Can We Educate Creative Technologists? Front Line Stories. |
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| Event | Interactive 2011 |
| Format | Solo |
| Organizer | Dan Dixon – University of the West of England |
| Description | Digital media is driven by tinkering, hacking, creative ideas and radical solutions. The exciting, interesting and profitable ideas are not coming out of research labs and big engineering. They are coming from creative uses of existing tools and technologies, and being built by a new breed of geek. One who blends the worlds of art, design, business and technology. Small agile teams demand that they have to be more than multi-disciplinary, they have to be cross-disciplinary, they need to be able to hot-swap roles and blend skill sets. Companies set up by creative technologists want to employ new talent that is just like them, traditional entrepreneurs are also convinced. They are both hunting around for this rare geek, and there is a desperate lack of new blood. Yet universities are still churning out software engineers, graphic designers, fine artists and business students. This is an education issue, and one that can, and is, being solved. Universities can tackle this, and many are doing it very successfully. This talk will use case studies to discuss what it is that businesses want from graduates. What does this new role of Creative Technologist look like? It will also discuss good practice across a number of institutions that are producing just this type of person. The final juicy bit being common principles, practices, tips and hints that can help educators and employers make a case for, and set up, creative technology courses in higher education, around the world. |
| Questions Answered |
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| Level | Advanced |
| Category | Education |
| Tags | Creativity, teaching, university |