On 21 January 2021, Professor Susan Schreibman and Dr. Marianne Huang co-delivered the keynote for the closing conference of DigiMood: Digital Modules of Diaditac for Cultural and Creative Industry. DigiMood is a sister project of IGNITE’s: both projects were funded at the same time by the Creative Europe Directorate of the European Union, and as such, giving the keynote at the end of both our projects seemed a fitting way to end our journey with IGNITE.

The goal of both projects was to develop a suite of freely-available online courses for Master’s Students. As such, three lines of intersection or convergences between our projects emerged: 1) New Pedagogies; 2) Online Education; 3) The Future of Education in the Humanities. While DigiMood focused on modules for the Fashion Industry, they took a design thinking approach to module development, yet another convergence between our projects.

In reflecting on what IGNITE accomplished for this keynote, we emphasised that the #dariahTeach platform underpinning our course content facilitate new ways of teaching and learning, one that proved resilient, useful, and welcome by our students, especially during the Covid-10 lockdown. Our online offerings are demand-based and can be used in a variety of ways — within classroom settings or for lone learners wishing to upskill or to learn from the experts through our videos and case studies. The digital has allowed the IGNITE team to be imaginative about the ways we teach, to be creative in delivering content, as well as speculative in our design.

Both DigiMood and IGNITE have developed content for MA students to use technology in creative and experimental ways, enabling a new generation of arts and humanities students to cross the digital divide, bringing their values and expertise to become players in tackling some of the world’s most persistent and prevalent issues.

On Friday, the third day of the conference, Susan Schreibman and Costas Papadopoulos held a session called Design Thinking & Maker Culture: Digital Humanities Meets the Creative Industries The IGNITE Curriculum. In their presentation, Costas and Susan explained the rationale behind the development of the IGNITE curriculum, from learning to build VR experiences to better understanding digital narratives, gameplay design, and the practicalities of creating digital products. A pedagogic principle of the courses is project and problem-based learning, featuring case studies and scenarios. As a result, instead of promoting static learning, the digital learning environment reflects the pedagogical approach of encouraging reflective learning via digital tools and methods.

The presentation was well-received by the audience. Remarks included comparisons to similar initiatives, questions about the practicalities of the project’s implementation, and reflections on the content of the IGNITE curriculum.