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Professional and personal experiences as leverage for learning

The current transnational climate (British Council, 2014) in Europe is likely to continue to generate institutional and classroom situations which dictate that difference and otherness be the norm rather than the exception. Unfortunately, in the 1960's, Black and minority ethnic (BME) migrants from the former British colonies had less-than-favorable educational experiences in Britain due to prejudice and stereotyping mainly arising from cultural differences. Since then there have been a plethora of studies, policies, and reports regarding the perpetuation of discrimination in educational institutions. Today, British higher educational institutions have finally begun to recognize the need to reduce progression and attainment gaps. However, their focus tends to only consider the student “Black and Minority Ethnic attainment gap” with almost no attention being given to educators', or more specifically there is a distinctive lack of thought given to the female BME educators' progression and attainment in British HEIs. As such, this paper draws theoretically and conceptually on critical cultural autoethnography, to illustrate the value of conducting research into a female's BME educators' personal and professional experiences, and “gives voice to previously silenced and marginalized experiences” (Boylorn and Orbe, 2014, p. 15). In doing so, I highlight how higher educational institutions underutilisation of such competencies and contributions have and continue to perpetuate BME underachievement. I conclude the paper by questioning the accountability of providing support for BME educators progression and attainment, challenge educational leaders to consider the value and utilization of cultural knowledge, and implore all educators to reflect on how their personal experiences influence their professional identity.

How to connect live events with media sport consumption?

The age of total images

In The Age of Total Images, art historian Ana Peraica focuses on the belief that the shape of the planet is two-dimensional which has been reawakened in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and the ways in which these ‘flat Earth’ conspiracy theories are symptomatic of post-digital image culture. Such theories, proven to be false both in Antiquity and Modernity, but once held to be true in the Medieval Period, have influenced a return to a kind of ‘New Medievalism’.

Professional and personal experiences as leverage for learning.

The Social Web and Learning

On the internet we see a continuously growing generation of web applications enabling anyone to create and publish online content in a simple way, to link content and to share it with others: wellknown instances include MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia and Google Earth. The internet has become a social software platform sailing under the Web 2.0 flag, creating revolutionary changes along the way: the individual, the end-user, comes first and can benefit optimally from an environment which has the following keywords: radically user-oriented, decentralized, collective and massive. ‘An environment in which each participant not only listens, but can also make his own voice heard’: the Social Web. This document describes a brief exploration of this Social Web and intends to gain insight in possible fundamental changes this phenomenon is causing or might cause in our society. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of the Social Web on learning and education. For how do two apparently contrary developments touch and overlap? On the one side we have the rapid growth of technologies bringing individuals together to communicate, collaborate, have fun and acquire knowledge (social software). And on the other hand we have the just conviction within the world of education that young people should not only acquire knowledge and information, but should also have all kinds of skills and experience in order to meet social and technological changes deliberately, and prepare for a life long of learning.

Measuring nature experiences: choices and dilemmas.