New Media Students Become Drone Experts
The first educational project of ViSmedia will soon be disseminated across Europe. An experimental course in drone flying and programming is featured on two full pages in this year鈥檚 issue of the UiB Magazine.
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鈥淣o wonder the drone course was selected this year,鈥� says ViSmedia leader Astrid Gynnild. 聽鈥淭his is an unusual course. By applying innovation pedagogy experiments with flying and programming drones, the students got to learn this new technology from the inside. 聽This course is one of the first of its kind in Europe.鈥�
Students collaborated in teams and developed three prototypes during the course, directed by Professor Lars Nyre. 聽Nyre says, 鈥淭he students were required to develop prototypes relevant for journalism, but otherwise they were free to design what they wanted.鈥�
In the UiB Magazine Professor Nyre explains how the students were engaged in the course. 聽Nyre comments, 鈥淭he projects that these students are undertaking can make important contributions to the future development of video journalism and visual presentation of reality.鈥� 聽An interdisciplinary team of teachers, including professional drone pilot Giedrius Statulevicius, was involved in the course.
The drone course also provided valuable research data, which will later feed into one or more articles on innovative pedagogy and the potential of drone innovation in journalism. 聽According to ViSmedia researcher Frode Guribye,鈥漷he course as a whole should, in this way, be seen as a design experiment where we systematically study how the students can learn about technologically advanced topics in a creative and innovative way. Organizing educational activities in this manner gives students an opportunity to reflect on fundamental issues of responsibility, privacy and professional ethics.鈥澛燝uribye was on the supervising team of the course and is particularly interested in human computer interaction and technology enhanced learning.