K-12 2018 Readers’ Choice Awards — from The Journal’s October/November edition
Also see:
These 50 awesome book covers will inspire you – and teach you how to design your own — from canva.com
Excerpt:
The takeaway: White space doesn’t mean that the whole cover must be completely minimal. It can used as a device to focus the reader.
The Takeaway: I love lots of colors, but not every book needs a rainbow. In fact, only a few books should tackle more than two or three colors. If your book works with less colors, definitely go with less.
On 11/01/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, architecture, attention, Bring your own device (BYOD), collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, design, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, maker movement, Michigan, research, smart classrooms, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, universities, usability, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
A Space for Learning: A review of research on active learning spaces — from by Robert Talbert and Anat Mor-Avi
Abstract:
Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) are learning spaces specially designed to optimize the practice of active learning and amplify its positive effects in learners from young children through university-level learners. As interest in and adoption of ALCs has increased rapidly over the last decade, the need for grounded research in their effects on learners and schools has grown proportionately. In this paper, we review the peer-reviewed published research on ALCs, dating back to the introduction of “studio” classrooms and the SCALE-UP program up to the present day. We investigate the literature and summarize findings on the effects of ALCs on learning outcomes, student engagement, and the behaviors and practices of instructors as well as the specific elements of ALC design that seem to contribute the most to these effects. We also look at the emerging cultural impact of ALCs on institutions of learning, and we examine the drawbacks of the published research as well as avenues for potential future research in this area.
1: Introduction
1.1: What is active learning, and what is an active learning classroom?
Active learning is defined broadly to include any pedagogical method that involves students actively working on learning tasks and reflecting on their work, apart from watching, listening, and taking notes (Bonwell & Eison, 1991). Active learning has taken hold as a normative instructional practice in K12 and higher education institutions worldwide. Recent studies, such as the 2014 meta-analysis linking active learning pedagogies with dramatically reduced failure rates in university-level STEM courses (Freeman et al., 2014) have established that active learning drives increased student learning and engagement across disciplines, grade levels, and demographics.
As schools, colleges, and universities increasingly seek to implement active learning, concerns about the learning spaces used for active learning have naturally arisen. Attempts to implement active learning pedagogies in spaces that are not attuned to the particular needs of active learning — for example, large lecture halls with fixed seating — have resulted in suboptimal results and often frustration among instructors and students alike. In an effort to link architectural design to best practices in active learning pedagogy, numerous instructors, school leaders, and architects have explored how learning spaces can be differently designed to support active learning and amplify its positive effects on student learning. The result is a category of learning spaces known as Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs).
While there is no universally accepted definition of an ALC, the spaces often described by this term have several common characteristics:
- ALCs are classrooms, that is, formal spaces in which learners convene for educational activities. We do not include less-formal learning spaces such as faculty offices, library study spaces, or “in-between” spaces located in hallways or foyers.
- ALCs include deliberate architectural and design attributes that are specifically intended to promote active learning. These typically include moveable furniture that can be reconfigured into a variety of different setups with ease, seating that places students in small groups, plentiful horizontal and/or vertical writing surfaces such as whiteboards, and easy access to learning
technologies (including technological infrastructure such as power outlets). - In particular, most ALCs have a “polycentric” or “acentric” design in which there is no clearly-defined front of the room by default. Rather, the instructor has a station which is either
movable or located in an inconspicuous location so as not to attract attention; or perhaps there is no specific location for the instructor. - Finally, ALCs typically provide easy access to digital and analog tools for learning , such as multiple digital projectors, tablet or laptop computers, wall-mounted and personal whiteboards, or classroom response systems.
2.1: Research questions
The main question that this study intends to investigate is: What are the effects of the use of ALCs on student learning, faculty teaching, and institutional cultures? Within this broad overall question, we will focus on four research questions:
- What effects do ALCs have on measurable metrics of student academic achievement? Included in such metrics are measures such as exam scores, course grades, and learning gains on pre/post-test measures, along with data on the acquisition of “21st Century Skills”, which we will define using a framework (OCDE, 2009) which groups “21st Century Skills” into skills pertaining to information, communication, and ethical/social impact.
- What effects do ALCs have on student engagement? Specifically, we examine results pertaining to affective, behavioral, and cognitive elements of the idea of “engagement” as well as results that cut across these categories.
