Creative together: Fostering and displaying creativity in digital education

Creativity can be a learning objective that presupposes students and staff engagement with informal, or backstage type of learning environments (studio spaces, workshops, media labs, etc). But it can also be a learning vehicle or a desirable outcome in the formal presentation of students’ work, when the latter is shared with a wider audience as it happens in student exhibitions, conferences etc. This past year, engagement with familiar campus-based Front Stage and Back Stage spaces of creative learning was significantly constrained due to Covid-19 health and safety protocols and remote-studying policies. This workshop introduces to the conference delegates two types of online learning environments, and discusses how they foster and display creativity in Digital Education. MIRO and ARTSTEPS are two online platforms used extensively by colleagues in Welsh School of Architecture (WSA) and in School of Journalism Media and Culture (JoMeC) at both UG and PG Level and in different modules or subject areas. The Creative Together Part workshop opens a dialogue on their pros and cons through the frame of digital learning in higher education. The workshop will offer: i) a short reflective presentation on the use of both online platforms; ii) two guided flipped taster sessions (one for each platform); iii) opportunities to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, operating constraints and conditions with students and staff who used them extensively in the past year, but also to ask questions tailored to the delegates’ own teaching needs and environments. Students from JoMeC & WSA will join the workshop as facilitators in the delegates’ engagement with both platforms. They will also participate in the closing reflective discussion on the use of both platforms