The most memorable part of last class was the hero’s journey. It was challenging because that was my first time build a story in five minutes. I started noticing something similar in all these stories, heroes from every time period were taking more or less the same journey. I found this was a circular journey, it started with call to Adventure, Hero left home and meet challenges and end with The Return Home. I think this way of storytelling was engaging, it could be applied to any of our design thinking. As a graphic designer, this step could help me understand a user’s experience and provide a better solution. Another memorable moment was to generate How Might We questions. We did a lot of brainstorms in our studio and I found HMW is the best way to help us create ideas from insights quickly. Although we do this so often, we still need to keep practicing how to frame a good HMW question. We don’t want to ask a question that’s too broad or too narrow, a good HMW question allows the right amount of creative freedom.

-Olivia

As I write these words, I wonder if it is week 2, week 3 or next week week 4 already? Weeks are passing quickly but that should not deter from me addressing the scheduled homework:

1. Many of the entries are very detailed. I don’t know what ELA and wingspan subjects stands for. It’s interesting to see that many young students’ favourite subject is Science. Back when I went to primary/secondary/high-schools the favourite subject would’ve likely been Physical Education for most. I’m finding many of the answers quite interesting too keep my input modest. There are many that made me think that ‘oh my, these kids figured out major stuff of the world!’ but there is also much idealism happening, which I guess is good.
2. I wonder why solar panels are not as effective as ‘conventional’ power plants.

I wonder why humans decide to migrate to a world of concrete (cities) instead of settling in the rural areas by nature?

I wonder why does natural world not quite cope with our progressively increasing consumptionism?

(these are 3 example ones, now as to the links that were presented:)

I wonder how much energy does a household draw?

I wonder how much energy can be saved by turning off machinery that is not used constantly but remains on standby for most of the time?

I wonder how much energy do contemporary TVs draw?

I wonder where do all the 1.8 trillion garbage come from?

I wonder if it is possible to clean up the oceans in an affordable way?

I wonder how much does it cost to create the world’s largest ocean cleanup and who’s paying for it?

I wonder how they created this video for the largest ocean cleanup?

I wonder if the oysters feel comfortable in New York?

I wonder how clean our harbour can be if the oysters come back to New York/New Jersey?

 

I asked around what my friends think about the question: ‘where do all the 1.8 trillion garbage come from?’

 

None really have known. So I did a straightforward research and googled the questions, after which the following pops up:

 

Well, the first link that pops up is the following: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/09/07/great-pacific-garbage-patch-where-did-all-trash-come/1133838002/

And it is said that ‘the garbage patch’s trash comes from countries around the Pacific Rim, including nations in Asia and North and South America, said Laurent Lebreton of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation.’

 

Why is that?

 

There are more details that follow but all in all, it seems that most garbage comes from the most populous developing countries.

 

Why is that?

 

Well, they focus on production at the lowest cost without taking under consideration the impact it is making on the environment (that is my assumption).

 

1. Reviewed! I have some concerns in relation to the affinity diagramming module, other than that the material looks good 🙂
2. I have a Mouse Create account and all good!

I added the contact information to the sheet and put a picture of myself (it’s a bit old but I don’t think my appearance changed much in the last few years)

Writing a few thoughts:

Weeellll, I’d consider waiting 25 minutes for the elevator to bring me up on time to class to some degree memorable but other than that, I feel that the narrative tools presented are a very powerful tool to convey a message or a set of messages. I personally enjoy a variety of media that embed a strong narrative in conjunction with other features, I usually prefer a set of audio-visual cues. I did know of the hero story technique, although did not quite use it that often, I don’t believe it should be so rigidly followed as good stories don’t need to (in my opinion) follow such tight constrains. If they did, there would be no innovation and all of a sudden every second movie being released would be considered cliche (now that I think about it, every movie could probably now be considered cliche. Perhaps that’s why I don’t go to the movies or play video games anymore?).

I did however really like the level of originality presented by each pair in case of the stories being told, I think I recall one of the alien destroying earth and our coffee cup, which I was surprised I managed to tell in a somewhat fair fashion.

Also, why is the map below on the post creation site showing Houston? (WordPress, we have a problem? Bad pun intended.)

I’m still looking through the videos provided in the syllabus.

