we interact with on a day-to-day basis relying heavily on images, are words taking a backstage? Is 21st century communication mainly visual and if so, is this an issue for society at large?
New technologies that changed our lives
Advertisement for an acoustic telephone system by the Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, NJ 1886, from “Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly Magazine” Vol. XXI, No. 1, January, 1886, New York: Frank Leslie (Publisher)
Digitised by Centpacrr on August 3, 2013
Technology is a part of our lives, and we seem to take it for granted. But do we, really? Looking at the different stages and revolutions of technology in relation to art and design practice as well as the products and services affecting the way practitioners work, think and live, this article explores the idea of generational identity through technology. Concerned with culture and expectations, technology penetration and the things we overlook and take for granted because of the time we were born, Sarah Kante takes us on a journey from the Gutenberg press to apps. Continue reading