Hélder Caixinha (DigiMedia member) presented “Linha do Vouga – a photographic narrative about the landscapes of a decaying railway line”

Abstract

The Linha do Vouga, whose initial section was inaugurated in 1908, is the only Metric Gauge railway line still in activity in Portugal. Currently connecting, through two separate stretches, the towns of Aveiro/Sernada do Vouga and Oliveira de Azeméis/Espinho, this line shows a pale image of its glorious past when it played an important role in the economy and mobility of people and goods in the Aveiro and Viseu regions. Its decline in recent years and plans, always postponed, for a promised revitalization, brought the demand to document the line and the human and urban landscapes that encircle it. To fulfil this demand and within the scope of a social intervention project, promoted by 4iS -Platform for Social Innovation, a photographic workshop – Vouginha Storytelling – took place from November 2018 to April 2019, where under the supervision of the renowned photographer Constanze Flamme, each participant developed a photographic narrative based on a personal exploration of that context. This paper reveals and examines: the process of developing one of these photographic narratives; the human, urban and cultural approaches that grounded it; and the final dissemination carried out, through a collective photographic exhibition and in a digital format through an Instagram account.

Carlos Santos (DigiMedia member) and Lorena Sousa, DigiMedia PhD student and  student of the Doctoral Programme in Multimedia in Education, participated in The Sixteenth EATEL Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning 2022 (JTELSS 2022), which took place in Greece, from 21 to 28 May. This summer school gathered 120 participants, among doctoral students and experts in the field of TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning), and was organized by the European Association of Technology-Enhanced Learning (EATEL).

It also gathered the members of the project Doctoral Education for Technology-Enhanced Learning (DE-TEL), of which the University of Aveiro is one of the 10 European partners, being locally coordinated by Luís Pedro, DigiMedia researcher.

Among other activities, they conducted the workshops Gamification and TEL research (Luís Pedro and Carlos Santos) and Creating Open Educational Resources with the H5P tool (Lorena Sousa, Luís Pedro and Carlos Santos).

The DigiMedia Dialogs#6 took place on June 13 with an interesting session on Immersive Web Environments: the “tools” being used, how we can use them in an educational setting and figuring out if they work and how they work in envolving students in school activities. Three PhD students – Maria Ferreira, Bárbara Cleto and Ricardo Carvalho -, an Italian Doctoral student – Michelina Occhioni-, and three undergraduate students (within the Students@DigiMedia initiative) work together to see this research through and presented the result.

Title: Grassroots of Digital Europe: from Historic to Contemporary Cultures of Creative Computing

Acronim: GRADE

Funding: COST | Proposal Reference OC-2021-1-25404

DigiMedia team: Nelson Zagalo

Coordinator: University of Turku, Finland

Number of Proposers: 20 (Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom)

Abstract:

In a time when academics and citizens are increasingly concerned with surveillance capitalism, Europe takes on a leadership role in the global transformation towards a digital future that treats users fairly. It fosters initiatives such as the right to repair, pushes privacy and security policies such as the GDPR, and highlights citizens’ digital rights. These developments have their historical precedents in the 1980s and 1990s, when enthusiasts across Europe started to take part in grassroots culture of creative computing, or the participatory use of computers for experimentation, self-expression, or activism. Besides laying groundwork for commercial successes, these communities created important specimens of digital cultural heritage (e.g. the demoscene or seminal computer games) and universally adopted technical solutions (e.g. the Linux operating system). To successfully implement the values of participation, social inclusion, and bottom-up innovation in today’s technology policy, we need to understand these historical developments. However, the historical knowledge about creative computing in Europe has so far been fragmented and lacking in transnational and interdisciplinary dialog. GRADE aims to build a robust and diverse network of researchers from across Europe who will integrate the existing knowledge and work on new transnational projects. Within its work packages, the action will focus on investigating user communities, their interaction with state and European-level policies, and the preservation of digital cultural heritage. Together, GRADE will contribute to a participatory technological agenda for Europe that is informed by historical research and sensitive to the cultural contexts of the various regions of Europe.

