All entries for Monday 19 October 2009

IDCM MA Multimedia Communications 2 – more Design Thinking, Open(ish) Space Learning & Teaching Grid

Follow-up to A tentative move towards technology enhanced Open Space Learning in the Teaching Grid from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

A brief report on the second of my Multimedia Communications workshops for the International Design and Communication Managament MA.

We began with the 15 students (1 off ill) gathering at one end of the Experimental Teaching Space, for an informal talk about the previous week's session, and the "design challenge" to be completed in 9 weeks:

• Each student is to create their own personal online e-portfolio, using the rich features of the Warwick web publishing and content management tool (Sitebuilder) - many of these features were demonstrated using the Virtual R&D Space set up in the course web site.
  
• The e-portfolio needs to communicate, promote, explain each student's unique and individual value to potential employers, partners and clients.
  

I then reiterated messages about the "design thinking" approach of Tim Brown and Tom Kelley (IDEO), explaining how "inspiration" activities and "ideation" activities can build to successful and valuable "implementation" through an iterative process. I said that during the workshop we would go through two such iterations, building a message (in small teams) about each of the students.

Design Thinking

I then played the section of Tim Brown's Innovation Through Design Thinking lecture (from iTunesU, recorded at MIT) introducing the three "spaces" (inspiration, ideation and innovation), linking this to the Virtual R&D Space. This was followed by the section dealing with "Inspiration" - which is very inspirational! I used this video again later in the session, and will return to it later in the series of workshops (an effective way of using a video by an expert to glue together a set of varied activities).

Forming Teams for a Design Task Using the Ten Faces of Innovation

The next phase of the workshop involved working in small design teams. The task for each team was to create a simple narrative presenting the members of the team, specifically stating:

• Five great things about each person.
• One thing that inspires each person.
  

I drew upon Kelley's Ten Faces of Innovation to guide the creation of the teams (inititally I had aimed for 4 teams, but the student preferred 3 teams of 5). In the previous week's session, each of the students had chosen one of the "Ten Faces" with which they most closely identify. This gave us 3 "directors". I asked the "directors" to lead the groups, and to choose 4 other students. The other students held up a print out representing their chosen "face". The smart solution, for the directors, would have been to choose the blend of the 10 faces that they thought would create a good team. The students seemed a little reluctant - not used to such approaches (but I persisted, as smart team-formation is a key skill in the subject domain). I got them up on their feet and moving around, which seemed to free-up their attitudes a little. The teams that formed did seem to be mixed and well thought out (even though they had very little time in which to choose). When I do this exercise again, I will think of a better approach to this "speed dating" objective.

Teams working in the Teaching Grid Experimental Teaching Space

First Iteration

Once that the students were in teams, they moved to three areas set out by the Teaching Grid Advisors. Each area had tables, chairs, a laptop and a screen (Smartboard or projector). We spent about 30 minutes on this task. I refrained from getting too involved, only occasionally reminding the students of the task, and of the suggested approaches: how each of the "10 faces" might work to encourage discourse and creativity (especially the "experimenters" and "cross-pollinators". After a while I introduced some ideas about how an "anthropologist" type might try to get participants to talk more freely. Although progress was a little slow (I sensed a little awkwardness), I think that ideas about the "investigative" "discovery" process required for design inspiration started to become clearer. After 20 minutes the students had started to create "prototype" narratives to test out with each other, however, I realised that the importance of the "prototype-test-prototype-test..." process needed to be emphasised more strongly.

More Design Thinking

The second iteration of the process was intended to move towards having a more formally documented "story", resulting in a team presentation performance that would demonstrate the value of the process and a software tool that supports it.

Before we moved into this, I played another section of the Innovation Through Design Thinking lecture, focussing upon "ideation" - I emphasised Brown's statements about "ideation" being "building to think", meaning the creation of testable prototypes (physical, and in the form of stories, short films etc). The flexible nature of the Teaching Grid Experimental Teaching Space, helped us to move easily between focus on a single screen and team work. Using a video lecture in this way worked brilliantly, and made me consider how lecture videos could be useful in seminars for all subjects.

I then demonstrated a software application that I find to be invaluable at this stage of the design process: Mindjet Mindmanager (an intuitive and powerful mind/concept mapping tool). I demonstrated how I use this in real design work with clients to rapidly map out a domain, and to create prototype stories and arguments that can be presented and tested (I used a map that I recently used on a design task for an online learning project). I demonstrated the basics of how to create and (re)organise a map, and then set the student teams off with the task of turning information gathered in the first phase into concept maps (illustrated with links and images), and then a prototype presentation based on their maps.

Second Iteration

At this point progress accelerated dramatically. It became clear that having a physical product as the object of the team's efforts gave them the structure and direction that they lacked in the previous exercise. The distinct "10 faces" roles also seemed to become more apparent. These effects might have happened without the use of the software, however, in my experience, it's intuitive and expressive power does have a transformative effect upon groups. Being able to think together in such a visual and easily editable format helps people to be more exploratory and imaginative. It should also be said that the students seemed to really enjoy using Mindmanager, as can be seen in the maps and presentations that they created.

That Mindmanager encourages collective design thinking is apparent in this example:

Click to enlarge

I was particularly impressed with the selection of a theme that runs across each member of the team as documented on the map. We only had a short time at the end of the session, so I asked this group to present. The result was excellent. They had, in a very short time, created an engaging presentation, improvised by having the map on the screen in front of them. I recommend this approach as a means for quickly creating a team presentation on any topic. The technique of using visual metaphors (in this case a range of different cars), gave additional cues that eased their way through the information as they presented (and probably also as they discovered the information).

We applauded the presentation, and a few of the other students commented on aspects that they liked. I suggested that creating a set of e-portfolio pages all based on a theme might be an idea to investigate.

The session worked very well, and the students ended with an appreciable "buzz".

Design thinking, getting students on their feets and active, Mindmanager - all proven to work well!

Robert O'Toole : 19 Oct 2009 18:37 |  Tags: Implementation Learning Spaces Lesson Observations Open Space Learning |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem