For a closer look at design thinking, EdLab is making a series of videos that show individual designers reflecting on its meaning. The first video features Annette Diefenthaler, a Senior Design Research Specialist & Project Lead at IDEO on creating and launching IDEO’s Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit.

Watch the video, and share your perspective on this resource!

A nice boost from Tim Brown:

Related Posts

• Advice for a young designer
• Opening Up Museums
• Designer Identification Flowchart
• Information as Design
• A Service Design Opportunity

(click for source)

A friend of mine is wondering how to navigate undergraduate-level design classes (and perhaps ultimately a major or minor). More specifically, he is weighing the difference between “graphic design” and “web design”—and he asked for my thoughts.

Firstly, it matters what kind of work you imagine doing after college… but let’s say that you could do that work and have majored in either field.

Then it matters if you want to take one kind of class more than the others… but let’s say that you don’t have a preference.

Let’s say that what you’re asking is, “What will employer preferences be like when I graduate?” Then, perhaps the subtext here is, “What kind of career should I have?”

OK, so that’s too hard to answer. So let’s go back a step. (In fact, let’s say you don’t know what kind of career you want.)

That makes it a little easier for me to give the following advice: find the college instructors that will make you the very best design thinker.

What is a Design Thinker?

I’m not sure I know. Tim Brown might—he’s a major proponent of the… idea? theory?– I do know that “design thinking” represents an interesting set of related ideas about collaboration, problem-solving, and production. And it seems to apply widely to the way the people and organizations imagine doing good work.

Some characteristics and behaviors that have been useful to me personally (in my own experience and as observed in my collaborators) are:

• Being a generalist—having a little bit of knowledge about a lot of things (read widely! discuss!)
• Being a generative thinker—contributing a lot (be brave! drink coffee!)
• Being empathetic—with both your collaborators and end-users in mind (be observant! be generous!)
• Being creative—adding a point of view that isn’t already represented (be…um,  creative…)

So: when you go to college—probably any college—find someone (or several people!) who can you help you become better at all of these things.

Then find meaningful internships. Those will give you useful fodder for job interviews.

Oh, and don’t take my advice. I wrote this pretty quickly. Get a second opinion! etc.

(And for an extra hundred bucks, and about a week of effort, you can pick up the specific skills you need to be a good-enough graphic designer or web designer.)

Related Posts

• Design Thinking & IDEO
• Information as Design
• A Service Design Opportunity
• Students United for Education Justice

I really enjoy Nina Simon’s blog, and her recent talk is especially exciting: Museum 2.0: Opening Up Museums: My TEDxSantaCruz Talk.

With an upcoming year-long exhibition highlighting the 125-year history of Teachers College, EdLab designers are focused on eliciting “audience” participation in our exhibition environment – three floors of Russell Hall (nearly 30,000 sq. ft.!).

I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.

That’s tough to do!

I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?

Photo of a library event by Diana Diroy

For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.

One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).

Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.

Giant Firefly by AMNH

One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?

I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)

Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!

Related Posts

• Interactive Museums: Unique Ways of Eliciting Responses to Art
• Russell Hall. School Library Laboratory (Fifth Floor). Miss Gilbert Advising Gentleman At Shelves. Teachers College. (May, 1940) (1940)
• Russell Hall. Library. Curriculum Reading Room (Floor 5). Listening Table, Cabinet Of Records, And Loan Desk. Miss Tangora Behind Desk, Mrs. Epstein At Catalog Right, Miss Phelps At File Of Discs. Teachers College. (May 1940)
• Teachers College Library Staff. Technical Processing. (1966) (1966)
• Teachers College Student Group In Russell Hall Courtyard, Professor Dykema Leading The Singing. (Ca. 1925) (1925)

According to a recent IBM survey of chief executives around the world, [creativity is] the most sought-after trait in leaders today. No one can deny that creative thinking has enabled the rise and continued success of countless companies, from start-ups like Facebook and Google to stalwarts like Procter & Gamble and General Electric.

via Reclaim Your Creative Confidence – Harvard Business Review.

