Designing PDP for Design

Hurrah! The Semantic Web is becoming visible! It obviously had to, but I wasn’t sure when. Fairly early on in the ALT module I became aware of the term and was intrigued by and excited about the possibilities it presented. But, at the time, most discussion was conducted in a vocabulary which I didn’t share and at a level of detail I wasn’t particularly interested in learning about. I needed it to climb out of the niche shadows and into the sun…

Writing up recommendations for my dissertation, I wanted to check sites/organisations I believe it is important for us to bring into HE in order to engage our design students with broader debates on the role of design in society. The RSA is one such organisation, NESTA another. The two are currently collaborating: linking from the RSA to the Design Directions collaboration took me to the NESTA site and their blog post The future is smart machines (and soup), which embedded the link to the pot of semantic gold at the end of the rainbow: The future of the Web as seen by its creator, an interview with Tim Berners-Lee. Now I just need the rest of the techies in the world to make it happen for mere mortals like me to start using…

Another of the NESTA blog posts was also interesting: Networking not working, where the Web has turned the concept of ’6 degrees of separation’ into one more akin to ’3.5 degrees of separation’.

We should create opportunities to bring these real-world, real-design debates into the learning environment – looking beyond the commercially-driven project briefs of D&AD.

I’ve put together a few thoughts on e-learning: full of personal bias and at an early stage of development, I’m using a pbwiki to work things through on The online learning experience.

It may not be a cool observation to make, but the social networking phenomenon reminds me of the old Tupperware Party, where somebody invites the neighbours over to look at this amazing new stay-fresh container/band/venue/technology… It’s up to you whether you choose to buy into it or not. Either way, it’s a great opportunity to chat/gossip/laugh…

There are two key differences between social networking and the Tupperware party:
- you get to choose who your neighbours are
- there’s a parallel universe where you can extend your party

You get to choose who your neighbours are

Unlike back in Tupperware times, the internet now makes it possible to find like-minded souls around the world – or at least individuals and parts of the world with comparable levels of internet access – with whom you gather in a cyber-neighbourhood made up of other people who share your interests. Newcomers will arrive – by invitation, out of curiosity (perhaps there’s a particular buzz about the area) or simply by accident (they just happened to be surfing by and followed a link). If they feel at home, they might stay. If not, they’ll move on.

So where do you choose to live? As tends to happen in the material world, people with shared interests/concerns tend to gravitate toward locations which meet their current needs/aspirations. There are parallels between choice of social networking sites and that of real-world social spaces: a live-music venue, a well-behaved tea party, the bike shed at school…

It is impossible to contrive this sense of place: it is human, emotional, unquantifiable. And the same rules of self- or peer-selection apply: a place frequented by a particular demographic group may feel out-of-bounds to a different group, or a newcomer might feel actively alienated by the dominant cultural language of that space.

There’s a parallel universe where you can continue your party

While press attention is often paid to the sites themselves, to the virtual world which ‘steals’ members away from ‘real’ social interaction, and to the dangers inherent in meeting off-line those you encounter online, one of the most important aspects of social networking is its capacity to forge real-world connections between people. Like a multi-talented telephone. It offers an easy, practical way to communicate with other people, swapping thoughts, images, sounds – to make arrangements to get together for that Tupperware party… it’s just wider-reaching and has more rooms to play in.

Who could fail to be impressed with the Apple techies?

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Cool, dude! Can’t resist one more:[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mro9Qzv--k8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Charmingly dysfunctional lip sync – like stepping back in gaming-visuals time. The brilliant techno-geeks will sort that out in a nano-Second though, and there’ll be no stopping this taking over First Life!

I first came across Digital Ethnography after I’d finished my ALT project and was starting to move on to my Dissertation. I followed up a link which led me to the stunning The Machine Is Us/ing Us – which I blogged in my Transitions post on 17 February – just 17 days after it was released, but – according to the trails that led me to it – I already felt way behind the buzz!

