When conventional procedures are no longer the rule for application: design as a discipline opens up to new possibilities

This paper discusses the development of the prototype application ‘LabanAssist’. It looks at the design rationale used for the creation of what is fundamentally a system for recording dance knowledge on a score, as identifiable and replicable signs and symbols. A system made necessary because the conventions of other established disciplines, such as engineering and computer science practices, were no longer considered to be effective alone, in facilitating the production of well-designed cultural artefacts (Calvert, Fox, Ryman, & Wilke, 2005; Ebenreuter, 2005). It is important to ask how can we understand design as a discipline amongst other fields of study with longstanding conventions and traditions and if the discipline of design offers effective ways of thinking about the creation and art of making products or services for the enhancement of the human experience? Is design a discipline because it adheres to existing and established rules of interdisciplinary knowledge from which it draws, or is it a discipline in its own right that as a significant field of intellectual development utilizes interdisciplinary knowledge as a basis for creativity and invention?” While there is no simple answer to these questions, the design approach adopted for the development of the prototype application ‘LabanAssist’ offers a working example in which the central theme of grammar, or more particularly the rules of a language, depart from the conventional use for its practical application. This application is one in which a literal understanding of grammar is no longer seen as an adequate basis for the generation of dance knowledge expressed via symbolic writing systems. Instead, this research focuses on the way in which the figurative aspects of language can be represented in the design of an interface to orient user thinking and facilitate the generation of diverse movement compositions. Keywords: Labanotation; Grammar; Literal; Figurative; Tropes; Poetic Constructs; Broad Terms; Interface.</p

Toward future 'mixed reality' learning spaces for STEAM education

Digital technology is becoming more integrated and part of modern society. As this begins to happen, technologies including augmented reality, virtual reality, 3d printing and user supplied mobile devices (collectively referred to as mixed reality) are often being touted as likely to become more a part of the classroom and learning environment. In the discipline areas of STEAM education, experts are expected to be at the forefront of technology and how it might fit into their classroom. This is especially important because increasingly, educators are finding themselves surrounded by new learners that expect to be engaged with participatory, interactive, sensory-rich, experimental activities with greater opportunities for student input and creativity. This paper will explore learner and academic perspectives on mixed reality case studies in 3d spatial design (multimedia and architecture), paramedic science and information technology, through the use of existing data as well as additional one-on-one interviews around the use of mixed reality in the classroom. Results show that mixed reality can provide engagement, critical thinking and problem solving benefits for students in line with this new generation of learners, but also demonstrates that more work needs to be done to refine mixed reality solutions for the classroom

Reviews

Successful Instructional Diagrams by Ric Lowe, London, Kogan Page, 1993. ISBN: 0–7494–0711–5

archiTECTONICS: Pre- and Trans-Disciplinary Reference in Beginning Design

This presentation was part of the session : Pedagogy: Procedures, Scaffolds, Strategies, Tactics24th National Conference on the Beginning Design StudentPedagogical approaches to beginning design in architecture often assume trans-disciplinary modes of exploration to filter problem parameters and sculpt perceptual outlook for iterative potential. A closer look suggests moments within the architectural design process that come before, or around, the discipline itself in the form of other disciplines accompanied by basic principles, such as Visual Literacy. Iterating and perceiving through every disciplinary dynamic, instance, and/or action in the process of designing transcends, builds, and structures its neighbor for explorative sequencing, intention, and growth of sensibilities in design resolution. An acute awareness of disciplinary state, in a maturing design process, can alleviate obscurity of ideological foundation and facilitate growth for trans-disciplinary thinking, making, and communicating in a root discipline such as architecture. How can beginning design instructors guide young designers to keep ideas and concepts for design in focus, recognizing that root disciplines transcend pre- and trans-disciplinary processes? Does recognizing variation in pace, induced by digital and analog tools, and intention of design iteration, by discipline, instill clarity by pre-disciplinary thinking, perception, and operation? Trans-disciplinary exercise provokes awareness of pre-disciplinary foundations furthering possibilities for unique root-disciplinary understandings and results. The developed exercise, archiTECTONIC, recognizes and cycles through reasoning, conceptualization, and iteration in a trans-disciplinary sequence, allowing the beginning design student to recognize pre-disciplinary ideology, pace, and purpose when processing ideas through fundamentals of architectural design. Engaging this as a strategy for seeing, thinking, and maneuvering through a dynamic process provides design liberty and clarity for processing and communicating in a root discipline, in this case architecture

The functions of visual management

Visual Management has been evolving and effectively employed in some manufacturing and service organisations for a long time. In order to facilitate a cross-industrial learning process and to advance in detailed research the understanding of how the Visual Management concept may serve in an organisation is necessary. The aim of this paper is to identify Visual Management functions and the theoretical base for the construction industry. A detailed literature review and an analysis of the findings were performed accordingly. The necessity of a holistic approach in order to make more use of the Visual Management process and some research opportunities were identified