Related Posts

• Talent: making people your competitive advantage
• Living through the Paleozoic Era of the Internet
• The complete guide to simulations and serious games
• Using social media: arguments for and against in the stacks
• Embodied Software Tools

But, if they didn’t do it, wouldn’t someone else? Let’s reform patent law… even more!

Related Posts

• Changing Teaching with Learning.com
• Semantic Technologies in Learning Environments
• Sociable media development with MIT
• A Democratic Agency
• Opening Up Museums

A nice, if not idealistic, take on how organizations can use social media and new digital pathways to amplify their messages and improve the reception of their brands:

3 Ways to Usefully Lose Control of Your Brand | design mind.

Leberecht goes a bit astray halfway through, but the thesis of the opening two minutes is an uncomplicated and refreshing take on why orgs have to worry about their employees more than ever.

Related Posts

• The new social learning: a guide to transforming organizations through social media
• Transmedia for Social Change
• A Good Meeting about Identity
• Creating the Ultimate Online Persona?
• Margaret Bates and Teaching Research Methods with YouTube

I like this discussion, but it misses a key perspective. Cain make a bit of a straw man out of the pro-groupwork crowd. Fair enough, there are plenty of reasons to push back. But here’s my spin: cut the part about “creativity” and there are many reasons to get better at working together.

I find it unhelpful that in trying to set her view apart from the so-called New Groupthink crowd, Cain goes even further to reify the importance of creativity. I like creativity, I do. But I think it’s helpful to read this article and replace variations of “creation” with a simpler notion of “production.” It strikes a different tone – and it falls a bit flat. For example:

If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Becomes:

If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of producing something — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Wow, he produced something alone. Even if it’s a very special thing, we know his work was likely supported in many other ways. Paying attention to the importance of “creativity” emphasizes how much Cain relies on a special meaning that should be cast in doubt.

By default, people are pretty bad at working together. Especially on difficult problems, I think. I like the idea that schools and workplaces are trying to emphasize the importance of collaboration and asking people to practice. Such efforts might not result in outcomes we’d consider creative. That’s OK.

No one wants better collaboration to come at the cost of drowning out individual gains in learning, but perhaps it’s worth some displacement of individual achievement?

Related Posts

• Can (and should) generalists lead experts?
• On unlimited wealth, or the dream of it
• Three ways to… inspire a team
• Programming as a New Literacy
• Shackled to problem-solving

#miniblogtweetcombo

Related Posts

• Higher Education?
• A Democratic Agency
• Economics of Education
• Social Studies Doctoral Students Present at the NCSS Annual Conference
• Evidence-Based Decisions and Economics

Games and Professional Simulations [GAPS] is a cooperative group comprised of six research groups across the country. We are headquartered by the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

(Love the idea, dislike the acronym?) Also check out this vialogue featuring Padraig Nash’s recent talk on “distributed mentoring” at the EdLab. Cool stuff!

Related Posts

• Teachers College Chamber Music Recital
• May 3rd TC Chamber Music
• Understanding human sexuality
• Teacher education and the struggle for social justice
• Faith in schools : religion, education, and American evangelicals in East Africa

Quotes from the webinar:

• “For college’s, applying ‘fair use’ doctrine should be a case of risk management.”
• “‘Fair Use’ is about gray areas. You should ask yourself: is it a gray area for the other side?” (in other words, would it actually provoke legal action?)
• “A reason that fair use has flourished in education for images is because there is no copyright clearinghouse mechanism for images… but I think there will be.”
• “The Copyright Clearance Center is not [a library's] friend… they are out there trying to shrink the domain of legitimate fair use.”

Other fun:

• “Artists are natural lawyers because they use a gray scale.”
• “There is always a degree of ineliminable risk when invoking fair use.”