Author: Nicole Lotz

  • Design thinking to support underserved communities in the North-East of Mexico

    Design thinking to support underserved communities in the North-East of Mexico

    Juan Manuel Fernández Cárdenas and Christina Reynaga-Peña from TEC de Monterrey in Mexico organised a week-long workshop on ‘Reducing marginalisation and promoting inclusive education with the mediation of digital technology’ in February 2018. Here is a summary of the workshop. Over 80 participants, including teachers, teacher trainees, researchers, governmental and non-governmental organisations from the North-East of Mexico, […]

  • Design Museum: what is a good design?

    Design Museum: what is a good design?

    We did a little experiment. What if we organise a visit to the Design Museum (on a grey and rainy February weekend) and everyone from the Design and Innovation Qualification at the OU is invited to come. Who would come and join us? Twenty-five students, 2 tutors and 4 central academics from across the qualification […]

  • Digital Design Learning: Conference Report

    Digital Design Learning: Conference Report

    Food for thought The conference dinner was served in the school’s own ‘Food lab’ by a team of academics and students at KISD – the Cologne International School of Design. The lab is designed to do social experiments, in which food becomes the mediator of conversations and the lab a space for co-creation of products and […]

  • Paper folding

    Paper folding

    I am fascinated by the folding design of pop-up books. I recently bought a pop-up card on a market and out of interested I asked the maker how they do these cards. He said: “I use Photoshop to create the designs and then laser-cut them”. I wondered though if there really was no analogue design process involved at […]

  • Disruptive Innovation Festival: global and all online

    Disruptive Innovation Festival: global and all online

    *** Our very own Emma Dewberry live on the Disruptive Innovation Festival at 10:15 on 10/11/17 talking about Design for Longevity: Business as Unusual*** This year’s Disruptive Innovation Festival, ask: What if we could redesign everything for the circular economy? The festival has been an initiative created by THE ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION together with several partners and is […]

  • How do you draw a circle?

    How do you draw a circle?

    I just stumbled across a great article that analysed how different cultures draw a circle. Give it a try at their page. They found strong arguments that the way you draw circles relates to your cultural context, or to be more precise, to the language and writing system you use. For example, if in your writing […]

  • Digitally engaged learning 2017

    Digitally engaged learning 2017

    The Digitally Engaged Learning – DEL 2017 conference gathered around 100 academics and practitioners at Central St Martins, UAL, to discuss Teaching/Making – Marking/Teaching. http://www.digitallyengagedlearning.net/2017/ The conference was opened by Diana Arce’s (http://visualosmosis.com) powerful appeal to not forget the supremacy of ‘real’ human action and interaction. The digital can and should be used to connect […]

  • Designing interactive distance learning in Nigeria

    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 […]

  • Google Arts & Culture

    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 […]

  • OpenStudio of the Future

    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 […]