• Covid-19, Higher Education and the rise of video-based learning

    Given the rapid shift to focus on online video-based learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is evident that we need to develop understanding of how this mode of learning will impact student engagement with their course and learning. Also, what measures can be used to determine its success? Video-based learning has a long history…

  • Constructive Opposition in a Time of Crisis: Can the new Labour Leadership Rise to the Challenge?

    22/04/2020.. London, United Kingdom. First virtual PMQs and Ministerial statement on Coronavirus, with First Secretary of State Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP and the Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer MP. Picture by  Jessica Taylor © UK Parliament Parliamentary opposition is usually pretty easy.  You criticise the other side.  They are wrong, they haven’t…

  • Creative Resilience and going OFFLine during Lockdown

    As part of Voluntary Arts’ Creative Network, I was recently invited to talk with Nick Ewbank, Chair of ISR’s External Advisory Group, about everyday creativity in the context of the response to COVID-19. In particular, we were looking at David Gauntlett’s definition and how he emphasises the idea of ‘making is connecting’, and advocates the…

  • Streaming and CGI? The future of TV and Film after COVID-19?

    The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the film and television industries. Production has been halted on all UK feature films and television series, cinemas were closed, and film festivals migrated on line. The onset of the virus has, however, accelerated changes that were already forecast. The enhanced subscription take up  for the streaming platforms such as…

  • Covid-19: Hollywood’s Next 9/11?

    Media scholarship, cultural commentary and movie reviews regularly reflect on production contexts and their impact on possible readings of the films and shows we watch. Both 9/11 and the Covid-19 epidemic have been described by as ‘America under attack.’ President Trump has stated that the epidemic is a ‘worse attack’ on the US than both…

  • Towards a ‘Next Normal’: HE and Reflection at Speed

    Those who lead – people, educational or research programmes, engagement activities or even entire organisations in Higher Education, like every other sector globally, are now confronting the challenges of how to move forward in a world where everything we do has the potential for radical change. However, despite common references to a ‘new normal,’ realistically…

  • Epidemics: A View from Italy

    Italy’s first two cases of the coronavirus pandemic were confirmed on 30 January 2020 by the Istituto Spallanzani which specializes in infectious diseases, the first research centre in Europe in fact to isolate the genomic sequence of COVID-19. The patients were a couple of Chinese tourists, both of whom had recovered by 26 February. Just…

  • Covid-19: An Opportunity for Nature and Outdoor Education

    Since March headline stories have abounded across news outlets suggesting the positive impact that the decline in human activity, as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown, is having upon the natural world. The National Geographic (April 2020) reported ‘carbon omissions are crashing’ and forecast a  9% drop in Europe this year, elsewhere observations were recorded…

  • Emerging from Lockdown: Shared Experience as we (re)commune together

    Since late March we have been separated from those whom we love, our friends and even our business acquaintances. We stand two metres apart in our shopping queues. We see poignant, yet often painful, pictures on our televisions of grandparents with spread hands on panes of glass trying to ‘meet’ their grandchildren. On our daily…

  • Everyday Creativity: Why the Arts need to Rethink What Matters

    Global public health expert Michael Marmot warned recently that the pandemic will make health inequalities worse. If this is the case, then how can we ensure that the arts become part of the solution? The 2017 Creative Health report outlined the extensive range of ways in which the arts supports health outcomes, yet the report…

  • We Make the Road by Walking: A ‘Kinder’ Society after COVID-19?

    “In December 1987, Myles Horton and Paolo Freire, two pioneers of education for social change, came together to ‘talk a book’ about their experiences and ideas” (Bell, Gaventa & Peters, 1990. p xv) The seminal book that ensued, ‘We Make the Road by Walking’, marked a major landmark in the development of participatory education for…

  • “Coming Out” and Covid-19

    Sunday 17th May 2020 was International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. It is significant that this year this falls when many LGBTQ+ people are in lock down with their families or relatives to whom they have not disclosed their self-identities. Back in April 2020, during the initial stages of the coronavirus lockdown, the LGBT+…

  • How to Stay ‘Engaged’ at a Distance: Youth Work and COVID-19

    Youth work is all about engaging with young people, engaging them because it is what they want and exploring things that they are interested in. For many, the relationship with their youth worker is the only one where they’re recognised in their own right. Recent research has shown that two million young people need such…

  • Flattening the Acceptance Curve: Transitioning a more Inclusive World after COVID-19

    The impact of lockdown on our daily life has been dramatic. We had to suddenly abandon our routines. Even those privileged with good health and steady employment have experienced severe disruptions. We had to undertake extraordinary tasks while socially-isolating, such as transitioning to online work and/or home-schooling. We have had to revise plans, goals, expectations. …

  • Pandemics, Prohibition and the Past: COVID-19 in Historical Perspective

    The Coronavirus epidemic may be without precedent in living memory, but global pandemics are nothing new. In the sixth century AD the ‘Plague of Justinian’, an outbreak of bubonic plague, killed around 25 million people in Europe and Asia. The best known pandemic, the ‘Black Death’ of 1348-9, is thought to have killed up to…

  • Constructing a ‘New Normal’: What Changes when it’s all over?

    What will life be like once ‘normality’ returns? Without needing to resort to crystal-ball gazing, it is obvious that whatever normality emerges, it will be a form of a ‘new normal’. We will be required to negotiate radically altered public health and economic conditions, as well as new complex emotional geographies. So here, I want…

  • The Road to Nowhere? Tourism after Covid-19

    We don’t have to look far to see that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on tourism has been both enormous and catastrophic.  All resorts, hotels, restaurants, campsites and visitor attractions are closed, and there are few flights. Tourism as we know it has totally ground to a halt.   How will tourism recover?  This…

  • COVID-19 and Child Abuse in Institutions

    The implications of measures taken to reduce the impact the lockdown for children (and adults) who reside with violent, abusive or exploitative partners and family members have been widely highlighted. For those in such circumstances, ‘keeping the NHS safe’ and ‘saving lives by staying at home’ comes at a very high price. It is well…

  • Citizen Science to tackle Poor Air Quality post COVID-19

    The COVID-19 virus causes respiratory illnesses that can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which in some cases requires a ventilator for survival, and may cause permanent lung damage (Cox 2020). Therefore, it is possible that COVID-19 will result in an increased number of individuals who are sensitive to poor air quality. Preliminary research on…

  • Images in the Head; the Pervasiveness of Dreaming in Isolation

    It’s day something of the lockdown and I’m surrounded by images that I don’t understand. There’s an image of a pizza that’s trying to kill me, it’s on the main news three times a day, as if on repeat. Nobody is quite sure where it came from or where it’s going. There are lots of…