My connection with Iceland
I have a long connection to Iceland, and this land has always had a special place in my heart. 20 years back I worked in Northern Iceland in the non-academic context in the countryside, middle of nowhere. I worked with Icelandic horses and sheep and all things related to everyday farm life. Since that I used to travel to Iceland to go around and enjoy the fresh weathers, amazing light and special atmosphere. Then, there was a long break until now, when I decided it was time to visit again. My warmest thanks for really nice professor Marta, who allowed me to join her course with my alternative learning methods. But before explaining the things we did in the course, I want to share how Iceland welcomed me back. After finding the apartment, which I rented, I heard the silverly sound of the bells of the nearby church Hallgrimskirkja. I went to balcony to listen to it and see, there was green aurora on the sky in the middle of the clouds. It is not theoretically probable to see auroras when the sky is full of clouds and you are in the middle of the town with so much light. But there it was, welcoming me back (I never see auroras in Finland, but here I see them all the time) 😊
Day 1 at Reykjavík University – guest lecture and planning of walking meeting
Reykjavík University is located in a very beautiful location on the bay’s shore, about 15 minutes walk from the city center of Reykjavik. There are a couple of special things next to the university. First one is a heated beach Nautholvik, which is literally like Spanish beach with yellow sand (which does not naturally exist in Reykjavik, where all sand is black lava sand) and geothermally heated sea water.
The second thing is the nearby forest (yes, even for a Finn this forest looked like a forest, not just bushes as typical Icelandic forests look like, at least for a Finn). University building is rather new, only 20 years old, and the center building’s name is Sólin (the Sun). It is a round building with glass roof and windows, and if sun shined it would be amazing amount of sunlight. Now it was cloudy, but still very beautiful. The walls are made of concrete, and they look rough and simplistic.
I met Marta and some of her colleagues from Computing Sciences department and we had many chats. My guest lecture started at 10. There were about 30 students in the classroom and some students in Zoom, participating in Northern Iceland. Physical presence was mandatory, but due to long distance to Northern Iceland, some online participations was allowed. Nicely, Marta took the attendances by calling the students by name – this is a good way to get to know the students by name and recognizing everyone in room.
After Marta’s introduction, it was my turn. I told who am I and where I come from, and introduced the topics of the day. First, I introduced canvas-based learning, a method that can be applied to different phases of students’ projects (why not even having the whole project on canvas as I have in all of my own courses), workshops, ideation sessions etc. Canvas tools are many, but I have selected Mural canvas for my use. Mural includes many kinds of ready made templates, such as icebreakers, user interview canvases and brainstorming canvases. It is easy to start canvas work on those templates. We did a small icebreaker task on Mural, so all students got their hands on experience in the canvas use. The canvas trial made the students to chat with each other and they looked happy. After canvases, we had a physically active break with Jumppa cat video, which is already used a lot in Tampere University. It seemed to be the first time for the students to make physical activity as part of the lecture, but most students looked happy and talked with each other while making the movements with the cat.
The latter half of the lecture focused on the theoretical part of what is a Brainwolk walking meeting, how to conduct it in practice, and for which kinds of tasks it would be suitable. I shared some real examples of how I have used this method in Tampere, and what is the history of the method. I also told how our students have liked this walking meetings. In the end, I shared one futuristic idea of conducting walking meetings with a robot dog, and told shortly about our Robowalks with older adults. Students were willing to share their thoughts about walking meetings, as well as Robowalks. While some said that they are already looking forward to the actual walking meeting, some said that it might be difficult to concentrate on specific topics while walking (they might talk about something else). Also, Robowalk raised a question “why”, and also questions about the data privacy. These are very good questions, which we also have been pondering in our research team. It was nice to give a guest lecture, and the student became interactive towards the end of the lecture, and it was enjoyable to chat with them.
The final thing on the first day was to check the walking meeting route for Wednesday with Marta. We stepped out of the university door, and headed towards Perlan building, which is located on the top of small hill. First, we followed a forest path and planned where to have the stops in the Wednesday’s walking meeting, and where to change the discussion topics.
I remember this forest from 20 years ago, when the trees were just planted and were like baby trees. Now they were big and handsome adult trees. We planned a 30-minute walk with three discussion topics and four stops. The idea will be to talk with pairs and update the whole project group on the stops, and then move on to the next discussion topic. Right now the weather forecast shows some showers for the time of the actual walking meeting, but you never know in Iceland how it will turn out to be, so let’s just keep our fingers crossed for tolerable moments!
Day 2 at Reykjavík University – walking meeting with students
This might have been a historical moment in Iceland – the first walking meeting in Iceland! But you should not believe this statement because there is no evidence to prove this. Anyways, it was the first walking meeting for all the participating students. First things first – the weather turned out to be refreshing and non-rainy! The temperature was around +10 and there was no wind at all. Where did all the wind go?
We started by reminding about the basics – how we will proceed, for how long, and what to discuss about. We started by dividing the student groups to pairs of 2-3 students. There were a bit more than 20 students in total. During the first part, they discussed about the user stories related to their project, and made selections on which stories to work further on. The second part focused on the practicalities and planning of their prototype-to-be. The third part was about planning their user evaluation tasks and interview questions. We walked 30 minutes in total, divided to parts with three stops. During the stops, the student groups updated the things discussed as a whole small group.
The first walking meeting in Iceland’s history(?) went perfectly! The forest paths covered by black lava sand and yellow leaves on trees gave beautiful setting for walking. The way up to Perlan set a bit challenge as we walked slightly uphill, but on the other hand the way back was all the way downhill. The students seemed to have enjoyed about the walking meeting, and looked refreshed, and back in the classroom, it was time to collect all the evoked thoughts and ideas together on a dedicated Mural canvas provided for all student groups.
Although my teacher exchange was now ending, we found many common interests with Marta especially around teaching. I left Reykjavik University with my mind full of different collaboration ideas that we generated together. First thing to do is to start the article about walking meetings, planned with Marta. We have plenty of data to be analyzed!
I hope to be back in Reykjavik, which surprised me super positively in many aspects (just to name one – weather)! Millions of thanks for Marta for having me and hosting me <3 Thanks for all participating students for being eager to try out new methods 😊
Written by Aino
Ps. I also got on the horseback..
