Learning and Teaching event

This week (February, 2020) our digital champions in the University of Hull visited Florence in Italy to participate in the first Learning and Teaching event of the SEPA360 project (Supporting Educators Pedagogical Activities with 360 video). The event brought together academics and researchers from the University of Hull (UK), the University of Florence (Italy), the University of Thessaloniki (Greece) and PXL College, Belgium , the four University partners in a new Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project led by Professor Kevin Burden from the University of Hull.

Academics from the University of Florence at the first SEPA360 Learning and Teaching event, February 2020

The event was organised to support newcomers, unfamiliar with the opportunities afforded by 360 video, to learn how to use this new technology to create new and exciting 360 videos to support their students’ learning. The aim of the project is to demonstrate how the use of 360 video can support students to learn more effectively, particularly in new or unfamiliar contexts. In this respect our digital champions are drawn from a diverse range of different disciplines and academic backgrounds.

Our digital champions

During this three day event our digital champions were set the task to design and develop their own 360 video learning scenario which including making a video outside in Florence itself. One example, which captures many of the potential affordances of the technology, was created by Dr. Chris Skinner who investigated the catastrophic flooding of Florence in 1966. You can see his finished video here:

360 video explaining the 1966 flooding in Florence (copyright Dr. Chris Skinner, the University of Hull)

Associate Partner colleges

Although we could not accommodate all of our partner colleges in this particular workshop, each of the colleges was named in the application for funding and each is an Associate Partner in the project. We anticipate that during the course of this three year project our associate partners and more colleagues in the University of Hull itself, will grasp the many opportunities offered to learn about and use this innovative technology to support their students. To start this process the Digital Technologies Network is organising a workshop event on 5th June, 2020 where we will showcase some of the examples from Florence and start to consider how e build greater capacity and capability in both the colleges and university. Please contact us if you are interested in attending this event.

SEPA360 Project coorindators at their meeting in Florence