[-empyre-] COVID 19 Movement III: Presto

[Sean Cubitt]

Dear Patti

this all rings so true - even now I'm at a wealthy institution in a country with better responses, generally, than much of the Engish-speaking world

my usual lecture slides are a montage of images and quotes: a set of prompts for improvisation, though based on the accumulated cultural capital. Now they are packed with explicit prose - the more so as many of our students have English as a second language. I record video and audio commentaries, and try not to wander too far from the script, allowing for hearing-impaired students (a challenge when dealing with sound). Assigned films and readings morph, and I spend significant time digitising. I' malso waiting for my books and DVDs to arrive from the UK so have had to resort to finding digital texts where I can, combing academic sites for sources of quotes. I'm teaching a Hollywood history course, starting in 2019 and working backwards - slightly easier to find copyright-clear clips and movies. The teaching and the learning change radically, as also in my digital media course, which had me digitising late into the night in small chunks so students in rural lockdown or in countries and in some cases quarantine camps with low bandwidth.

How they come out the far side is the big question: first assignments say they're coming good: reading, viewing and thnking hard, though many cope with caring responsibilities, shared housing and other demands. Not being able to see when they're baffled, so you can go back and explain better, when they're often too shy to ask in semi-public zoom tutorials, or even one-on-one emails - big pedagogical challenges that make it clear that face to face is so much richer and more complex than this

Colleagues in practice-based courses in film, journalism. sound, music and art have it even harder. Hardware and software and the peer assimilation and sharing of tips and shortcuts have gone. The shared learning is impossible to replace, and the random but intense corridor conversations with staff and other students. Were learning that learning is not personal or private -- in the same way the pandemic has proved there's no such thing as private medicine, only public health.

There will be psychological and economic fallout to struggle with, but the struggle to restore education as a public good that requires public spaces of interaction way beyond delivery of content will be as hard, if university management believe that we've done such a good job online that they can cut the expensive campus social world that we are discovering is so important.

I've been lurking and will lurk again: this period is even more intensely busy than most - but wanted to respond to your moving and wise post: many thanks
sean


Sean Cubitt
Professor of Screen Studies
School of Culture and Communication
W104 John Medley Building
University of Melbourne
Grattan Street
Victoria 3010
AUSTRALIA


scubitt at unimelb.edu.au


New Book: Anecdotal Evidence

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/anecdotal-evidence-9780190065720?lang=en&cc=au#

________________________________
From: empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Patricia Zimmermann <patty at ithaca.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, 29 April 2020 3:09 PM
To: empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: [-empyre-] COVID 19 Movement III: Presto

----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20200429/34696d62/attachment.html>