The beginning of the week started positively, the iPod Touch project is back online. Ros & Adam managed to find a budget for it. I have the purchase order filled out, sitting on my desk and ready to be traded for 5 spanking new iPods. The students involved have been briefed and they are besides themselves with excitement. Of course, a big part of that comes from getting a bit of kit to play with, but they were enthusiastic about developing the technology with me. I will get them started and hopefully the project will become self-perpetuating, with all of us contributing towards a unified outcome.
From now until Christmas they will be charged with getting to know the units and mastering the basics. The following term will see them delegated an area of interest, which they will research and bring back to the table. Monthly meetings have to be organised so they can feedback and share ideas. I will record these sessions as podcasts and as written reports. The culmination will be a presentation to (hopefully) Maggie, Ros, Adam, Caroline Cochrane and Debbie (the new Head of Performance Pedagogy). The aim is to secure funding, in order to expand the resource and push the agenda forward.
It’s also getting closer to Handheld Learning ‘08 at the Barbican in London, which I am attending thanks to Ros and Adam. Both helped in securing the funding for allowing me to go. I leave on Monday (up at 5am!) for three days. The last time I was at The Barbican was to see ‘The Black Riders’ by Robert Wilson and Tom Waits a couple of years ago. I would never have thought, back then, that I would be returning for a completely different reason. I’m ready to fill my head up with knowledge which will get me started on this iPod learning strategy proper.
On Tuesday I set up (with the help of many others) the Creative Beginnings Improvisation workshop, which turned out to be a great success (though I still have to get hold of the student feedback to clarify this, of course). I felt that I worked up a good rapport with Mark Saunders (from the Performance Programme) and the balance between Production and Performance was spot on.
