Speculative Futures in Education: using design fiction to suspend disbelief in change

Transcript

1. Speculative Futures in Education using design fiction to suspend disbelief in change Thomas Steele-Maley @steelemaley Active Learning Summit 2015
2. Bruce Sterling on design fiction at NEXT13
3. Design Fiction*- Design fiction is a method of critical design* that uses fictional and narrative scenarios to envision, explain and raise questions about possible futures for design and the society —purposeful —speculative —diegetic (a style of fiction storytelling that presents an interior view of a world —playful —imaginative *Critical Design: This kind of design uses design fiction and speculative design proposals to challenge assumptions, conceptions about the role of objects play in everyday life. *Source: Design Fiction. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_fiction
4. D E S I G N F I C T I O N Piper is a 15 year old who lives in Midcoast Maine, US. A year ago, Piper heard about a new way to learn, and decided to take part in a new learning experience called the Maine Networked Learning Project. Known as “the Mesh” to participants, this learning ecology offered Piper the chance to apply her passion for learning in highly experiential and collaborative ways with groups of young people of varied ages, adult and youth mentors with knowledge territory specialties and organizations focused on ensuring sustainable and resilient societies, economies, and the environment. This is a snapshot of her day. A day in the learning ecology of Piper Hahn Piper gets ready for her weePiper Hahn’s Networked Learning Ecology by sitting outside sipping tea and looking at her smart phone. She is checking project updates sent from the team she has been working with for the last two months on her Google Reader and Twitter feed. The project Piper is checking in on deals with food justice in the rural communities of her bioregion. Seeing many updates, and much activity she decides to look at the overall “mesh” schedule for the day. She notices that the MNLP van will be moving across the local region starting in an hour. To get a ride on this local transportation system she has to ride her bike to a station stop or have her parents drop her off at the regional mesh meet-up location. But before deciding this she reviews her weekly schedule on her mobile. Piper notices that she and three others will be presenting at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars organization to a large group on the history of local food cultivation in the region. She and her Food Justice project group have spent a good deal of time completing ethnographic studies of the areas “locals”. These participant interviews are seminal to their presentation as they show that local sustainability and resilience projects are not “outside” or “rich Peoples” pursuits, but can save local economies and the historical heritage this stakeholder group cherishes. The group has also been working in restoration crews on local farms as a service learning tie in to their studies. The project has been extensive. Piper and her group have covered mathematics, experimental sciences, writing, social sciences and much more in an integrated project framework. They have relied on their mesh mentors, local experts (educators, authors, historians, scientists….), and the internet for research, recording (writing, video) and exhibiting their knowledge and understanding to multiple community stakeholder groups. As the project presentation pre-work is done, Piper contacts her group via twitter hashtag to remind all that they will need an hour to meet-up before the presentation and to ride their bikes to the VAW hall from the meet-up. Immediately she gets a response from three of the four other group members that they will meet prior to the VAW event. They remind each other that a collaborative learning session will be going on for applied algebra and trigonometry concepts at Noon. This session will be special, as an innovative regional planner from rural Scotland will be mentoring at the Self Organized Learning Environment today along with their local quantitative reasoning/systems thinking mentors. She video chats with one participant letting her know that she will be at the SOLE, and is hoping to get a ride to her house (or dorm) after today’s VAW presentation. That done, Piper checks with her parents (or dorm parents) and decides to ride her bike to a mesh station stop. She then rides the mesh van into town and catches up on posts in her Reader and replies to myriad comments and responses in her network on the way. P I P E R H A H N ’ S N E T W O R K E D L E A R N I N G E C O L O G Y Steele-Maley, T. (2011)
