About the seminar
In this keynote talk I would observe knowledge and learning in a (post)digital age from the perspectives of semiotics, multimodality and socio-materiality. Whereas these three concepts are known to many scholars, and, some would argue, are also widely applied, they seem to be marginal in higher education research, pedagogy and knowledge development. Here, I am specifically referring to higher education studies and educational research, and related publications as evidence. I reviewed the occurrence of these approaches in 10 “top” journals of higher education, and some journals did not feature the terms ‘multimodality’ and ‘semiotics’ at all for the period between 2010 and 2020, although there were many articles tackling ‘media’ and ‘technology’ in all journals. Taking this finding as the starting point of this seminar, I would reflect on how higher education and technology are intrinsically multimodal, semiotic and socio-material, stemming from relevant research publications. This will include a pedagogy of “inquiry graphics” and related theoretical and research method approaches, rhizomatic concept, threshold graphics, digital materiality, and mind and body idiom. Some implications for digital higher education are considered in the end, opening the space for, I hope, lively discussion.
Bio
Dr Nataša Lacković is a Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation, and the Institute for Social Futures’ project ReOPeN Graphic Futures at Lancaster University. Her scholarship tackles educational futures, as linked to challenges and complexities of material, digital and social futures, via interdisciplinary approaches and theories. These incorporate: digital education, socio-materiality, semiotics, multimodality, critical media literacy, visual/arts based research and pedagogy (e.g. photographs, sketching, visual story telling), student wellbeing and mental health. Her scholarship also includes critical work on graduate employability. Dr Lacković developed an “inquiry graphics” approach and method, introduced “threshold graphics”, and is currently working on the forthcoming co-authored monograph on a relational theory of higher education (Routledge).
Link to Nataša Lacković’s profile at Lancaster: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-research/people/natasa-lackovic
Relevant bibliography includes:
Lacković, N., & Popova, B. (2021). Multimodality and socio-materiality of lectures in global universities’ media: accounting for bodies and things. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-19.
Lacković, N. (2020). Inquiry Graphics in Higher Education: New Approaches to Knowledge, Learning and Methods with Images. Cham: Palgrave McMillan/Springer International Publishing.
