Interacting with Images in the Virtual ClassroomMA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography

London College of Communication, University of the Arts London

Real time interaction in the virtual classroomThe Wimba Live Classroom is the central vehicle we use for lecturers, tutorials and social space. The ability to present im-ages, pdf’s, web pages, share desktops, applications and other content in real time to participants replicates the intensity and interactivity of a face to face classroom environment, and even enhances it through the non verbal feedback tools of wimba including texts and status indicators, and the archiving features which allow participants to easily revise lectures or catch up on ones that they miss. As in the example above, tutors and participants can add annotations to images live, noting points of emphasis and interest. Content is easy and quick to upload, and is then stored on Wimba servers, allowing access at any time to previously uploaded content.

Interactive tutorials with industry professionalsTutorials use the application share feature to navigate through the course’s Digital Railroad site, allowing staff and visiting tu-tors who are established professionals from industry to work with participants in editing and analysing their projects, from single picture assignments to long term photo essays. The virtual classroom allows the course to use visiting faculty from all over the world to participate in lectures and tutorials without their needing to be physically present, offering incredible flexibility in linking industry, academia and the student cohort. The course can thus respond rapidly to the everchanging landscape of contemporary media.

Supporting graduates in IndustryDigital Railroad has given the course a delivery platform that is widely used within the editorial photography market. This has enabled us to establish an agency called Elephant to distribute and market graduates work in the critical years after leav-ing college. They thus have a continuation of professional support in developing their careers, and can offer each other peer review and sharing of experiences. Digital Railroad offers the course a fantastic showcase to highlight the work of graduates from the course, which is a perfect tool for marketing, recruitment and building the international profile of the course.

Professional image managementDigital Railroad is an industry strength image content management system that is used by over 600 photographers and agencies to store, organise and distribute their photographs to clients worldwide. As such it provides our students with the same powerful tools for working with their images as the professional industry uses. The benefits of Digital Railroad include: • Cross-platform server automatically scales to store images with easy and rapid uploading.• Images are stored on highly secure SQL database and Linux storage systems, which are located in a first-class co-location facility with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, and 24 x 7 monitored security.• PC- and Mac-compatible.• 24 x 7 system administrators on-site to monitor and maintain the data center infrastructure and client equipment.• Accessible from anywhere in the world through an Internet connection. No software to download or configure.

Powerful collaborative toolsDigital Railroad allows participants and tutors to work collaboratively on groups of images, editing and assessing work in real time. Features that enhance this include• Lightboxes and Groups — Offer organizational options for collaboration and various view states, including Unpublished, Private, and Public. Work can be viewed by individual students and tutors only, or by the whole group, or by anybody.• Extensive online help and tips throughout the system, and a team of engineers, editors and photographers available via online support.• Edit Selects — Unique digital editing system that mimics how professionals edit their best images by selecting “firsts,” “seconds,” and “outs.”

The value of BlogsEvery student maintains their own individual blog during their studies, and the group have a blog that they can all post to. Blogs are especially valuable in the following areas• In helping students understand more about what their colleagues are working on, which builds and strengthens the sense of community. This is extremely important on group projects.• In helping individual students organise their thoughts and document their workflow, essentially becoming an online workbook/sketchbook for their ideas.• In offering to the tutorial staff an unparalleled insight into how the students think, work and relate to each other in a way that contact through tutorial sessions and classroom cannot match.

Developing the Reflective Practitioner ‘The practitioner allows himself to experi-ence surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation.’ (Schön 1983: 68) The course seeks to develop critically aware practitioners who are able to com-bine high levels of technical expertise with compelling formal aesthetics, underpinned by a strong ethical perspective. This is en-hanced by practical assignments that seek to build up a ‘repertoire’ of experiences in analysing the world and translating it into visual media. This combination produces graduates who are able to deal with the complexity and confusion of the modern world in an analytical way, making sense of events around them and then communica-tion their understandings to an audience in the most effective way possible. The course places great emphasis on de-veloping graduates who are self aware, and who through a continuous process of sub-jective questioning of their practice can de-velop an authored body of work that has a strong personal vision yet is rooted in ob-jective experience. The blogs are a vital link in this jour-ney, acting as spaces where process rather than product can be emphasised. By open-ing up the development of an idea in real time, and discussing it with themselves in a self-reflexive way, but also with peers and tutors, Schon’s concept of both reflection in action and reflection on action is enacted.

The MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Online at LCC

The course is delivered totally on-line over 2 years part time, and is aimed at working mid career professionals who want to deepen and refine their practice, as well as particpants who want to cross train from other disciplines such as journalism, NGOs, anthroplogy and social sciences. The course is delivered through real time online tutorial support and review, and online lecturers, webinars and discus-sion groups using web conferencing, both in groups and one to one, and regular VOIP discussions. The course is supported by a dedicated industry standard digital content management system (see www.digitalrail-road.net/elephant for examples of gradu-ates work) that allows students to upload their images onto the server, and then re-view them with other students and tutors. Each student is also required to keep a blog of their studies as part of their E- portfolio and as a vital means of keeping in touch with tutors and fellow students. Group and individual tutorials support the programme of lectures and seminars. Professionals working at the highest level in their chosen fields act as tutors and as visiting lecturers. During term time (i.e. the 30 teaching weeks of the year) there is a weekly 2 hour group session, normally a web based online interactive lecture or webinars, and a mini-mum 30 minute one to one session every 2 weeks. Staff are available at set times in a virtual ‘office’ for general queries and dis-cussions.

Creating an “Effective Online Educational Community” in DistanceEducation The course has developed an “effec-tive online educational community”, follow-ing Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s (2000) model. This proposes 3 critical roles that a teacher enables in the process of creat-ing an effective teaching presence: teaching, cognitive, and social. The combination of live lecturers and tutorials, the integrated image management offered by Digital Railroad, individual and group blogs and discussion forums, and the ability for participants to meet online out-side of formal teaching sessions fulfils these three prerequisites. The energy of live lec-tures and the sense of a real presence of the tutor in the online environment en-sures the course has a very personal feel, the success of which is evidenced by the 80%+ attendance at the live lectures. The participants rapidly form a strong collective group identity, with regular meet-ings in ‘base camp’, a space reserved on Wimba for them to meet in their own time. This combined with a group blog allows the participants to discuss their ideas both syn-chronously and asynchronously. By bringing together participants from all over the world, with a wide range of abil-ities, experiences and viewpoints, with in-dustry professionals and academic staff, the course offers an unparalleled experience at the highest levels of debate, discussion and development.

For further information contact:Paul Lowe email: p.lowe@lcc.arts.ac.ukand see www.digitalrailroad.net/elephant