A lunchtime seminar for Baltimore County technology education teachers (Tuesday 18th July). I gave an overview of D&T education in the UK, and discussed the value of D&T. We ran out of time for the design fiction section. The visit was funded by the UCET Travel scholarship (http://www.ucet.ac.uk/scholarships). Many thanks to the UK based D&T teachers who shared photos of their D&T classrooms.

1. Design and Technology
Classrooms & curriculum
Values
Design fiction
@hardy_alison

2. Design & Technology in England

3. 19 July 2017 3
Context

4. 19 July 2017 4

5. D&T classrooms
Mary Erskine School -
Edinburgh
Dave Bausor – Ely College

6. D&T classrooms
Sion Huw - Ysgol Glan Clwyd,
St Asaph
Philip Cotton - Ladybridge
High School, Bolton

7. D&T classrooms
Jo Chigley
Jerry Marsh - Brimsham Green
school

8. Ed Dooley
Moreton School, Wolverhampton
Suzie McNulty
Noadswood School, Southampton

9. Design fiction: three stages
• http://crapfutures.tumblr.com/post/150957611069/three-stages-of-design-fiction-
energy-futures
• ‘Design fiction starts with the story world and the artefacts follow’
Stage 1: Establishing the coordinates of reality
Stage 2: Creating a fictional story world with a
new set of constraints
Stage 3: Designing in the fictional world

10. Stage 1: Establishing the coordinates of reality
Understanding the non-story world
• What is the theme of the project?
• Factors informing the coordinates
are:
• Political,
• Economic
• Ecological
• Material
• Behavioural
• Historical
• Social
• Defining the key issues of the
project

11. Stage 2:Creating a fictional story world with a
new set of constraints
Creating the story world:
• Extrapolating existing product lineages by the promise
of and emerging technology and contemporary trend
• Counterfactuals is another approach or an alternative
world. ‘What if …?’
• Imagining a reconstruction of society and human
behaviour
• Plausibility is key – this is not science fiction

12. Stage 3: Designing in the fictional world
• New constraints, new possibilities
• The fictional world has been constructed in sufficient detail – it can
now become a testing ground for new ideas and approaches
• Opportunities for prototyping in different ways:
• Tangible concepts function in specific real locations
• Speculative concepts are tested in the storyworld
• Imagining and giving shape to preferred futures

13. Why do we teach D&T?
• Our values inform our behaviour and attitudes
• Understanding our own and each others values helps with building
community