- What effect do ALCs have on the pedagogical practices and behaviors of instructors? In addition to their effects on students, we are also interested the effects of ALCs on the instructors who use them. Specifically, we are interested in how ALCs affect instructor attitudes toward and implementations of active learning, how ALCs influence faculty adoption of active learning pedagogies, and how the use of ALCs affects instructors’ general and environmental behavior.
- What specific design elements of ALCs contribute significantly to the above effects? Finally, we seek to identify the critical elements of ALCs that contribute the most to their effects on student learning and instructor performance, including affordances and elements of design, architecture, and technology integration.
The common denominator in the larger cultural effects of ALCs and active learning on students and instructors is the notion of connectedness, a concept we have already introduced in discussions of specific ALC design elements. By being freer to move and have physical and visual contact with each other in a class meeting, students feel more connected to each other and more connected to their instructor. By having an architectural design that facilitates not only movement but choice and agency — for example, through the use of polycentric layouts and reconfigurable furniture — the line between instructor and students is erased, turning the ALC into a vessel in which an authentic community of learners can take form.
On 10/31/2018,
in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, blended learning, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital learning, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty, future, future of higher education, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, internet, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, mobile technologies, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, usability, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality,
by Daniel Christian
Are ‘smart’ classrooms the future? — from campustechnology.com by Julie Johnston
Indiana University explores that question by bringing together tech partners and university leaders to share ideas on how to design classrooms that make better use of faculty and student time.
Excerpt:
To achieve these goals, we are investigating smart solutions that will:
- Untether instructors from the room’s podium, allowing them control from anywhere in the room;
- Streamline the start of class, including biometric login to the room’s technology, behind-the-scenes routing of course content to room displays, control of lights and automatic attendance taking;
- Offer whiteboards that can be captured, routed to different displays in the room and saved for future viewing and editing;
- Provide small-group collaboration displays and the ability to easily route content to and from these displays; and
- Deliver these features through a simple, user-friendly and reliable room/technology interface.
…
Activities included collaborative brainstorming focusing on these questions:
- What else can we do to create the classroom of the future?
- What current technology exists to solve these problems?
- What could be developed that doesn’t yet exist?
- What’s next?
From DSC:
Though many peoples’ — including faculty members’ — eyes gloss over when we start talking about learning spaces and smart classrooms, it’s still an important topic. Personally, I’d rather be learning in an engaging, exciting learning environment that’s outfitted with a variety of tools (physically as well as digitally and virtually-based) that make sense for that community of learners. Also, faculty members have very limited time to get across campus and into the classroom and get things setup…the more things that can be automated in those setup situations the better!
I’ve long posted items re: machine-to-machine communications, voice recognition/voice-enabled interfaces, artificial intelligence, bots, algorithms, a variety of vendors and their products including Amazon’s Alexa / Apple’s Siri / Microsoft’s Cortana / and Google’s Home or Google Assistant, learning spaces, and smart classrooms, as I do think those things are components of our future learning ecosystems.
On 10/17/2018,
in analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, computer science, design, ideas, innovation, law schools, legislatures / government / legal,
by Daniel Christian
New game lets players train AI to spot legal issues — from abajournal.com by Jason Tashea
Excerpt:
Got a free minute? There’s a new game that will help train an artificial intelligence model to spot legal issues and help close the access-to-justice gap.
Called Learned Hands—yes, it’s a pun—the game takes 75,000 legal questions posted on Reddit dealing with family, consumer, criminal and other legal issues and asks the user to determine what the issue is.
While conjuring up nightmares of the first-year in law school for many lawyers, David Colarusso says it’s for a good cause.
“It’s an opportunity for attorneys to take their downtime to train machine learning algorithms to help access-to-justice issues,” says Colarusso, director of Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation and Technology (LIT) Lab and partner on this project with the Stanford Legal Design Lab.
From learnedhands.law.stanford.edu/legalIssues
When you play the game, you’ll be spotting if different legal issues are present in people’s stories. Some of these issues will be high level categories, and others will be more specific issues.
Here are the high level categories:
On 09/29/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart
Excerpt:
[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.
I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:
- Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
- Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
- Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.
3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.
5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.
From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?
