sisirnath

Archive for March, 2010

My understanding of digital education outside the classroom

Preparation for the context mapping session

Right before the research presentation I have started preparations for the next session, I have planed for a context mapping session and workshop with volunteering teachers. As blogged earlier I have prepared a kit for the two week sensitizing sessions and had distributed the. In this photo I was preparing the Session cards for the workshop.

Context mapping session

A. B. C.

The context mapping session and workshop was planned to be a three part session.

A. Talking about the documentation the teachers have made using the kit over two weeks.

B. Reflecting on the idea of digital teaching, how different/difficult that is from the regular teaching methods.

C. Quick workshop to build their dream application or device using image cards provided, they are allowed to use blank cards to name other technologies than provided.

This session was very fruitful as there was a lot of learning for me, the insights gained during this session supported my idea further.

Look Back – Look Forward: Hfg Ulm and Design Education conference

The conference was a interesting one, a full day of design education related talks and workshops. As the title suggests the participants looked into the past design education and future of design education. The conference was divided in to two halves, each part had two talks and a workshop.

The morning session was focused on the past events related to design education and the afternoon was more about the future. In the morning session the talks were about what was good in those days and what can be taken further, the participants by seating arrangement were divided to 6-10 members and among these groups various issues related to past design education were discussed, cards with key words were also provided to facilitate the discussion. At the end of this workshop styles sessions each group shared their outcome with other members. The same repeated in the afternoon as well with different set of talks and cards.

The general consensus at the conference was the design education must be democratised using various methods and technologies. Some groups strongly suggested the folowing

1. Disruptive classes are the future of design education

2. Designers are just interfaces

3. Using peer study program will enhance the design education experience

Over all the conference and discussions were more related to the methods of design education rather than means of teaching. As a whole its good to see that there is support for technology in design education.

Visit to DJ Academy of Design

Audio/Video room  Photo studio 

I visited my old school for a day, there was a lot happening at the school. Before my camera gave up on me I have managed to take these pictures the school is expanding their Audio/Video lab and setting up a new photo studio, the work is going on in full swing.

That was most of my work in between presentations, some missing pieces can be seen in the presentation posted before.

After the research presentation was over I have spent the next four weeks validating my approach with the experts in the field (teachers, academicians, policy makers etc..)  My first presentation was a collection of all the things I did to understand my focus area of the project. This presentation is a summation of all the things I have done (workshops, conferences, visiting other design schools) to validate my approach with the experts.

During the first presentation I have chosen to present on a white board, and in this presentation too I have selected to present using online non-linear presentation tools “Prezi“. The idea behind selecting this tool was to see how much time a teacher need to spend on learning a new digital tool, plan the content of the course and use to it to deliver a content. I have spent roughly about 12 hrs to learn, plan and put together this presentation. The time was needed due to the slow internet connection I was using at home in India.

I found this tool very interesting, easy to learn and present. I had fun creating it and it was easy to present using this tool, being a flash based software it has limited fonts, and colour palettes and could have little more extra features. Overall I think that this is a good tool for presenting mixed media in a creative way.