‘Where is my Googleplex?’ Rethinking vocational learning and teaching spaces for Digital Media curriculums

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that academic institutions need to consider how the learning spaces shape the behaviours of students and the pedagogies of academic staff in the delivery of Digital Media curricula. It looks at the existing provision of space in the form of computer labs and identifies how media departments could learn from the media industry, as they have in more traditional broadcast settings, to develop spaces to simulate industry practice. We argue that Lab spaces create teacher-dependant learning environments, and influence and restrain the learning experience in negative ways which promote approaches to teaching and learning which do not help graduates develop the skills and attributes they will need to work in the sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital Media
• pedagogy
• learning spaces
• curriculum development
• vocational teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alan Hook is a Lecturer in Interactive Media at Ulster University and a Researcher in Media and Play in the Centre for Media Research. He teaches modules in Game Design, Digital and Data Design, and Transmedia Production. His teaching and research focus on play as a form of interaction and how participation in games and transmedia texts affects and shapes behaviour both in and outside of the game.

Adrian Hickey is Course Director of the Interactive Media course at Ulster University and a Learning Technologist in the School of Media Film and Journalism. He teaches modules in Digital Design, Motion Graphics, and Industry Engagement. His research investigates how digital media can be used to help communities express themselves and explore the world they live in.

Dr Helen Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media at the School of Media, Film and Journalism, and researcher at the Centre for Media Research, at Ulster University, Northern Ireland. Her research plays across a number of related areas, from theoretical analysis of the cultural, economic and social impact of emerging media in contemporary visual cultures, to practice-based inquiry that involves the implementation and commercialisation of digital media technologies.

ORCID

Alan Hook http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8703-7487

Adrian Hickey http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2503-9748

Helen Jackson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7003-8317