This document discusses design in education through several examples and programs. It describes (1) how design can transform learning by making it more interactive, participatory, problem-solving and hands-on rather than textbook-focused. (2) Programs like One Laptop per Child, Scratch, and PicoCrickets that use design and technology to engage children in their education. (3) How the Exploratorium museum employs hands-on exhibits mixing science and art to promote informal education.

1. “Design is in everything we make, but it’s also between those
things. It’s a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda,
and philosophy.”
— Erik Adigard

2. “Chalk and Talk”
Elements of traditional teaching:
• Classroom
• Textbook
• Teacher
• Examinations
• Homework
• Tutorial- Unidirectional
• Subject specific

3. Integrative Learning

4. Why Design?
• Interactivity
• Participatory
• Relevance
• Problem solving
• Applications
• Play
• Innovative learning tools
• “The Learning Experience”
Tranforming approaches to learning:
• ‘Yes’ to ‘Why’
Agastya is a Science Education programme.
• ‘Looking’ to ‘Observing’ Goals: To create an education dissemination
model- cost-effective, scalable and replicable
• ‘Passiveness’ to ‘Exploring’
in India and elsewhere.
• ‘Textbook-bound’ to ‘Hands-on’
• ‘Fear’ to ‘Confidence’

5. Design in Education | One Laptop Per Child
To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children
by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected
laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful,
self-empowered learning.
When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in
their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They
become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project- In 2002, MIT
Professor Nicholas Negroponte experienced first-hand how connected
laptops transformed the lives of children and their families in a remote
Cambodian village.
A seed was planted: If every child in the world had access to a
computer, what potential could be unlocked? What problems could be
solved? These questions eventually led to the foundation of One Laptop
per Child.

6. Design in Education | Return to Happiness
UNICEF’s Return to Happiness program is a psycho-affective recovery
program for children who have experienced the trauma of natural
disasters or armed conflict.
The program employs the strategies of play therapy and creative arts
to encourage children to express their concerns, fears, anxieties, and
other emotions related to their experiences during and following a
disaster.
Adolescent volunteers work with children ages 6-12 in small groups,
using program materials, such as puppets, cloth dolls, wooden toys,
arts and crafts, and storytelling.

7. Design in Education | Scratch & PicoCrickets
SCRATCH
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create
your own interactive stories, games, and animations – and share your
creations with others on the web. Scratch has a very simple interface
and instructions.
PICOCRICKETS
An interactive platform where you can create playful inventions. A
PicoCricket is a tiny computer that can make things spin, light up, and
play music. You can plug lights, motors, sensors, and other devices into
a PicoCricket, then program them to react, interact, and communicate.

8. Design in Education | Exploratorium
The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco full of hundreds of
hands-on exhibits, most of them made onsite, that mix science and art.
It also aims to promote museums as informal education centers.
Founded in 1969 by the noted physicist and educator Dr. Frank
Oppenheimer, the Exploratorium offers visitors a variety of ways—
including exhibits, webcasts, websites and events—to explore and
understand the world around them.
The Exploratorium’s museum floor is the public face of the
Exploratorium, a laboratory for the research and development
of innovations in exhibits for exploring science, art, and human
perception.

9. Agents of Change | Introduction
In Pavagada taluk of Karnataka, fluoride is endemic in groundwater
and way above permissible. In partnership with the Rainwater Club and
an NGO called BIRD-K they are building rainwater harvesting tanks in 6
schools. This harvested rainwater will provide the school children with
fluoride free drinking water for the time they are in school.
Unavailability of clean water also affects the health and sanitation
conditions in this area, which is abysmal. Addressing this, along with
providing clean water is a big need.
• These tanks hold enough water for 150 days of the year and can
provide just about 1litre per child during these days.
• Conserve it while not compromising on their personal health and
hygiene
• Since it is only now that they are exposed to clean drinking water, it
cannot be a direct ‘use less water’ message. It needs to be a subtle
nudge that reminds them of what they should do.

10. Agents of Change | Needs, Problems & Goals
• Awareness
• Access to information and resources
• Behavioural change- Nudges (not direct)
• Education & making learning practical
• Facilities, Hygiene promotion
• Introducing the needed tools/appropriate technology
• Making learning practical and fun
• Community coming together
• Feeling a sense of ownership (Failed projects)
Overarching Goal:
To bring about behavioral change and awareness by engaging students
in this affected areas in a participatory mode to address the idea of
WATSAN by introducing them to appropriate technology. I wanted to
build some devices/toys with them so that they can carry this forward
and experiment with it in the different environments that they are
exposed to.

