Swim in the digital world

The SWIM in the Digital World seminar in Cluj was a real success. Both the students and the professionals and academics invited were satisfied with the programme, the quality of the conferences, the organisation and the cases studies analised.

You can find here the SWIM in the Digital World 2009 programme.

The official reporting containing the seminar results is here.

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What did SWIM in the Digital World European Seminar 2009 mean for …

• Babeş-Bolyai University students :

Participating at this European Seminar the students from Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania, had the wonderful chance to get in contact with the most up-dated European approach of digital technologies in the field of media, communication and cinema. Alongside with their colleagues coming from several other European Universities, the students from Babeş-Bolyai University studied case-studies like Younect, Mofilm and VOD which brought them useful information in the above mentioned fields. The students coming from Romania also appreciated very much the case study on the Impact of the Transylvanian International Film Festival upon the region (the international film festival hosted in their home-city Cluj-Napoca). Working in an international team for this case-study offered them the chance to enrich their perspectives, since their European colleagues brought many different angles in the case-study approach.

On the same time, the SWIM European Seminar meant (for the students from Babeş-Bolyai University and the others, of course) a great deal of intercultural context and this was to be noticed during the team-work activities, during the professional field-trips taken during the seminar and also during all the other social moments within the program (official opening, good-bye dinner etc). All these moments meant:

• exchange of ideas
• cultural enrichment in terms of European culture
• foreign languages practice

SWIM brought also something very valuable for the Romanian students-participants: the practice and the exercise of “the case-study method and the presentation in front of a very large and diverse audience”. We must admit that in the Romanian school-curriculum there is a lack of a proper training in terms of “speech-delivery techniques”. Therefore, the students coming from Romania really appreciated very much and learnt a lot from the case-study method and the speech they had to prepare and finally to deliver in front of a jury and of a large audience.

The Romanian students also had the chance to work with foreign tutors – they all found this as extremely useful and valuable.

Of course, SWIM brought the Romanian students (and not only) extremely useful and important contacts. They had the opportunity to get in contact with top European professionals in the field of cinema, media and communication. Later on, some of these first contacts may turn into something very important for the professionalization of a young student – a professional internship for example etc.

There is also the extremely valuable significance of SWIM European Seminar in relation with the large population of students from the hosting institution – they all found out about SWIM project and about its main educational idea: the case-study method. Many came and attended some of the open lectures or presentations; and some of them declared that that they are eagerly waiting for the next edition so that they can also apply for participating.

Every student and tutors also, believed that there was a large degree of interdisciplinary offered by the complex area of specializations from which the participants came (students and lectures): cinematography studies, media and journalism studies and business and marketing studies.

• Babeş-Bolyai University tutors and professors :

SWIM Seminar successfully introduced in the (young assistant professors) tutors’ teaching techniques the “case-study method”. And this is considered to be extremely important since the majority of the tutors are young assistant professors still learning teaching skills and developing new teaching techniques. They were permanently coordinated by experts in this case-study method – Prof. Jacques Hermant and Prof. John Marshall and this came as a very valuable guidance for them. Also, the experience of coordinating a multicultural and multi-professional student group was considered to be a very useful teaching and professional challenge.

The young tutors, the lectures and the other professors from Babeş-Bolyai University that participated in the SWIM activities considered that their participation meant the chance of very important and useful professional contacts with their colleagues from other European universities and professional institution.

As a direct result of the SWIM Seminar, some of the young assistant professors that participated as tutors are in advanced discussions (regarding possible research visits) with European universities that also participated in Cluj seminar.

Afterwards, the majority of the young assistant professors involved in SWIM seminar decided to introduce the case-study method in their own syllabus for the seminars or workshops they are conducting. Their decision was based on the advantages and challenges that this teaching method is offering.

extract from the report written by Cristina Nistor, PhD, and Rares Beuran from UBB