How is digital culture influencing your practice?

Description

This presentation considers observations and findings of an educational research project investigating the creative processes students on a postgraduate course within the discipline of fashion communication engage with. The project focuses particularly on the values, roles and uses of digital capabilities, literacies and spaces that students experience throughout their one-year course. Furthermore, it provides a platform to explore and consider the anxieties and possibilities of being a creative practitioner in a digital culture that utilizes a wide range of modes of communication.

Takeaway

Participants will take away a deeper understanding of how the digital culture has impacted on the students' learning journey during the postgraduate course discussed in the presentation. The aim is to generate ideas and approaches to support students in developing confidence for being a criticality informed practitioner of what might be an uncertain territory.

Abstract

How is digital culture influencing your practice?

'Looking: Thinking: Making' is an educational research project investigating the creative processes students on a postgraduate course within the discipline of fashion communication engage with. The project focuses particularly on the values, roles and uses of digital capabilities, literacies and spaces that students experience throughout their one-year course.

Fashion has broadened its influence to impact on almost all aspects of the creative industries and art forms this past decade, whilst in parallel new technologies have transformed how the fashion sector communicates with consumers. With the industry in this state of energetic transition, it is more important than ever to understand how fashion communicates in an evolving industry and to evaluate the learning needs of students within this emerging discipline.

The project provides a platform for students and staff, both academic and technical, to collectively explore and consider the anxieties and possibilities of being a creative practitioner in a digital culture that utilizes a wide range of modes of communication, and requires practitioners to develop 'fluency in multiple literacies...to be able to model, to experiment, to visualize, to verbalize, to write and to film' (Facer, 2011).

During the presentation we will consider the values and challenges of developing curricula that supports students' independent image making practices, enables them to define workflows and develop multiple literacies in their learning, as well as supporting them develop a professional rigour and resilience needed as the next generation of communicators, working within a competitive industry.

We will discuss initial findings of our case study, which illustrate how students have adopted, incorporated, or even rejected digital platforms and tools, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Sound Cloud, (whilst embracing what might be considered more traditional forms of image making, such as analogue photography, drawing and collage); considering why they have made such choices in equipping themselves for their professional futures.

Participants will take away a deeper understanding of how the digital culture has impacted on the students' learning journey during this particular postgraduate course. The aim is to generate ideas and approaches to support students in developing confidence for being a criticality informed practitioner of what might be an uncertain territory.

Reference Facer, K. (2011). Learning Futures: Education, Technology, and Social Change, Roudledge, London.