On 06/06/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Apple, architecture, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), business, corporate / business world, design, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), learning spaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, technologies for your home, tools, UK, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, workplace, XR - extended reality,
by Daniel Christian
Seek launches world’s first mobile Augmented Reality (AR) creation studio — from globenewswire.com
All Mobile Phone Users Can Now Create, Publish and Discover AR Experiences
Excerpt:
Lehi, UT, May 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, fast-growing augmented reality startup, Seek, is launching Seek Studio, the world’s first mobile augmented reality studio, allowing anybody with a phone and no coding expertise required, to create their own AR experiences and publish them for the world to see. With mobile AR now made more readily available, average consumers are beginning to discover the magic that AR can bring to the palm of their hand, and Seek Studio turns everyone into a creator.
To make the process incredibly easy, Seek provides templates for users to create their first AR experiences. As an example, a user can select a photo on their phone, outline the portion of the image they want turned into a 3D object and then publish it to Seek. They will then be able to share it with their friends through popular social networks or text. A brand could additionally upload a 3D model of their product and publish it to Seek, providing an experience for their customers to easily view that content in their own home. Seek Studio will launch with 6 templates and will release new ones every few days over the coming months to constantly improve the complexity and types of experiences possible to create within the platform.
Apple unveils new AR file format and ARKit 2.0 — from enturebeat.com by Stephanie Chan
Excerpt:
Apple unveiled its new augmented reality file format, as well as ARKit 2.0, at its annual WWDC developer conference today. Both will be available to users later this year with iOS 12.
The tech company partnered with Pixar to develop the AR file format Universal Scene Description (USDZ) to streamline the process of sharing and accessing augmented reality files. USDZ will be compatible with tools like Adobe, Autodesk, Sketchfab, PTC, and Quixel. Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis spoke briefly on stage about how the file format will have native Adobe Creative Cloud support, and described it as the first time “you’ll be able to have what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editing” for AR objects.
HTC’s New Vive Focus Headset Locker Aims to Put VR at the Forefront of Education in China — from oadtovr.com by Scott Hayden
With a starting focus on University-level education and vocational schools in sectors such as mechanical engineering, VivEdu branched out to K-12 education in 2018, boasting a comprehensive VR approach to learning science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and art for kids.
Apple takes augmented-reality gaming to the ‘next level’ with Lego and slingshot apps — from businessinsider.com by Isobel Asher Hamilton
Excerpt:
- Apple hopes to take augmented-reality gaming to the “next level” with multiplayer apps.
- The company used its developer’s conference to showcase Lego and slingshot games, built using its new and improved AR building software ARKit 2.
- The Lego game allows you to create virtual worlds around your real-life Lego builds.
Apple Swift Shot hands-on — augmented reality goes multiplayer with ARKit 2.0 — from venturebeat.com by Dean Takahasjo
Apple’s new AR features are proof that wearables are coming — from wired.com by Peter Rubin
Excerpt:
That roadmap, of course, is just beginning. Which is where the developers—and those arm’s-length iPads—come in. “They’re pushing AR onto phones to make sure they’re a winner when the headsets come around,” Miesnieks says of Apple. “You can’t wait for headsets and then quickly do 10 years’ worth of R&D on the software.”
Adobe’s Project Aero will let designers easily create AR content using existing Creative Cloud tools — from 9to5mac.comby Michael Steeber
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
To fully realize the potential will require a broad ecosystem. Adobe is partnering with technology leaders to standardize interaction models and file formats in the rapidly growing AR ecosystem. We’re also working with leading platform vendors, open standards efforts like usdz and glTF as well as media companies and the creative community to deliver a comprehensive AR offering. usdz is now supported by Apple, Adobe, Pixar and many others while glTF is supported by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe and other industry leaders.
Create Floor Plans With IStaging VR Maker — from vrfocus.com by Rebecca Hills-Duty
Virtual tour app utilises ARKit technology to easily create floor plans.
Excerpt:
There are a number of professionals who would find the ability to quickly and easily create floor plans to be extremely useful. Estate agents, interior designers and event organisers would all no doubt find such a capability to be extremely valuable. For those users, the new feature added to iStaging’s VR Maker app might be of considerable interest.
The new VR Maker feature utilises Apple’s ARKit toolset to recognise spaces, such as walls and floors and can provide accurate measurements. By scanning each wall of a space, a floor plan can be produced quickly and easily.