Key Expertise needed for evaluation
Media and communications
History and philosophy of media and communication

Keywords
grassroot movements
creative computing
digital cultural heritage

Margarida Almeida (DigiMedia member) was one of the experts invited to talk about Digital Health in the 1st Binational Seminar on Global Health, that was held in Colégio Almada Negreiros (Lisbon), on May 26, dedicated to 4 thematic areas of Health – Comunicação em Saúde, Saúde Única, Saúde Digital, Inovação em Saúde.

To debate processes, practices and development of health services, the event had the participation of 10 specialists: Rita Spain (CIES-ISCTE); Graça Rosendo (Dr. Communication Hospital da Luz); Patricia Way (FIOCRUZ/ ENSP); Cecilia Andreazzi (FIOCRUZ); Josman Dantas Palmeira (UPorto/UA/CESAM); Ana Margarida Almeida (DIGIMEDIA/UA); Ivana Barreto (FIOCRUZ/UFC); Judite Gonçalves (NOVA SBE); Ana Rita Londral (Value For Health CoLAB), and Luís Lapão (NOVA FCT).

This initiative was organized by the GI in Strategic Communication and Decision Making Processes (Ana Margarida Barreto – ICNOVA/ NOVA FCSH & Cláudia Pernencar – ICNOVA/ PICTIS) in partnership with FIOCRUZ (José Cordeiro – PICTIS/CESAM).

Vania Baldi (DigiMedia member) presented a seminar entitled Social click :: Comunicación interpasiva, on May 24, in the Escuela de Humanidades y Educación of the Tecnológico de Monterrey (México).

Digimedia hosted the event “Digital Interaction 2022”, under the theme “Multimedia…”. The main activities were held at the José Grácio Auditorium, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro.

Full of activities, the morning started with the welcome session delivered by the Vice-Rector, João Veloso, the Head of DeCA, Ana Isabel Veloso, and the Director of DigiMedia, Nelson Zagalo.

Afterwards, a talk between some representative faculty members of several UA departments focused on “The University of Aveiro and Multimedia”.

Similarly, and just before lunch, directors of Multimedia-related courses from other Portuguese Higher Education Institutions debated the topic “The basic training in Multimedia”.

During the afternoon, a moment on “Media innovation centred in the consumer/producer” was delivered by Alexandre Ulisses, representing MOG Technologies, followed by the presentation of undergraduate and master’s projects to the several companies attending the event – TICE.PT, Pixelmatters, Ubiwhere, Critec, Mindera and AlticeLabs.

De jogadores a criadores de jogos: Promover a Educação Ambiental e Sustentável através de atividades de criação de jogos

Pedro Beça, Centro de Investigação em Média Digitais e Interação (DigiMedia)

Painel: Educação de Qualidade IV 

Sessão no Youtube e comunicação

FlavourGame: design de interação em jogos híbridos

Ana Patrícia Oliveira, Centro de Investigação em Média Digitais e Interação (DigiMedia)

Painel: Ciências Exactas e da Computação

Sessão no Youtube e comunicação

POSTERS

Comunicação digital de atividades participativas em contextos de turismo cultural

Cátia Silva

Assistente proativo para a TV como atenuador do isolamento social de idosos

Juliana Camargo

Ambientes colaborativos com abordagem transmedia na promoção da motivação e autonomia nos estudantes com aprendizagens matemáticas

Marina Pereira

Modelo de interação para a promoção do bem-estar da demência

Pedro Reisinho

Empathic playable characters in digital games: a model proposal for the design of playable characters

Tânia Ribeiro

Painel de indicadores de saúde para o envolvimento do cidadão em cidades inteligentes

André Castello Branco

Carlos Santos (DigiMedia member), Luís Pedro (DigiMedia member) and Fabrício Carvalho (DigiMedia PhD Student) are involved in the design and evaluation process of the gamification strategy of the Ser+ program, launched by the Rectory: https://www.ua.pt/pt/sermais/gamificacao

Fabrício Carvalho’s PhD is focused on evaluating the impact of this gamification strategy on student involvement in extra-curricular activities.

Catarina Lélis, DigiMedia member, participated in the keynote session dedicated to “As Marcas, a Multiplicidade e as Mulheres” in the VI International Conference on Branding, that look place in Lages (Brazil), between April 27th to 30th.

Besides that, Catarina Lélis also presented the Workshop “Antecipando o impacto da marca na sociedade — contributos práticos para os ODSs das Nações Unidas”, which included higher education students and teachers, as well as business executives.