Flying a kite: playful mapping in a multidisciplinary field-course

Abstract

This article reviews the potential of kite mapping as part of an interdisciplinary and multinational field course. It situates kite mapping as a low cost, high quality, participatory approach, in relation to field use of maps, arguing that research might usefully attend to more than simply the skills acquired during the field exercise and the technicalities of the innovation. Evidenced from two day-long workshops on the Maltese island of Gozo we describe practical issues involved in making the mapping work. We draw on descriptions of field practice and deploy a multi-method evaluation of staff and student reactions and experiences to explore pedagogic aspects of kite mapping. We conclude that the practices of kite mapping significantly impact upon the value of the mapping technique, and highlight how creative and playful mapping processes implicit in the technique might usefully be deployed in other field contexts.

Voices of Playful Learning Experimental, Affective and Relational Perspectives across Social Education and Teacher Education

“…In recent years, there has been a growing number of research articles on playful learning across disciplinary, professional, and educational boundaries in higher education. They emphasise the potential and challenges in playful learning as approaches to boundary-crossing collaboration through novel, engaging, creative, active, and social ways of learning in higher education, that permeates boundaries, but is challenged and opposed by structural, disciplinary, and professional tensions (Arnab et al, 2019;Choi et al, 2018;Pánek et al, 2018;Majgaard, 2010). For boundary-crossing purposes, numerous research articles point to the potential of engaging with each other and with relations across boundaries through distinct types of play such as role-play and imaginative play, and its potential for scaffolding open-ended, explorative, and creative learning situated in trustful play spaces that not only allow for but also encourage collaborative experimentation and failure (e.g.…”

Materialitet, kropslighed og kommunikation i legeeksperimenter på tværs af uddannelser

“…Årgang 17, nr. 33, 2022 udfordringer i strukturelle, faglige og professionelle spaendinger i praksis (Arnab et al, 2019;Choi et al, 2018;Majgaard, 2010;Pánek et al, 2018). I forlaengelse af dette fremhaever flere empiriske undersøgelser potentialer i deltagelse gennem rollelege, forestillingslege og konstruktionslege, som er med til at udvikle procesorienterede, udforskende og kreative tilgange situeret i tillidsfulde lege-og laeringsrum (fx Addo & Castle, 2015;Arnab et al, 2019;Choi et al, 2019;Neuderth et al, 2018).…”

“…Det inspirerer at mødes på nye måder, i andre rum og lege med andre, og det er med til at skabe faerre kontraster mellem professioner og uddannelser, hvor de kan udvikle og dele faglige perspektiver med afsaet i faelles kreativitet og fantasifuldhed. Det legende samarbejde på tvaers af graenser skaber muligheder for at forhandle nye graenser og strukturer (Arnab et al, 2019;Majgaard, 2010;Pánek et al, 2018) og kan derigennem styrke kreativitet, deltagelse og generativt samarbejde (Bogers & Sproedt, 2012;Holflod, 2022;Nerantzi, 2019).…”

Education as Framed Sense-Making A Design Based Research contribution to the theory and practice of play in higher education

“…A majority of the studies found in the review interpreted play or playful as a method and what we term play as separation (Goodwin, Low, Ng, Yeung, & Cai, 2015;Koupf, 2017;Liang, 2015;Majgaard, 2014;Pánek, Pászto, & Perkins, 2018;Phillips, 2015;Suoto-Manning, 2011;van As & Excell 2018;Varvarigou, 2017). Play as a method for learning or sense-making appears in terms on play such as 'methodologies (that) deepen the acquisition of academic skills' (van As & Excell, 2018, p. 1), 'playful methodologies' (Pánek, Pászto, & Perkins, 2018, p. 321), 'playful acquisition' (Liang, 2015, p. 169) or play to 'be used as a tool for learning' (Majgaard, 2014, p. 273).…”