A blog about design at the OU.
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Design, Development and Impact of Sustainability Website Resources
More than ten years ago, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded the design, development and launch of Soil-Net, an innovative, open, online soil education website resource to support school curricula. Soil science has been under-represented in teaching National Curriculum in UK schools, despite recognition of soil as a major global natural…
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Designing interactive distance learning in Nigeria
Dr Nicole Lotz and Dr Kerry Murphy recently led a two-day workshop on designing interactive, practical STEM Open Distance Learning (ODL) resources with the National Open University Nigeria (NOUN). The Dean of Science, Head of Applied Science and Director of Learning Resources from NOUN, as well as a delegation of OU and UK academics, explored opportunities for collaboration…
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The Dangers of Design
The terrible fire at Grenfell Tower has provoked discussion among architects. Where does the blame lie? With the architects who drew up the plans for refurbishment, with the council and management company who insisted on costs being cut? With the contractors and subcontractors involved in carrying out the work specified or with the companies producing…
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LearnXDesign Conference 2017
(Cross post from the DRS website) The fourth international DRS / CUMULUS / ED-DESIGN Conference on Design Education – LearnXDesign 2017 – was held at the end of June 2017 at Ravensbourne in London, UK.
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Google Arts & Culture
I came across a fantastic archive of Fashion designs around the world today. What fascinated me most was the focus on making and processes, and the global perspective the project ‘We Wear Culture’ takes. They are concise stories but inspiring enough if you want to explore more on your own. There are thousands of arts…
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OpenStudio of the Future
We had a fantastic workshop today on how to facilitate progression in OpenStudio. We have reported on OpenStudio successes and scholarship before. This time academics and learning designers from the OU were invited to build on findings from our scholarship into OpenStudio to think about developments and improvements to the studio. At the workshop, we reported on…
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Citizenship in the smart city
The suite of smart city standards recently published by the British Standards Institute attempts to legitimise smart city developments by placing citizens at the centre of them. Working with Simon Joss and Youri Dayot from the University of Westminster, I analysed the standards to try to figure out how citizenship might evolve in the smart…
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Lurking and learning at eSTEeM
Today we have presented on the 6th eSTEeM Annual Conference some of the findings from our eSTEeM funded project on student progression in OpenDesignStudio. The bottom line is that you even though you might just ‘lurk’ online, you can learn and succeed in your studies. Simply viewing the work other design students have posted online will…
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A Tale of Research in Smart Cities
The challenge to design the smartest cities has been embraced in most larger UK cities but less is known about how to evaluate and measure the “smartness” of each approach. Smart city programmes are springing up across UK cities, offering solutions for contemporary challenges facing cities associated with population and urbanisation pressures, and bringing opportunities…
