Queensland teaching students are engaging with the community in new and exciting ways while getting a full learning experience, reports Priscilla Crighton...

Throughout 2010 some CQUniversity Bachelor of Learning Management students at Noosa worked with the community to learn about their local natural environment while collaborating to present this knowledge in creative digital arenas.

These budding educators worked on projects coordinated by Noosa based lecturer Sue Davis along with artists, museums and various community groups to produce digital photostories on local trees as well as a variety of online creative projects focusing on community connection with place.

Dr Sue Davis as Dr Rita Strong, an environmental anthropologist, sharing her stories about cultures and how they interact with trees at Mooloolaba State School. The projects titled Tree-Mappa and NeoGeography have required students to collaborate with artists, museums and the local community and have involved leading international arts and multimedia company C&F from the UK, helping to provide an international audience.

This hugely successful project is the brainchild of the Sunshine Coast's Dr Sue Davis.

"The project has been great in engaging students, teachers and community members to develop skills in creating location-based digital content and sharing this with various audiences," explained Dr Davis, who is now in discussion with London-based companies for a sequal project which will focus on water culture.

"These projects support quality learning and teaching through building skills in digital content creation, Indigenous knowledge and inclusive teaching practices."

Dr Davis, a former high school drama teacher of 20 years and now university lecturer, believes it is important for educators to nurture the learning and creative journeys of students and also to keep exploring new teaching mediums.

She said over the years she had a developed a real desire to see what artforms can become in the digital arena - a quest that eventually led to a Masters and PhD, and which now encompasses a new-found teacher education philosophy.

"I am interested in the ways we can use digital technology and web 2.0 applications to create and share creative content, with a particular focus on story, role creation and performance.

"I think the digital possibilities available now open up so many ways to build the fictional realm and roles, enable interactions and build audiences, and I am keen to keep exploring the interplay of the mediated and the live."

Whilst Sue believes she could easily become ‘a full-on research boffin' she is continually drawn back to the creative process and the thrill of seeing the end product.

She hopes to continue to work with university education students, schools and community groups on collaborative projects which allow people to find out more about themselves and what they are capable of through engaging dynamic experience of creative practice.

Learnings from this year's project will inform the development of education programs related to the 2011 regional ‘Floating Land' art and environment program as well as be embedded in relevant education courses.