A Thousand Platforms: Deep Teaching for Computational Media and Generalist Design (Aug 2014)

Website: http://rhizome.org/announce/opportunities/60235/view/
Deadline for abstracts: 1 Aug 2014

A Thousand Platforms: Deep Teaching for Computational Media and Generalist Design
Edited by Michael Filimowicz, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University

Today’s creators of interactive media “switch hardware and software tools like colors of paint.”[1] This edited collection focuses on undergraduate teaching and learning by bringing together essays addressing pedagogies that produce the fabled “unicorns” – graduates who can  Program, Design and Create. Curricula in computational media are faced with various challenges, such as (1) maintaining a balance between breadth and depth of specialist knowledge; (2) developing fluency in coding despite otherwise advanced technological creativity; or (3) the role of numeracy in visually-dominated media.

A multiplicity of technical skillsets- animation, graphic design, electronics, computer vision, web design, sound design, 3D printing, algorithmic thinking amongst many others – contribute to an equally diverse set of professional fields, such as UXD, audiovisual postproduction, web application development, project management, creative directing practices, game programming, storytelling, industrial design, communication design and beyond. This rich combination of skillsets and possible roles are profoundly cross-pollinating and thus trigger continuous shifts in professional contexts.

Within this framework, this edited collection intends to address topics such as (but not limited to):
– Project-based courses and teamwork
– Entrepreneurial components to curricula
– The perception and realities of specialist vs. generalist knowledge
– Translating faculty research and graduate collegiality into the undergraduate realm
– Conceptualization of  similarities, differences, continuums and relationships between art and design pedagogies
– Ways in which generalist creative and technical knowledge translate to a student audience with “glamour job” expectations
– Pedagogical strategies that acclimate students for a fast changing workforce where much of the most interesting and rewarding work is performed on a per project basis
– Instructional strategies that evoke students’ passion about coding, mathematics, research methodologies and writing

In brief, this edited collection asks: what does it mean to teach students toward a thousand technological platforms? Please send your original 500 word abstracts in the body of the email along with a short bio to mfa13@sfu.ca with the subject heading “1000 Platforms.”

Deadline: Aug 1, 2014.
Notification of acceptance: Oct 1, 2014
Full chapters (6000-7000 words) due: January 11th, 2015.

[1] To cite an interview with Matt Cottam in Joshua Noble’s Programming Interactivity.