Where is VR headed? Investors share insights on the industry’s trajectory — fromventurebeat.com by Michael Park
Excerpt:
I’ve interviewed nine investors who have provided their insights on where the VR industry has come, as well as the risks and opportunities that exist in 2018 and beyond. We’ve asked them what opportunities are available in the space — and what tips they have for startups.
Can this explosion-proof AR headset change how industries do business? — from digitaltrends.com by Christian de Looper
Excerpt:
Augmented reality (AR) hasn’t truly permeated the mainstream consciousness yet, but the technology is swiftly being adopted by global industries. It’ll soon be unsurprising to find a pair of AR glasses strapped to a helmet sitting on the heads of service workers, and RealWear, a company at the forefront on developing these headsets, thinks it’s on the edge of something big.
…
VOICE ACTIVATION
What’s most impressive about the RealWear HMT-1Z1 is how you control it. There’s no touch-sensitive gestures you need to learn — it’s all managed with voice, and better yet, there’s no need for a hotword like “Hey Google.” The headset listens for certain commands. For example, from the home screen just say “show my files” to see files downloaded to the device, and you can go back to the home screen by saying “navigate home.” When you’re looking at documents — like schematics — you can say “zoom in” or “zoom out” to change focus. It worked almost flawlessly, even in a noisy environment like the AWE show floor.
How Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) Can Benefit the Aviation Industry — from eonreality.com
Excerpt:
David Scowsill‘s experience in the aviation industry spans over 30 years. He has worked for British Airways, American Airlines, Easy Jet, Manchester Airport, and most recently the World Travel and Tourism Council, giving him a unique perspective on how Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) can impact the aviation industry.
These technologies have the power to transform the entire aviation industry, providing benefits to companies and consumers. From check-in, baggage drop, ramp operations and maintenance, to pilots and flight attendants, AVR can accelerate training, improve safety, and increase efficiency.
This VR project shows us how animals see the world — from thenextweb.com by Ailsa Sherrington
Excerpt:
London-based design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast is using VR to let us reconnect with nature. With headsets, you can see a forest through the eyes of different animals and experience the sensations they feel. Creative Director Ersinhan Ersin took the stage at TNW Conference last week to show us how and why they created the project, titled In the Eyes of the Animal.
The Future of AR/VR Headset Design is Hybrid — from medium.com by Christine Hart
Excerpt:
Have you already taken a side when it comes to XR wearables? Whether you prefer AR glasses or VR headsets likely depends on the application you need. But wouldn’t it be great to have a device that could perform as both? As XR tech advances, we think crossovers will start popping up around the world.
A Beijing startup called AntVR recently rocketed past its Kickstarter goal for an AR/VR visor. Their product, the Mix, uses tinted lenses to toggle between real world overlay and full immersion. It’s an exciting prospect. But rather than digging into the tech (or the controversy surrounding their name, their marketing, and a certain Marvel character) we’re looking at what this means for how XR devices are developed and sold.
Google Expeditions app now offers augmented reality tours — from techcrunch.com by Lucas Matney
Excerpt:
Google is bringing AR tech to its Expeditions app with a new update going live today. Last year, the company introduced its GoogleExpeditions AR Pioneer Program, which brought the app into classrooms across the country; with this launch the functionality is available to all.
Expeditions will have more than 100 AR tours in addition to the 800 VR tours already available. Examples include experiences that let users explore Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions and ones that let you interact with the human skeletal system.
VR Wave Breaking Outside The Home — from forbes.com by Charlie Fink
Excerpt:
At four recent VR conferences and events there was a palpable sense that despite new home VR devices getting the majority of marketing and media attention this year, the immediate promise and momentum is in the location-based VR (LBVR) attractions industry. The VR Arcade Conference (April 29th and 30th), VRLA (May 4th and 5th), the Digital Entertainment Group’s May meeting (May 1), and FoIL (Future of Immersive Leisure, May 16th and 17th) all highlighted a topic that suddenly no one can stop talking about: location-based VR (LBVR). With hungry landlords giving great deals for empty retail locations, VRcades, which are inexpensive to open (like Internet Cafes), are popping up all over the country. As a result, VRcade royalties for developers are on the rise, so they are shifting their attention accordingly to shorter experiences optimized for LBVR, which is much less expensive than building a VR app for the home.