This week of class gave me greater insight into what we are doing with the middle school children. I was concerned that a tech project over a period of just a few weeks could potentially be too much for the children – both because it was too much work and because a lot of time would be spent calming the children down. But seeing the simple technology makes me feel more comfortable with the final project. Also, knowing that it doesn’t have to be a technology and can simply be a game of “trash soccer” also puts less stress on me.

I haven’t worked with middle school kids in two years and I’m curious as to what I can teach them and what they can teach me.

Hello!

Next week, we will be going to New Jersey to visit the middles schoolers for our collaboration. I am very excited to meet these brilliant students and to learn from them. The Mouse modules for brainstorming and framing questions are both very interesting and inspired a new way of looking at problems and brainstorming for solutions. I am personally not very good at brainstorming and story telling so I hope these activities with the kids will help me become more wild with my ideas and I look forward to creating with them.

1. Tell us a bit about what you expect from a studio about technology and how it affects education. I am deeply interested/concerned about the idea of technology in our modern lives, and the notion that technology could possibly be used to teach the future generation is both terrifying and inspiring. I hope to learn from this class how this technology is to be used in the classroom and what that means for future classrooms. What are the benefits? What are the consequences? I wish to take a somewhat anthropological approach to this innovation.

2. Do you know a 3D program (of any kind) No
3. Do you know Unity 3D? No
4. Are you familiar with Adobe Creative Suite? Somewhat, but not fluent.
5. Do you have a familiarity with Computer Science? No
6. Do you know any physical computing? No

7. Are you skilled at any other design or media platform? I have no design or story-related prior experience, but am willing to dive in and try (especially on the story-related side).

8. Let us know anything about your experience as a teacher. I am currently teaching this semester at a school, but have no prior experience. I like working with children and wish to become a better teacher/communicator.

9. Are you a good writer? I am more comfortable with writing than designing, and love to research and make theories or conclusions.

This semester, I signed up for two courses that revolve around technology: Ed Tech & Design Thinking and Design & Education. I expected there would be some redundancy with the two but Design & Education would put more emphasis on readings. I did not expect Ed Tech & Design Thinking to ultimately culminate in an environmental project. I think the environmental  problems are a culmination of many societal issues and helping children alleviate some of these issues would be helpful for our future.

I think the “Thinking in Systems” reading helped shape my understanding of Design Thinking. Design has to be approached as a system and designers must figure how each individual component works together to produce the final product. I also think that Design Thinking could be a way to figure out how to disrupt the way the system works, but not be careful not to have disastrous results. Meaning, as design is about the user – the disruption of the standard should still result in the final product being usable and accessible to people.

What did you learn about we are doing in this studio for the semester?  

In this Education Technology and Design Thinking class, we are collaborating with LCCS students and design projects for Earth Day. I am excited about meeting them and sharing creative thoughts together.

Did anything stand out as something that you like/dislike?

From the first class, I think the workshop of closing my eyes and think for a moment about my latest experience with water is very useful. By using this way, I can easily calm down and think about what can we do to contribute to Earth Day. I also enjoyed the process of building a prototype quickly and I remember Seymour said: “Education has very little to do with the explanation it has to do with engagement.”

What did you learn about Design Thinking?

As a graphic designer, we use design thinking method for all of our projects. We always find a problem first, we analyze the problem, do research about it then sketch and prototype our solutions.

—Olivia Yan

1. What did you learn about we are doing in this studio for the semester? Did anything stand out as something that you like/dislike?

I think for this studio course we will be learning and teaching middle school students from New Jersey about Virtual and Augmented reality. We will be building domes, making games etc. The biggest part of the class (I think) is that it’s a very social and interactive course. Even from class one, we were already working with our hands, talking with our peers, engaging in our designs and conversations and showing what our thinking process is.  I’m excited to be learning about VR/AR because I know almost nothing about it. One thing I’m anxious about is I won’t have any portfolio work out of the course, since I’m so new to what we will be doing.

2. What did you learn about Design Thinking?

So far, design thinking goes beyond solving a problem- it’s about exploring the elements of the process we are in and failing over and over again until a solution arrises. This is simple but mind opening- specially for impatient people like me. Failure is definitely a major part of design thinking and so is asking questions, showing people what we’ve done and accepting feedback.