Greets from the International Working Group

20.12.2012 Kaija Ahola
 It was a clear autumn's day when I was called to step in the shoes of the new

Chair of the International Working Group. It was a pleasure to join this dynamic group! Because of being a Lecturer in English, and thanks to my former experience in international affairs; a career as an International Coordinator and an Expert at the EU Commission, evaluating Higher Education proposals, I was not completely on thin ice here.

Our Working Group is composed of representatives from all of our Degree Programmes,

plus we have the super power support of our two International Coordinators at each meeting.

The Group is an important forum to discuss common practices and improvements to arrange student and staff mobility, internships and other international activities, like fairs and exhibitions.

We also have on our agenda the new national and EU – level regulations and guidelines, to be discussed how to meet the challenges. 

During this autumn 2012 we have also focused on discussing possibilities to add teaching in English. We have started discussions to fine tune our partner network to better meet educational needs and strategic requirements.

We are very pleased to say that mobility has been one of our fastest growing international sectors during the autumn of 2012, and in fact during the whole Academic Year 2011-2012; both incoming and outgoing exchange figures have gone up. We hosted 43 exchange students or internships. Next spring, 2013, we are expecting 39 incoming exchange students more.

We have sent out 260 of our own students abroad on Erasmus, Nordplus, free movers, or participating in various conferences, fairs and exhibitions. The figures are fine, considering the small size of our Faculty. What’s more, students’ response to our work has been positive and encouraging.

Staff mobility has also been successful, 145 out, 25 in. It is our aim to support long staff exchanges, degree programmes and intensive studies in English with our strategic partners.

We strive to serve students and staff in international matters systematically, punctually, with quality and reliability, although time and budgets are limited also here in Finland.

The Group works with enthusiasm and delight, looking forward to future activities

with our colleagues, students, partners and projects, and the new Erasmus for All.

We wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2013!

Kaija Ahola

Chair of the International Working Group

School of Culture and Creative Industries

Winter greetings

Tuire Ranta-Meyer

This is the view from my bedroom window. There is a lovely l'heure bleue in Helsinki every afternoon in the wintertime. The blue hour, you know, is the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is special because of the quality of the light and the wonderful blue hue at the sky. It makes me love the Finnish winters so much and enjoy my daily drive home from my work.

Many of Helsinki Metropolia's partners think that it is very cold in Finland. They are ashtonished to hear from me that Finland can in the summer often be the warmest country in whole Europe. Winters can be mild, too, and especially in Helsinki region, but we Finns normally like it better with either some snow or lots of snow. It makes the landscape look so soft and bright.

This week I hope very much to be able to forget the Christmas preparations for two hours and get to my skies. Crosscountry skiing is something extraordinary and makes the wintertime just perfect for me.

With best regards

Tuire Ranta-Meyer

Metropolia in Shanghai - a close up

Helsinki 1.12.2012, Tuire Ranta-Meyer

The ambitious and very demanding project of Helsinki Metropolia participating in the Radical Design Week Shanghai 2012 is over since 21 days. I am glad and proud to say that the exhibition week Urban Inspiration from Finland at our partner university Donghua was a great success.

We had, of course prepared everything thoroughly and worked hard more or less the whole year through to make it happen, so I knew what we were doing and I believed in it. But still, I have to say, it was such a wonderful experience to lead a delegation of 26 staff and student members and share their expertise, commitment and good spirits. My sincere thanks to every single person. You did a great job!

The Scandinavian idea of design belonging to everyday life and equally to all residents is, indeed, very radical in a global scale. Our decision makers´seminar in Shanghai, under the title Wellbeing for All, made it very clear to me that co-creating is the key word for the future urban planning. Finland is a small country, but is is said to be a world-class superpower of education. In finding human-centered solutions for better life Helsinki Metropolia can play an important global role, as well. It is quite often that the big ships need lighthouses to get to the harbour, isn´t it?

Children hospital clothing workshop in Radical Design Week

We were a group of 5 students and our teacher Erja Parviainen to participate the Radical Design Week with a children hospital clothing workshop. The idea was to collaborate with students of Donghua University to create new kind of hospital clothing for children size 80-160cm. As the theme was design belongs to everyone not just the bold and the beautiful.

Before the workshop both groups researched information about their own countries present hospital clothing for children. During the week we collaborated our ideas about future hospital clothing and designed a 5 piece collection. Then we together in small groups made the patterns and sewed the prototypes for the collection. The result looked rather good and most importantly everyone seemed to have enjoyed the week. We were happy that we had the opportunity to learn about another culture and most importantly make new friends.

Here are some pictures of the week. Hope you enjoy!

Best regards,

Nearly there...

Elina Lappalainen, Niina Liimatta, Hannamari Markkula, Noora Oksanen and Anni Wulff

Nearly there...

