This paper is part of the ongoing research project “Research on learning evidence related to the visual and digital skills, creativity, collaboration and self-reflection of the undergraduate students from the generation of digital visual objects within a process of formative assessment. (REDICE16-16010) which main objective is to develop, implement and validate a strategy for analyzing and assessing  Visuals Digital Objects (VDOs) created by undergraduate students. This project has three main aims: (a) to deeply and sustainably contribute to transform teaching and learning practice at the university, by expanding students and teachers’ creativity, collaboration, self-regulation and digital competence;  (b) generating a series of visual digital objects (VDOs) made by the students where they give account of  their learning paths and, at the same time, share these processes with others; and (c) developing and testing an assessment strategy to  expand  ways of performing teaching and learning as pedagogical events to promote experiences of ‘real learning’ among students and teachers.

The creation of VDO is part of our interest for exploring the potential of the growing do-it-yourself (DIY) movement (Spencer, 2005) in higher education pedagogies. Starting in the ‘90s (McKay, 1998) with arts, crafts, and new technologies (Eisenberg & Buechley, 2008; Knobel & Lankshear, 2010; Kafai & Peppler, 2011), DIY is now being considered in the  curriculum (Guzzetti, Elliott, & Welsch, 2010; Kamenetz, 2010), giving educators and students the opportunity to create, share and learn in collaboration (Williams & Černochová, 2012). Fostering such knowledge and competences at the University requires novel strategies and teaching approaches based on active modes of learning, such as collaborative learning, peer learning communities, creative problem solving, learning by doing, experiential learning, or the development of critical thinking and creativity.

From this approach, in this research we explore what happens when universities opt to actively support DIY learning practices. Particularly when learning is considered, in our perspective, as a slippery experience (Fendler, 2015) connected with Atkinson’s notion of ‘real learning’ that “involves a movement into a new ontological state; it defines a problem of existence, in contrast to more normative learning in its everyday norms and competences” (Atkinson, 2012, p. 9). This movement, we assume, is what students experience when they are developing the VDOs, because they are able to “produces a new alignment of thinking and action” (Atkinson, 2012, p. 9). They experience learning as part of a subjectivization process that generates “a disruption of established ways of knowing, through learning events”, because they are able “to handle states of uncertainty as new knowledge and (where) new competences begin to emerge” (Atkinson, 2012, p. 10). From this perspective to learn is what disturbs and questions the established places, producing an event (which transforms the learner) and that becomes a real learning.

The questions guide the research process are:

1. What characterizes (tensions and possibilities) the implementation of DIY approach at the university degrees of Education, Teacher of Primary education and Fine Arts from the contributions of the teachers and students involved in the research process.

2. What can we learn from DVOs generated by students about digital and visual skills, collaboration practices, and creative competencies.

3. In which ways the analysis of DVOs affects teacher’s performance and improvement of educational relations.

4. What can be learn from DVOs about how students learn in a changing and complex world.

This research has, as final purpose offering teachers and students, despite the organizational rigidity provided by teaching plans, times and places, the opportunity to create, learn and share their learning trajectories in collaboration.

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