11. Agents of Change | Workshops - Associations
An activity to see what the students associate with water. Their
perceptions of the water they are exposed to and how much they know
about it and what they feel their immediate needs are.
• Rainwater being harvested properly
• Water tankers should supply near school
• Daily supply of water at home from taps
• Taps in bathrooms
• Plenty of water for farming
• Drinking water for patients in the hospitals
• Drinking water near bus stops and railway station.
• Clean water for drinking
• Water for the cattle
Assumptions & Insights

12. Agents of Change | Workshops - Translating
• Triggers presentation- discussion followed
• Flash cards that each have one icon related to health or hygiene.
I showed them those cards and they raised their hand to tell me how
many of them actually follow those practices that are essential.
Then, we went around the campus and stuck these cards in the places
they belong in. (Hand washing with soap near their tank, boiling water
before drinking near the pots they store water in, etc.)

13. Agents of Change | Workshops - Making
To create little nudges from the associations obtained in the previous
exercises through a playful mode.
This device is something that these children can carry with them,
anywhere they go, specifically to the open loos that they use. It makes
hand-washing and easier and fun task for them to follow.
An activity to show them a cause and effect action using water test vials
and introduce them to the Bio-Sand filter.
Introducing them to AT like this, something that they can make and see
the effects for themselves was a good experience. They said they had
been studying about sand filters since 5th standard, but had never made
one, even though it was so easy to make it.

14. Agents of Change | Systems Diagram
. Supply the village . Train people
with basic, essential . Run awareness Facilities-
GREEN SCHOOL GOVERNMENT
facilities. programmes
. Regular health . Hire locals
check-ups . Invest funds in the
. Host Awareness most required areas. POLICIES
programmes . Follow up once EDUCATION
. Make sure the tanks systems built
are maintained even . Involve community
after built. Their job in their work
SCHOOL
doesn’t end there.
. Increase student- NGOs/
teacher ratio. ORGANAZATIONS STAKE-HOLDERS ENVIRONMENT
. Teachers should be
more in number,
aware and be willing
to participate in GOVERNMENT
awareness projects
and pass this on to SANITATION
the children. NATION/WORLD
. Should encourage SCHOOL/ WIDE
participation of ADMINISTRATION
community and COMMUNITY
practical learning
COMMUNITY
WATER
. Involved in their
CHILDREN
children’s activities AWARENESS
and curriculum
. Could be involved in
Child Adults
public/art projects CHILDREN Pressure Could lead to
. Attend awareness Facilitator Decison makers
Child . Bring about behavioural
programmes BEHAVIOURAL chance by indirect nudges
. Get to know through
. Making problem (water) more fun. CHANGE and not by directly putting the
agents of change and
. Introducing practical
FLUORIDE problems to them.
spread it to other
learning-enabling behavioural change . It is just a possibility and part
villages.
. Doing this by emotional connect. of a larger goal. It will be great
. Change practices at Solution
. Making, Doing and Personalizing . Making uoride ‘visible’ to them if it happens in the fun process
home for the better
. Connecting to the object/ . Making them aware of its bad e ects of learning and doing.
feeling a sense of ownership RAIN WATER and tell them what to do about it . We need to see changes in
. Getting something to be part of their . Awareness on RWH tanks children as well as adults in
lives or routine . How does the tank work? their WATSAN practices.
. How does one maintain it?
. Being part of the building/painting
process so that they feel like they
contributed- hence a sense of ownership
. Them feeling rain water is ‘safe’ and
‘clean’ so that they will drink it

15. Agents of Change | Directions
• Activities involving the larger community SANITATION testing kit for
.Using the uoride
activities
• Teacher-student involvement . Making this kit fun for the
students- child friendly
. Easy to handle and understand
• Fluoride kits, publication package . Make the students test all sorts
of water samples- informal way of
data collection
• Increasing the sense of ownership . Involve the teachers in the
activity and community if possible
NATION/WORLD
WIDE
• Personalising COMMUNITY
WATER
CHILDREN
AWARENESS
Child Adults
CHILDREN Pressure Could lead to
Facilitator Decison makers
Child . Bring about behavioural
BEHAVIOURAL chance by indirect nudges
. Making problem (water) more fun. CHANGE and not by directly putting the
. Introducing practical
FLUORIDE problems to them.
learning-enabling behavioural change . It is just a possibility and part
. Doing this by emotional connect. of a larger goal. It will be great
Solution
. Making, Doing and Personalizing . Making uoride ‘visible’ to them if it happens in the fun process
. Connecting to the object/ . Making them aware of its bad e ects of learning and doing.
feeling a sense of ownership RAIN WATER and tell them what to do about it . We need to see changes in
. Getting something to be part of their . Awareness on RWH tanks children as well as adults in
lives or routine . How does the tank work? their WATSAN practices.
. How does one maintain it?
. Being part of the building/painting
A book/booklet for facilitators and This could be done by process so that they feel like they
NGOs on practical learning and . Painting water tanks contributed- hence a sense of ownership . Being part of building the tanks
how to make awareness like this . Testing water from di erent . Them feeling rain water is ‘safe’ and . Water in-let or out-let acting as
more fun for the students and sources for uoride ‘clean’ so that they will drink it a nudge
community. Workshops- what will . Treasure hunt/walking around . Making maintainance of the tank
work and what doesn’t and what and leaving marks of awareness a personal or a communal a air
can improve. or messages of awareness . Coming together and painting
. Using ‘touch points’ to create the tanks
Art installations or nuges set interest/nuges- water pumps, . Experiments on e ects
up near all the water bodies tanks, bottles, pots etc. of uoride that can be shown
in the village to attract the larger . Testing samples of water for
community. uoride and leaving a mark