Students of Fashion and Clothing
Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Tired but happy in Shanghai

1st evening exploring

 Metropolia/Donghua collaboration. First day introducing.

Presenting the preparations made for the week. From these sketches we built a small cohesive collection to which we made patterns and sewed the first samples during our workshop.

More pictures coming soon...

PIC10-14:     Patternmaking in small groups.
PIC15-19:     Patterns, Check! Materials, Check! Sewing, Check! Done, Check!
PIC 20:     Thank you Donghua!

Shanghai City Life

Shanghai 3.12.2012, Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen & Miia Syrjä

 

We now have been in Shanghai for eleven long days. It's been a once in a lifetime kind of a trip for us. First week went by far too quickly and we didn't get to see much of the city. Luckily we were able to have two days to ourselves and went off to explore the huge city of Shanghai. We visited the Yuayuan Garden, which was very beautiful even though it was raining. We also walked along the Bund and took the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel to the other side of the river. Once we got there, we went all the way up to the 492meters tall SWFC observatory tower. The view was amazing, especially during the evening.

During our second day-off we visited the Shanghai Aquarium. They had about 155 meters long underwater tunnel that had sharks and huge seaturtles swimming on top of our heads. In the evening we went to see the amazing ERA-acrobatic show which we were really excited to see, not only because of the performers but because of the technical side of the show. Unfortunately the multimedia projections were a bit disappointing, they were not polished enough. So I guess there could be a need for collaboration!

We still have a few days left to work, we will be taking the exhibition down and packing up all the technical equipment we brought from Finland.

All in all this trip has been quite exciting and we have learned a lot. Working in these conditions has been very different from what we are used to but everything has went well and after the first week we have been able to relax a bit. We are already a little homesick so we are really looking forward to getting back home on next Monday.

So here is the last video from us, hope you enjoy it!

Best regards
Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen
Live Performance Technology Students
Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Miia & Sanna-Kaisa

New friends, new possibilities

Shanghai 3.11.2012, Kaisu Kiventaus

Yesterday there was the top-level decision makers' seminar Well-being for All that was the wonderful conclusion for the week. Today after 4 p.m. our exhibition will be closed and the rest of us will soon leave Shanghai.

The seminar was a great success. Many presentations were given and the student exchange agreement was signed. After the seminar the guests visited the exhibition. Everybody was happy that the  distinguished president of the Donghua University Xu Mingzhi was there, too. Later in the evening all the keynotes, decision-makers and the university staff, had a dinner together.

After this exhibition week Helsinki Metropolia has new friends and definitely new possibilities to collaborate with Donghua and other chinese institutions of higher education.

Friday - the seminar

There were lots of people in the seminar.

Signing the agreement of the student exchange between Metropolia and Donghua Universities.

The President of Donghua University, Mr. Xu Mingxhi visited our exhibition.

In the exhibition there were more to see. The three workshops were introduced.

Well Being for all Seminar and workshops

Shanghai 2.11.2012 Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen


This footage is from the Well Being For All Seminar, held on the 2nd of October and from the workshops that were going on during the exhibition. The workshops were: Hospital Clothing for Children, Urban Cycling and T'ai Chi for Begginners. Workshops led by Metropolia students and staff. Enjoy!

Best regards,

Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen,

Live Performance Technology students

Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

 

 

Wow!

Shanghai 1.11.2012, Vesa Taatila

A man, whose knowledge on the subject is rather limited, can only roll his eyes and thin “Wow” out loud! A chance to see the working and the results of our students in the Radical Design Week in Shanghai (with WDC-inside -spirit) has been astonishing. During this week the students and the staff of Metropolia have done exquisite work in presenting the ideas of Finnish co-operative design thinking to international audiences.

The local media seems to agree with the feeling. In wednesday the flights were flashing like a thunder storm as the clothing students from two different universities co-operated in order to create a set of new type of hospital clothing for child patients. The bi-national teams drew and patterned with professional attitude despite the surrounding turmoil created by Chinese press. A few times the request for posing forced smiles to faces but otherwise the atmosphere was deeply focused though out the exercise. And yes, the resulting patterns looked very successful.

Another topic that has clearly risen great interest has been the computer modeling of Tai Chi. A team has motion captured the movements of a local Tai Chi –master, sifu Luka, with two kinetic cameras. Then they have been working on a deep level of post production, cleaning up the data and making the animation more life-like than the original presentation itself.

Having a computer laboratory in the middle of the exhibition room has given all the passers by a chance to see the work with awe and make questions for the artists. Lots and lots of questions! This has been a major advertisement both for Metropolia and Finnish know-how.

A major area on interest has also been the very UAS-like idea of co-operative learning in authentic situations. Empowering of students and doing real projects without a pre-planned set of “right answers” has inspired the local students and teachers to ask for more information about this approach to teaching. The interest has been so high, that this could become the next key import from the Finnish education practices – at least as a knowledge transfer, even though the financial gains would probably be rather limited.

