Press Release

HKBU visual arts scholar receives international recognition for excellence in e-teaching

Monday, 23 Nov 2020

 

Mr Ekkehard Altenburger, Assistant Professor of the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), has been crowned the winner of the 6th e-Learning Excellence Awards at the European Conference on e-Learning 2020 in recognition of his creative e-learning approach and its positive outcome.

 

The Conference, which was established 20 years ago, has hosted the e-Learning Excellence Awards annually since 2015 to showcase innovative examples of e-Learning applications. This year the competition received a total of 47 submissions from around the world. After several rounds of adjudication, Mr Altenburger was selected as the winner with his initiative "Lab/Skill based learning under COVID-19".

 

During the suspension of face-to-face classes in the past semester as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, Mr Altenburger utilised a wide array of digital tools in his online sculpture classes, including Zoom, Miro, WhatsApp, Moodle, Google drives, as well as video and digital editing software.  

 

"Teaching studio practice will never fully be replaced with digital tools, but these tools can enhance students' learning experience, particularly their levels of participation and engagement in the more theoretical aspects of these courses," said Mr Altenburger.

 

He also provided students with "goody bags" of modelling equipment, clay and plaster for their use at home to supplement the theoretical and experimental teaching with traditional skill-based training. In addition, he live-streamed the process of creating a plaster sculpture and recorded the sessions for the students to revisit.

 

This interactive and dynamic way of learning led to extremely vibrant online classes with high participation rates and highly positive outcomes. The students completed the assigned exercises, from drawings to body sculptures, and wax and clay models converted to bronze and plaster casts respectively, and developed students' in-depth knowledge of the arts.

 

Mr Altenburger thanked the Academy and the University for their encouragement. "I will continue with this deployment of eTools for my classes and intend to share my practice with colleagues to extend to more courses," he said.

 

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Mr Ekkehard Altenburger, Associate Professor of the Academy of Visual Arts at HKBU, is the winner of the 6th e-Learning Excellence Awards.
Mr Ekkehard Altenburger, Associate Professor of the Academy of Visual Arts at HKBU, shows students how to create a sculpture using their body, a chair and an object.