Models for Learning (Mod4L) Final Report: Representing Learning Designs

The Mod4L Models of Practice project is part of the JISC-funded Design for Learning Programme. It ran from 1 May – 31 December 2006. The philosophy underlying the project was that a general split is evident in the e-learning community between development of e-learning tools, services and standards, and research into how teachers can use these most effectively, and is impeding uptake of new tools and methods by teachers. To help overcome this barrier and bridge the gap, a need is felt for practitioner-focused resources which describe a range of learning designs and offer guidance on how these may be chosen and applied, how they can support effective practice in design for learning, and how they can support the development of effective tools, standards and systems with a learning design capability (see, for example, Griffiths and Blat 2005, JISC 2006). Practice models, it was suggested, were such a resource. The aim of the project was to: develop a range of practice models that could be used by practitioners in real life contexts and have a high impact on improving teaching and learning practice. We worked with two definitions of practice models. Practice models are: 1. generic approaches to the structuring and orchestration of learning activities. They express elements of pedagogic principle and allow practitioners to make informed choices (JISC 2006) However, however effective a learning design may be, it can only be shared with others through a representation. The issue of representation of learning designs is, then, central to the concept of sharing and reuse at the heart of JISC’s Design for Learning programme. Thus practice models should be both representations of effective practice, and effective representations of practice. Hence we arrived at the project working definition of practice models as: 2. Common, but decontextualised, learning designs that are represented in a way that is usable by practitioners (teachers, managers, etc).(Mod4L working definition, Falconer & Littlejohn 2006). A learning design is defined as the outcome of the process of designing, planning and orchestrating learning activities as part of a learning session or programme (JISC 2006). Practice models have many potential uses: they describe a range of learning designs that are found to be effective, and offer guidance on their use; they support sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning designs by teachers, and also the development of tools, standards and systems for planning, editing and running the designs. The project took a practitioner-centred approach, working in close collaboration with a focus group of 12 teachers recruited across a range of disciplines and from both FE and HE. Focus group members are listed in Appendix 1. Information was gathered from the focus group through two face to face workshops, and through their contributions to discussions on the project wiki. This was supplemented by an activity at a JISC pedagogy experts meeting in October 2006, and a part workshop at ALT-C in September 2006. The project interim report of August 2006 contained the outcomes of the first workshop (Falconer and Littlejohn, 2006). The current report refines the discussion of issues of representing learning designs for sharing and reuse evidenced in the interim report and highlights problems with the concept of practice models (section 2), characterises the requirements teachers have of effective representations (section 3), evaluates a number of types of representation against these requirements (section 4), explores the more technically focused role of sequencing representations and controlled vocabularies (sections 5 & 6), documents some generic learning designs (section 8.2) and suggests ways forward for bridging the gap between teachers and developers (section 2.6). All quotations are taken from the Mod4L wiki unless otherwise stated

Visual literacy and visual communication for global education: innovations in teaching e-learning in art, design and communication

This paper presents the (student) proceedings of a successful inter-university co-operation between a research university and a university of applied sciences, in the field of Visual Literacy and Visual Communication. The origin lays in the international symposium “Digital Communities for Global Education” (Enschede NL, 2006) and the start was a web-based course in Informational Graphic Design. The ongoing development is an experimental master course in which students of both institutes work together. The participating professors are also involved in European Co-operative networks as well as Trans Atlantic- and Euro-Asian ones. Participating students are coming from all over the world so give the course a multi cultural character.\ud Research questions for the project are 1) what is the universal content of a message and 2) how can this message be encoded? 3) what factors do influence the interaction processes in networked education

Repositioning the graphic designer as researcher

In academic terms, the discipline of graphic design is relatively young. Consequently the position of the discipline within academic territory, and the role of the designer, continue to be debated. In part, these debates have been a product of attempts to define and defend the discipline’s borders from within, in order to establish a sense of the role of graphic design and the graphic designer as commensurate with other disciplines both within and beyond art and design. In recent years graphic designers have variously been defined as ‘authors’, ‘producers’ and ‘readers’, yet none of these definitions seem to have provided any kind of productive or lasting impact within the academy. This paper suggests that rather than continue to seek territorial definitions and positions from within, it could be more productive to look beyond the confines of the discipline. Gaining a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on, and understanding of, qualitative research methods from other disciplines may enable the graphic designer to more fully position his or her practice within the wider academy. Such a perspective could help facilitate the repositioning and redefinition of the graphic designer as ‘researcher’ - a move that would be productive in relation to the future development of postgraduate research within the discipline