Even though the week is not done yet, I’d like to thank wholeheartedly the team – Excellent work! I will eagerly wait to be impressed with all the other results as well – I do wonder how will the future metropolia-dwellers move around… I wonder who could give me some hints on the topic.

Vesa

Vice president of Helsinki Metropolia UAS Mr. Vesa Taatila giving a presentation at Donghua University.

Urban Inspiration

Shanghai 1.11.2012 Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen

This footage is from the exhibition, introducing all the different projects that are presented at the Urban Inspirations exhibition.

Best regards,

Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen,

Live Performance Technology students

Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Greetings from Shanghai

Shanghai 1.11.2012, Kaisu Kiventaus

The opening seremony of the exhibition was on Monday. There where lots of people as you can see in the pictures. Many speeches were given by both universities Donghua and Metropolia.

At the moment the three workshops (Tai Chi for Beginners, Patient apparel for Children and Moving in the Cities) led by Metropolia staff are still going on. The participants of the workshops come from both Finland and China.

Yesterday we had a press conference and there were over 20 journalists asking questions and taking photos of our exhibition. The workshop “Patient Apparel for Children” got great publicity. The idea of planning children´s patient clothing was a great success and really new here.

Tomorrow (on Friday) there will be a decision makers seminar “Well-being for All”. There will be experts, e.g. leaders from Espoo city and of the Donghua and Metropolia University.

We are all (staff and students from Metropolia) living in a campus hotel that is quite modest. The best thing is that it is really near by the exhibition hall - we have been really busy all the time…

The exhibition is very very beautiful.  We are so sorry that we can’t bring it to Finland because of the transportation costs.  The Exhibition Week will end on Saturday. After that only the data projectors will be transferred to Finland. So everyone near by, please come and enjoy the wonderful exhibition with us – now!

The animated Metropolia man (3D) welcomes the visitors to the exhibition hall.

Urban Inspirations exhibition opening

Shanghai 31.10.2012 Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen

Here is some video from the opening of the exhibition, enjoy!

Best regards,

Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen,

Live Performance Technology students

Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Tai Chi for beginners workshop

Shanghai 30.10.2012, Peke Huuhtanen

During this workshop we have set up a mocap system in the exhibition room with two Xbox Kinect cameras. With the help of these two kinects we have a simple but effective motion capture studio.

Our goal is to capture some Tai Chi movement and export the data. After this we can import the motion capture data into Maya and source it to our “MetroMan” character. The next step is to polish this movement in Maya using basic key frame animation. We use animation layers on top of the base animation for fixing the movement.
A Chinese student named Luca is working with us. Luca is our Tai Chi expert. He has taught us a lot about the Chinese cultural history including the history of Tai Chi. Luca has been a great help both during the workshop and helping us finding our way round in the massive city of Shanghai.

We have had a good start to the week and hopefully it will carry on the same way to the end.

Metropolia Man, photo by Kaisu Kiventaus

Photo by Reetta Saturo

Photo by Kaisu Kiventaus

3D -workshop Tai Chi, photo by Kaisu Kiventaus

Hi there!

Shanghai 29.10.2012 Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen

This post is written by two Live Performance Technology students from Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. We are part of the group from Metropolia that came to Shanghai Radical Design Week to build the Urban Inspirations -exhibition at Donghua University. We were the first Finns to arrive and will be the last ones to leave. This kind of scheduling is ordinary for technicians and we certainly don't mind being here for almost two weeks, since this is our first trip to China. 

A day after our arrival a few more members of our group accompanied us to set up the exhibition. We started to work immediately together with the local construction company. It took us four days and now the exhibition is open for public. Our role in this exhibition was to handle all the audiovisual technology, as well as to prepare the multimedia materials. In addition to this we will be shooting some video material that we hopefully get to post later on to this blog.

Here is some footage of the building process. Enjoy!

Best regards,

Miia Syrjä and Sanna-Kaisa Laakkonen,

Live Performance Technology students

Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Come Along and Enjoy Globlogging

Helsinki 25.10.2012 Tuire Ranta-Meyer

Helsinki Metropolia invites you to come along and share your ideas and experiences with all creative people in the field of culture, arts and design. I wish the Globlog will florish and become a fresh mindset for magic, as there is always magic in the air when art students, teachers and experts meet each other to fullfill their dreams. 

International cooperation and networking in Helsinki Metropolia takes a huge step forward next Monday Oct 29, as our exhibition event week Urban Inspiration from Finland is launched at Donghua University in Shanghai. It is an inspiring platform to get chinese and finnish students together and extend cooperation with our partner university Donghua. At the same time, it is a wonderful example of what young talented people can bring into life if they focus their energy on shaping a better future for all of us through innovations in urban planning.

During the next few weeks Globlog will be active in reporting our Shanghai impressions. Come along and let the Shanghai spirit lift you up.

Li Chen and Tuire