MARC Talks - Visualising Invisible Architectures: communities, participation and learning
| Dates: | 4 June 2014 |
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| Times: | 12:30 - 14:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Manchester Architecture Research Centre |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Andrew Whitworth |
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This talk presents a summary of ongoing research into the ways communities structure and nurture their ‘information landscapes’, that is, the collections of informational resources they use to learn, work and live. The presentation will focus on ideas of mapping these landscapes, using visualisation techniques of different kinds, in ways that give both researchers and community members immediate access to data that reveal the form of the different informational resources, exchanges, behaviours and practices which constantly construct and reconstruct the landscape and shape the forms of learning which can take place within the community. Such mapping can help researchers and formal learning institutions analyse community learning processes, with an aim to the effective targeting of interventions; it can also raise awareness among communities of blockages to learning, such as missing information, deficient architectures, habits and ideologies. Thus, the techniques can be integrated into the professional development of workplace communities. Two research projects will be briefly discussed: one based in Manchester in 2011, with a focus on community understandings of local heritage and industry, and the second undertaken with workplace communities in Norway, in which the mapping techniques have been developed more rigorously.
About the MARC talks!
The Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC) 2014 Spring Research Seminar Series features the architecture and/or city related work of colleagues from across The University of Manchester. It offers an opportunity for cross-disciplinary discussion and exchange between faculty and PhD researchers. Talks take place on Wednesdays, 12.30-2.00pm.
Twitter: @MARC_manchester #MARCtalks
Speaker
Andrew Whitworth
Role: Senior Lecturer
Organisation: University of Manchester
Biography: Andrew Whitworth is Senior Lecturer in SEED, and has been Programme Director of the MA: Digital Technologies, Communication and Education since 2005. He is the author of Information Obesity (2009) and Radical Information Literacy (2014), both of which develop a critical theoretical position on digital and information literacy, how these ideas are understood and taught, and how they affect communities’ ability to manage their own information in a digital age.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.05
Williamson Building
Manchester