Hyperrealistic Glass Sculptures by Artist Dylan Martinez — from booooooom.com
Excerpt:
A series of mesmerizing glass sculptures by Minnesota-born, Washington-based artist Dylan Martinez. Created using a combination of sculpting (for the solid glass “water”) and glassblowing techniques (for the surrounding glass bubble or “bag”), Martinez’s meticulous attention to detail purposefully plays with viewers’ ability to distinguish between reality and illusion. See more images below or on display at Echt Gallery in Chicago starting July 13.
On 04/12/2018,
in 3D, career development, chemistry, collaboration, computer science, creativity, design, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, K-12 related, physics, platforms, programming, project-based learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, visualizing information, youth,
by Daniel Christian
VR Lab! — from thejournal.com by Joshua Bolkan
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
When Tampa Preparatory School launched decided to turn a closet into a virtual reality lab, they had no idea how far their students would run with the tools, but that’s exactly what they did, sitting down to build their own educational apps to help visualize concepts in astronomy, chemistry and physics. In addition to the educational apps, built by students on their own initiative, the VR lab is also used for art classes and more.
Chad Lewis, director of technology at Tampa Prep, recently sat down with THE Journal to talk about the school’s experience with VR as an educational tool.
Tell me a little about having students design their own VR apps. Are there any benefits to it that surprised you?
Chad Lewis: Some surprising benefits included branching out beyond computer science into areas like chemistry and physics. This is an example of the amazing things students can do if given the opportunity to pursue their passions. They need time, space and resources as well as support and encouragement.
The main thing is that they’re learning coding, 3D modeling, game development, collaboration, design thinking, etc.
In the process, one of our computer science students came up to me and said, “Mr. Lewis do you mind if I try to create some virtual reality apps using Unity?” and it really took off from there. The lab was a student-driven initiative.
On 04/09/2018,
in creativity, design, Design Thinking, ideas, instructional design, programming, project-based learning, society, tools, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Design Thinking: A Quick Overview — from interaction-design.org by Rikke Dam and Teo Siang
Excerpt:
To begin, let’s have a quick overview of the fundamental principles behind Design Thinking:
- Design Thinking starts with empathy, a deep human focus, in order to gain insights which may reveal new and unexplored ways of seeing, and courses of action to follow in bringing about preferred situations for business and society.
- It involves reframing the perceived problem or challenge at hand, and gaining perspectives, which allow a more holistic look at the path towards these preferred situations.
- It encourages collaborative, multi-disciplinary teamwork to leverage the skills, personalities and thinking styles of many in order to solve multifaceted problems.
- It initially employs divergent styles of thinking to explore as many possibilities, deferring judgment and creating an open ideations space to allow for the maximum number of ideas and points of view to surface.
- It later employs convergent styles of thinking to isolate potential solution streams, combining and refining insights and more mature ideas, which pave a path forward.
- It engages in early exploration of selected ideas, rapidly modelling potential solutions to encourage learning while doing, and allow for gaining additional insight into the viability of solutions before too much time or money has been spent
- Tests the prototypes which survive the processes further to remove any potential issues.
- Iterates through the various stages, revisiting empathetic frames of mind and then redefining the challenge as new knowledge and insight is gained along the way.
- It starts off chaotic and cloudy steamrolling towards points of clarity until a desirable, feasible and viable solution emerges.
From DSC:
This post includes information about popular design thinking frameworks. I think it’s a helpful posting for those who have heard about design thinking but want to know more about it.
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions we might have, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. As such, design thinking is most useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown.Design thinking is extremely useful in tackling ill-defined or unknown problems—it reframes the problem in human-centric ways, allows the creation of many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and lets us adopt a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. Design thinking also involves on-going experimentation: sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas. It involves five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. The phases allow us to gain a deep understanding of users, critically examine the assumptions about the problem and define a concrete problem statement, generate ideas for tackling the problem, and then create prototypes for the ideas in order to test their effectiveness.
Design thinking is not about graphic design but rather about solving problems through the use of design. It is a critical skill for allprofessionals, not only designers. Understanding how to approach problems and apply design thinking enables everyone to maximize our contributions in the work environment and create incredible, memorable products for users.