On a more recent post The Machine is Us/ing Us Final Version (8 March) Wesch describes the timeline of the film’s rise to fame:

On January 31st I released the 2nd draft of The Machine is Us/ing Us hoping to receive feedback from my colleagues. (The first draft was only seen by my Digital Ethnography class 2 days before the 2nd draft was released on YouTube.) I sent it to 10 people. Four days later it was the most blogged about video in the blogosphere and the wild ride had begun… It is hard to believe that a little video I created in my basement in St. George Kansas could be seen by over 1.7 million people, be translated into (at least) 5 languages, and be shown to large audiences at major conferences on 6 continents within just one month of its creation.

The ‘Final Version’ is still brilliant, still mesmerising…

[youtube]NLlGopyXT_g[/youtube]

I check back on Digital Ethnography every now and then to see what they’re up to and today found their YouTube Project – I’ve picked up their RSS feed now to make sure I follow what happens next!

Integrating personal development planning into the design curriculum: issues and possibilities

The start of my Dissertation, to be ‘submitted as partial fulfilment of the criteria for a Master of Arts in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at London Metropolitan University’ – bring it on!

As usual, I’ve had plenty of thoughts – not that I’m jumping the gun, of course… I already know I want to put together an online resource for our students to use to develop their practical and analytical portfolio-building skills. I also have an idea of what form the resource might take – I’m sure I’ll test out a few options. But I need to make sure I don’t spend too much time enjoying myself exploring possibilities, while the issues remain to be investigated, the literature review planned and the research methodology pinned down. So, time to get serious and put my notes into official form. Watch this space…

As soon as I’d submitted my ALT project, I wanted to start my Dissertation. But the Spring semester got under way and, with it, the opportunity to put into practice some of the possibilities I’d been investigating through the ALT module…

This semester I’m working on two modules, both led by AH. One of the things I had hoped to explore for group work on one of the modules was introducing the option of using a blog or wiki to help the teams develop and manage their projects. The planned introduction, Week 2, was postponed because of a collision of unforeseen crises (including a building imploding opposite the Commercial Road site!). On the positive side, handling the pressing practicalities of the situation prompted me to set up a module blog to make a contemporaneous record of the morning’s activities, including students’ questions and my responses, which provided the module leader (unable to attend the session) with a ‘debriefing document’ without demanding any additional work after the session concluded.

After confirming with AH that the module blog provided a useful addition to current practice, I’m now maintaining the weekly posts and uploading related documents (see blogroll), the longer-term goal being to hand over the blogging activity to AH when ready. I’m in no doubt that, if run by the module leader, a blog can save preparation and documentation time, with the potential to improve communication between staff and students, while also providing a valuable online resource for document storage and reference material.

It’s still early days, with no way of knowing yet if the students will engage with the blog, but it already meets the intentions outlined above. For one of the modules, where three tutors – one full-time, two HPLs – work together with a large group of students from a different course in a different building, this central web-based reference point is particularly important, providing the context for a cohesive learning experience with a transparency of focus.

I’m not going to make a habit of this, but as I’m still in that twilight transition zone, here’s something entirely silly: 1-click – it’s interactive, so tickle that touchpad!

Where once this blog was called:

Sketchbook Evolution: exploring the potential of blogs to support the personal development dimension of the design sketchbook in higher education; part of my studies for an MA in learning & teaching in HE

it is undergoing a behind-the-scenes personal identity transformation process. Any day now, it will emerge, blinking into view as the new R&D space for my Dissertation.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen it, check out this film – the opening few seconds a brilliant demonstration of what I was trying to say in Very Michel Gondry about how/why wikis help me develop my written work:

[youtube]6gmP4nk0EOE[/youtube]

Web 2.0… The Machine Is Us/ing Us ‘a video response to Web 2.0′ by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University (added to YouTube 31 January 2007). A great piece of work, I also think it’s taken me a step closer to understanding the Semantic Web – still a background fascination for me!