Embedding digital documentation in creative and pedagogical processes

This presentation will explore the conference theme of documentation and digital preservation drawing on the DECO: Developing Choreographic Practice Online project. DECO is a pedagogical project funded by the Institute of Learning and Teaching at the University of Northampton. The aim of the project is to develop an Open Educational Resource to support the development of choreographic practice. This creation of this resource will draw on my choreography teaching practice and my existing practice of documenting, archiving and reflecting on my choreographic work on tumblr. The project specifically aims to investigate how ‘tagging’ can be used to catalogue, arrange and rearrange materials to create an interactive, non-linear OER. It extends • my existing research exploring social media platforms as alternative educational interfaces to traditional Virtual Learning Environments • my practice of using tumblr to documentation, archive and critically reflect on my choreographic practice The presentation at Digital Echoes will draw on the documentation and digital preservation of a work made on first year students at the University of Northampton from September-December 2014. As part of the module Foundations in Choreography, the tutor leads a choreography project making an original work on/with the students. This approach allows students to learn about the choreographic process from within, critically engaging with and reflecting on the different tasks and decision-making processes of a choreographer. The tumblr blog for this work, Fall and Swell, acts as a blended learning resource for students alongside studio work, and as a vehicle for documentation and reflecting on my own practice. The presentation will address: • The value of the blog as a blended learning tool to support studio practice and a documentation of learning, using my own reflections and focus groups with the student cohort • The efficacy of documenting practice ‘as you go’ My interest in tumblr as a platform is due to its facility for tagging, as the multiple points of entry and non-linear engagement with materials sits more comfortably with creative processes, which are themselves non-linear. The presentation will therefore also address some initial conclusions about tagging as a process to arrange and catalogue content, and as a process of navigation and best practice.