WEx Designing for an open, collaborative process
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•701 views
This presentation with the opening talk to the Working Examples series at the 2013 Games + Learning + Society conference.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to WEx Designing for an open, collaborative process
Similar to WEx Designing for an open, collaborative process (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
WEx Designing for an open, collaborative process
- 2. Anna Roberts @wranglecreative Jolene Zywica @jolenezywica Drew Davidson @waxebb Jim Gee @jamespaulgee
- 4. Collectively, you are part of a larger design process
- 5. You are all designers!
- 6. Good design is… a mindset intentional
- 7. Our work happens in isolation
- 8. Share work in progress & Build on each other’s ideas
- 9. Elizabeth Forward School District
- 11. We forget about the big picture
- 13. Research, design and practice are disconnected
- 14. Create a larger vision Respect each other Seek understanding
- 17. Academic publishing is slow, expensive & restrictive
- 18. Working Examples was designed for this stuff!
- 19. Creates a diverse community Helps us think through process Lets us learn from each other Is an open access space
- 20. It all depends on YOU
- 21. The WEx Kick-off Challenge AKA The ‘Make a Really Awesome Example’ Challenge More info at: www.workingexamples.org/blog
Editor's Notes
- ANNA:Hi thanks for joining us today
- We are the Working Examples team… Anna Roberts – director; Jolene Zywica - community manager; Drew Davidson & Jim Gee - the masterminds behind this project
- Working Examples is a community that brings together researchers, designers, educators and anyone else working at the intersection of education and technology. It is a vehicle for ideating and building radical innovations that can change education - through sharing working, collaborating and learning from each other.
- It has been amazing to be at GLS this week because all of those disciplines are represented here and we’ve been able to hear so many different perspectives. And you all are an excited, innovative, risk-taking bunch of people who have been really inspiring to talk to. Each of you is contributing to the creation of learning experiences. You are alsopart of a larger design process – one that runs from research all the way to something being implemented in a classroom or other learning space
- You don’t have to draw to be creative or to have a HUGE impact on the creative process. I’m going to show a quick video from IDEO – one of the most innovative companies in the world – about what a designer is… Video: https://vimeo.com/46067111
- Good design is a mindset, it’s intentional. And Working Examples is built with design practice in mind. Butas a field, our collective design process isn’t working very well. All of us need to think of ourselves as part of a larger design process. So we’re going to talk about four things that are roadblocks to impactful design in this field. I’ve heard each of these things mentioned in other presentations this week…
- JOLENE: The first problem is that our work often happens in isolation. It’s hard because…1) We live in a world built on old traditions of keeping work and ideas secret. 2) We still compete for funding and recognition through publications. 3) We aren’t always sure how to share our ideas and work in progress in meaningful ways.I’m always amazed at conferences – so many people doing great work that is so similar. How much better could our ideas be if we shared our process and built off of each other’s ideas?
- To make something truly innovative and useful in an efficient manner, we need to share work in progress and build off each other’s ideas.
- One example of an organization not working in isolation is Elizabeth Forward School District (EFSD), a district in SW Pennsylvania. They’ve worked with various organizations (i.e. ETC, ASU, Dept. of Defense, Apple) to design spaces in their schools and provide unique learning experiences for students. They are a model of success.
- WEx facilitates sharing work in progress. One way to do this is through updates, which work just like blog posts. You can reach out and engage with the community.
- DREW:It’s easy to forget about the context in which we’re doing our work. But taking a pause at the beginning of your work to define the landscape can make a big difference in the impact your work has. Asking questions like: Who might use your product? And how will it get to them? How it might be successfully implemented? What is the problem you’re trying to address and why is your work important to solving that problem? These all take the focus off of you and your idea and put it on the impact that your work can potentially have.
- Working Examples provides questions at each stage of a project that help you think through these big ideas. The questions are developed based on best practices from design and business strategy, and are designed to help you be thoughtful and make sure you’re asking yourself the right questions at each stage of your project.
- ANNA: Research, design and practice are disconnected. This is kind of one of my geek-out zones, because I really believe strongly in what can happen when these people get connected together. Working with other disciplines is HARD(I got a masters in it and I still think it’s super challenging). So we don’t make an effort to do it.Youhave to find people that can meaningful contribute to your project, which means doing research and outreach to (most likely) strangers. Workingtogether, we speak different really languages, which can cause all of problems (e.g. development)Indeveloping WEx, I made conscious effort to have a very multidisciplinary process. And it was amazing how we would get stuck on the littlest things. For example, our developer and I kept talking about ‘development’ and it was clear that even though we both thought we understood each other, we were totally missing the boat. So I finally said, ‘when I say development…’ So yeah, there’s lots of barriers to this happening, but pay offs are HUGE and so important. All the experts say it is vital to making really innovative things.
- A few tips: just as people working together, it takes commitment and valuing the experience that the others are bringing to the table. You all kind of have to suspend disbelief, 1) get behind the larger vision of what you’re trying to create, 2) respect each other as experts, and 3) agree to work hard to understand each other (even when that’s hard)
- Beyond the messy personal stuff…WEx provides arecommendation engine is built to push people/work to you that you might find interesting. This is based off the tags that you put in your profile and your examples and attempts to move a few nodes out in your social network to connect you with people who are doing work that might be interesting to you.
- Within each example and group, there’s a Workspace that let’s people connect with each other. We use it in our team to track the high level strategy of the project.
- JIM
- JOLENE: WEx was designed to address these four problems!
- Itcreates a diverse community of practice so we aren’t working in isolation.It helps you think through process so you don’t forget about the big picture. It allows us to learn from each other, so we can better connect. And it’s an open access open science platform that can serve as an alternative medium for sharing the important ideas we have and work we do.
- But for all these things to happen we need YOU to engage and make this community what you want it to be. It won’t work without you.Be intentional.Share work.Reflect on process.Start a conversation.
- To help inspire you we are super excited to host a Kick-off challenge. Check out our blog for more information. You could win up to $6000. We look forward to seeing your ideas and engaging with you online.