16. It All Adds Up | The Project
The Brief:
To help children explore basic mathematics and play with numbers
using interactive storytelling. Using new media technologies to
enhance communication, to reach good cognitive goals, to increase the
students’ attention, and to make the learning process more interactive.
Target Audience:
9-12 year olds.
Goal:
• Creating a platform for an unconventional engagement with
mathematics- An interactive experience.
• The approach is not through the immediate school curricula, but in
exploring the concepts and applications of the subject.
• Teaching through storytelling and scenarios.
• Children are naturally curious about everyday problems; therefore
using this aspect to introduce mathematics with a “problem-solving”
approach.

17. It All Adds Up | Need
“Any poet, even the most allergic to mathematics, has to count up to
twelve in order to compose an alexandrine.”
— Raymond Queneau
Mathematics is more than the rules and operations we learnt at school.
It is about connections and seeing relationships in everything we do.
Efforts to reform mathematics education are under way, but they
have not reached many classrooms in the country. While some math
teachers are emphasizing thinking and problem solving, many students
still experience mathematics that is dominated by memorization and
drill, without any meaningful context.
Surveys conducted in different schools in
If most schools continue to do more of what they’ve always done, they’ll Bangalore
continue to produce too many students uninterested and unmotivated
to study mathematics beyond high school.

18. It All Adds Up | Educational Uses of Technology
• Children nowadays have grown up digitally. To them , technology is a
part of their natural world
• Teachers think technology can be used everywhere, except the
classroom. They have no understanding of the way technology can be
used in the classroom, and transforming education from last century
into 21st century education.
• Media allows children to be creators and producers. Allows them to The Re.Math Project: Using new media to
think and analyze. Allow them to talk to people everywhere. create interactive games
• Allow teachers to play with technology, to create a learning
landscape- The way in which they use technology to help children
learn, understand, explore.
• Change learning into seeing information, and changing it into
knowledge that becomes personalized
• Children can begin to make decisions, ask questions and begin to
explore, hence becoming an active participant in his/her own learning. Siftables- A tangible user interface: Electronic
tiles that can be used to add, subtract, com-
pose and create

19. It All Adds Up | Brainstorming
TARGET AUDIENCE
Children: 9-12 yrs
High interest material needs
Who think Math is no fun CONTENT
Who think Math is fun, but are What? How?
not effective problem solvers Numbers Storytelling
Who don’t see the purpose for Sets Puzzles/Riddles
the Math skills they learn Measurement Abstract
Money
Time
Probability
IT ALL ADDS UP Patterns
Fractions
Decimals
RESEARCH Percentages
What? How? Ratio Proportion
Traditional out-of- Study Children’s books Data Handling
textbook methods Study course curriculum Basic Geometry
Mathematical Games Interview questions, survey
Teaching and Talk to teachers and students
Learning tools Talk to people working on
The psychology of similar projects FORM
numbers, number Spend a day in a Math Class
sense Books, Internet How? What?
New Media in TED talks Tactile Interactive book
enhancing learning Digital Game-Digital+Tactile
Dynamic Game in a space (New media)
Interactive Objects (Mats, tables, cube)
Engaging New Media
Play

20. My Toy Factory | The Project
The project involves working with children, encouraging them to build
simple toys themselves and teaching mathematical/scientific etc.
concepts through the toys.
• “Make your own toys” ideology – Arvind Gupta
• Materials : Reuse your everyday junk.
• DIY
• Problem solving
• Applications
• Storytelling and Play

21. My Toy Factory | Do It Yourself
• An “out of textbook” system which can be taken anywhere and
initiated by anyone.
• The element of interactivity where the child is able to relate to
something better because of building it from scratch. A more hands-
on, learning through doing approach.
• The availability of science through toys to children at no cost.
• Introducing children to a more DIY culture possibly making them
more independent while learning. Adding the element of play.
• less of an extra curricular / co-curricular activity and more a part of
their everyday lives.
• Encouragement for the “young inventor” in children to create from
scratch something they have thought up completely themselves.
• Reinforcing the fun and satisfaction in working with tactile materials.

22. My Toy Factory | Play
Of all animal species, humans are the biggest players of all. We are
built to play and built through play. When we play, we are engaged in
the purest expression of our humanity, the truest expression of our
individuality. Is it any wonder that often the times we feel most alive,
those that make up our best memories, are moments of play?
—Stuart Brown

23. “Reform is no use anymore, because that’s simply improving a
broken model. What we need - and the word’s been used many
times during the course of the past few days - is not evolution,
but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into
something else.”
— Sir Ken Robinson