5. N E T W O R K E D L E A R N I N G E C O L O G Y U B I Q U I T O U S , M O B I L E , B L E N D E D , P E R S O N A L I Z E D N E T W O R K E D L E A R N E R : I N D I V I D U A L I Z E D L E A R N I N G P L A N B A S E D O N B L E N D E D L E A R N I N G E C O L O G Y: E X P E R I E N T I A L F I E L D W O R K ; E S S E N T I A L S K I L L S D E V E L O P M E N T; A P P L I E D R E S E A R C H ; E X H I B I T I O N S N E T W O R K E D P R O J E C T T E A M S : M U LT I G E N E R AT I O N A L A N D I N T E G R AT I V E R E S E A R C H T E A M S C O L L A B O R AT I N G I N D A I LY, W E E K LY A N D M O N T H LY L E A R N I N G N E T W O R K S L O C A L C O N N E C T I O N M E S H : I N D E P E N D E N T L E A R N E R N E T W O R K S , L E A R N I N G E X C H A N G E L A B S ; E X P E R I E N T I A L L E A R N I N G ; M E E T- U P S ; T R A N S P O RTAT I O N , L E A R N I N G M E N T O R S H I P S ( FA R M , S C I E N C E L A B , P O L I T I C A L O F F I C E , C I T I Z E N S C I E N C E , C R E AT I V E E C O N O M Y G L O B A L C O N N E C T I O N M E S H : F O R M A L / N O N - F O R M A L B L E N D E D V I RT U A L L E A R N I N G C O M M U N I T I E S , N E T W O R K E D L E A R N I N G ( M O B I L E , U B I Q U I T O U S , S O C I A L LY R E L E VA N T, S C H O L A S T I C ) S E L F O R G A N I Z E D L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S I N T E R D E P E N D E N T A C T I O N S : N E T W O R K E D PA RT N E R S H I P S F O R A C T I O N I N S Y S T E M S ( S O C I A L , E C O N O M I C , E N V I R O N M E N TA L B E T T E R M E N T, S O C I A L LY R E L E VA N T A C T I V I T I E S , M U LT I - S I T E D I N T E R N AT I O N A L P R O J E C T C O L L A B O R AT I O N . S O U R C E : S T E E L E - M A L E Y, T. ( 2 0 1 1 )
6. By focussing on the speculative and fictional, design is no longer constrained by the practical reality of todays material and economic restrictions. The part of our curriculum that concentrates on the fictional, pulls important parts of design practice into focus; narrative construction, user interactions, representations of affect, communication and contextualisation. 1. All design for schools is ideological The social, cultural and political basis of those ideologies need to be exposed, interpreted and explored. In DF the ideological drive is laid bare. Deconstructing the economic and political underpinning of design is an essential skill to develop. 2. Fiction as a testing ground for reality As with any practice where contingency is mapped and explored, future ‘scenarios’ lay a framework for possibility…. Adapted from: Sterling, B. (2013, July 21). Design Fiction: Design Teaching with Design Fiction. Retrieved July 13, 2015, from http://www.wired.com/2013/07/design-fiction-design-teaching-with- design-fiction/
7. Four “near future” vignettes to consider. How are we mutating our educational ecologies for these futures?
8. Prototyping a future of education Mini-Workshop Storytelling: Answer the following question as a group. What are the barriers that make creating new educational environments in your schools difficult. (5min) What have been the best and worst experiences you have had creating new initiatives/educational environments in your school? (10 min) Critique: Answer the following question as a group. Vision: Write a design fiction Write a narrative script for the most ideal educational environment you could imagine for students — draw an exaggerated picture of future possibilities. (20 min) Report out, discussion, networking
9. Resources http://fieldnotes.in/search/designfiction http://steelemaley.net/2014/05/26/design-fiction-and-prototyping-disruption/ Super flux (http://www.superflux.in/): “is a collaborative design practice working at the intersection of emerging technologies and everyday life to design for a world in flux.” The Near Future Laboratory (http://nearfuturelaboratory.com/): who’s “goal is to understand how imaginations and hypothesis become materialized to swerve the present into new, more habitable near future worlds.” Arup Forsight (http://www.driversofchange.com/about/): who “research and raise awareness about the major challenges affecting the built environment and their implications. We also run events to help clients think more creatively about the long term future, and to manage risk and uncertainty more effectively.” Design Interaction Program at RCA (http://design-interactions.rca.ac.uk/): who “are interested in the social, cultural and ethical consequences of emerging technologies, and this means asking probing questions through design. To this end, we encourage students to consider the implications, as well as the applications, of new technologies, and thus to seek fresh approaches to interaction design – approaches that are meaningful and relevant today. In short, we see this field of design as a fertile way of thinking about the life around us, within us, and in the future beyond us”.
10. Thomas Steele-Maley Director of Innovation GEMS World Academy—Chicago GEMS Americas @steelemaley