My Learning Journey – a simplified scrapbook. Erin Walcon: Intern, Exeter Cascade ProjectWarning. There are no citations in this piece of reflective writing. Its format does not adhere to any known template. I apologise if it is not fit for purpose.

Pre-Cascade Project. Questions. Lots of them. Mostly unspoken.

Is this okay to show?

Am I digitally literate? What does that even mean? Selfishly, what does that mean in terms of my own practice in drama? How do I talk about what happens in this studio space? What is the 'right' way to do that? Can I reveal the empty studio? What about the voices and faces and bodies that inhabit that studio as a part of the work? Is there an appropriate way to capture and archive this practice? What if everyone one else has read the handbook, and I'm the only one who doesn't know the ground rules? Why does it feel like the landscape keeps shifting?

Clarifying Case Study & Learning New Things. First Steps with Exeter Cascade Project.

Okay. So I'm embracing new things – free and open access referencing software, how to draw an animation, how to use new programmes like Prezi and Keynote and various app-writing tools. Does this make me literate? I'm still stuck on basic questions about what it means to be literate in my field. Can I show and talk about this performer's feet, here in a pixelated digital form? Does that begin to capture the work? Who am I taking this photo for? Who is informed by, challenged by, helped by, or confronted by this demonstration? What does it meaningfully convey about the work? If I blog about it, does that mean the literacy has taken a step toward disseminating research, or is it an unethical move by a self-serving academic, basically de-voicing the participants in the work? Still stuck.

In the midst of it. Case Study foray. Asking my own messy questions to lots of other people.

Our Cascade project blog becomes a conversation ground, a testing place for ideas and provocations. Out in the real world, my own case study surges into interviews, and suddenly the questions about digital archiving and capture multiply infinitely.

Everyone is asking them. No one seems to have any answers, but we're all scratching our heads together, which feels comforting. I can't remember the last time I sat down in a room with some of these other researchers.

We disagree about lots of things, but even these frictions are helpful – as if in rubbing up our opinions against each other they become stronger, more legitimate. These are not decisions made in isolation, they are fired into being through dialogue, through frank conversations.

Bringing it together. Editing the Case Study. Sharing our Findings.

As I sit, sifting through 20+ hours of interview video footage, it strikes me... we're all fumbling our way forward. There is no roadmap here – there isn't even a coherent set of principles, and we're all just doing the best we can in the time we can. The great gift is a bit of space to sit still with it and think. Slowing down – both our realities and our thinking. This seems to become more and more important.

Conclusions.

What do I know now that I didn’t know before? Fundamental things.

I know that my own practice is in a fluid state… that just because I presently identify ‘non-distributive digital capture’ as permissible in one step removed narrative work doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll still be sticking to that opinion in a year or five year’s time. What does that mean? It means that there are indeed sacred moments in the studio where the record button does not get pressed, but that there is also something important about the possibilities of capture and dissemination that can happen with digital media. Speaking outward, not inward. I know that it’s important to articulate (out loud) where those lines in the sand are for you. For the first time, I find myself articulating with a sense of clarity what's okay and what's not in terms of digital capture. I realise I'm far more optimistic than reserved about the practice. I realise that I'm an advocate. This is new to me. Advocacy for something I wasn't even sure I agreed with four months ago? That's praxis.

Peripherally, I (re)discovered that my drama department colleagues are excellent, thoughtful, reflexive, and highly committed people. I wish we had more quiet spaces to speak to each other. I think we would all benefit.

I learned something else too. I learned that it's important to think about the digital medium, not in terms of how it can cause problems, but in terms of how it can better serve the intentionality of the work. And that's different for each of us. So if I'm a teacher and a theatre director interested in how young people's voices can be amplified and better heard through artistic practice, then it's just plain silly to not think about how digital formats might be useful to those same young people – in conversation, consultation, experimentation and partnership with them.

And in order to do that, they have to be in the room.

Digitally Literate Researcher in Drama:

Not just someone who can podcast or edit video. Not just someone who blogs every day on their glossy research blog.Not just someone with a QR barcode.Not just someone who uses projection in their conference papers.Not just someone with five online research profiles.Not just someone with hours of footage on their computer.

The key word for me isn't 'digital'... it's 'literacy.'

It's the person with the messy questions, who's doing it anyway. Who is still asking, as they do it. Who is doing it (in spite of and maybe because of) the questions.

The person who's fumbling forward one hesitant step at a time, often turning around to check where they've journeyed from. Who's not afraid of the reflexive moment, who's willing to learn new things, who knows when and how to say 'That's not for me.' Or, maybe even more importantly... 'I did that, and now I know it was wrong. But I learned something by doing it.' Admitting our mistakes and talking openly about them.

Literacy means a lot of things, but hereit means testing the ground even as you walk on it.