A few weeks ago I attended the iDMAa conference at Ball State, in Muncie, Indiana. I presented a paper based on the Kinetic and Sequential curriculum I developed over the last year. The course integrates technology education into conceptual learning. I would like to get an idea of how other educator feel about teaching technology. Here is an excerpt from that paper. Please leave me comments, if you have feedback to offer. Thank you.

Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert
iDMAa, 7th Annual Conference at Ball State University
Title: Teaching Interactive Design Prototyping
November 3, 2009

The Status Quo

Contemporary digital technology is constantly evolving. We’ve seen job descriptions grow lengthy, encompassing not just education, craft and design thinking skills, but also describing a hybrid designer with programming comprehension. Such technical advancement particularly affects educators, who often find themselves torn between teaching the mechanics of technology or its theories and ideas. The conundrum: Do they teach the software and its associated programming languages, or do they teach the concepts: user research, usability, wire-framing, interface design and user experience? Quite often, design students suffer the consequences when a choice is made of one over another. Many design schools choose one of the following options:

1. Ignore technology, let students learn on their own, and focus on the concepts
2. Teach technology separate from the concepts
3. Integrate technology education into conceptual learning.

The first strategy is not an option. Ignorance in a growing sector of our field will not propel design schools forward, and only cause our graduates to suffer. They will not be competitive in the work place, knowledgeable in current and innovative practices, and they will not easily secure employment.

The second strategy, separating technical training from the conceptual design courses, allows students to focus on learning the in’s and out’s of a software program. On the surface this option seems like a reasonable strategy to minimize the learning objectives one course must cover, but it is problematic as students learn to use technology in a narrow and pre-determined trajectory, which is limiting as it does not allow for out of the box ideas and exploration. In a recent interview Professor Scott Townsend, of North Carolina State University, stated his concerns “I do wonder if technology can be successfully taught in a way that separates it from meaningful making – as a series of exercises without depth or context. It does work to some extent on a beginning level, but in an advanced mode there has to be some tie to synthesis in a comprehensive project, which leads me to remark on pigeonhole-ing technique courses. The technical instruction needs to be in the major “thinking” or conceptualizing courses, or needs integration on a fundamental level. On a basic level this creates the most common flaw in instruction – theory vs. practice.” (Townsend) What Professor Townsend is pointing out is the necessity of context in design education. When we teach devoid of context we are fail our students. Context points to the specifics: the history, the environment, the needs, the goals and it defines the purpose. A real-world design problem cannot be approached without the identification of these specifics. And if it can, then why have designers at all? We would be stating that all problems can be solved with templates and do it yourself software applications. Context is the essence of what makes design meaningful (and functional) making.

The third strategy, integrated technology education, may be the only acceptable option. It allows educators to teach design concepts within context, and to teach students how to apply learning objectives in real world situations. In the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University, a strategy is being explored that addresses both technology training and interactive conceptual thinking. In our sophomore level Kinetic and Sequential Design class, the concepts and techniques of the language of interaction are co-taught through a framework based on prototyping. Through basic programming of HTML, CSS and ActionScript (used in Flash and Dreamweaver), students create reflective, interactive artifacts.

This paper is meant to open up a dialogue by discussing a framework that describes how design educators can teach technology and software through knowledge gathering and the production of research based artifacts. By using Jesse James Garret’s Elements of User Experience, our course educates students on researching strategies such as mapping, sketching, ethnographic research methods, and ultimately prototyping to understand both the technical and conceptual processes of designing interactive products.

If you would like to read more, let me know. I will email you the paper.

©2009 / Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert / Flyingtype.com / grinnert@flyingtype.com