I had a really interesting day today as a guest critic at Art Center’s graduate Media Design Program 2011 thesis review. It was a collection of projects divided into three categories: mediated experiences, exploratory futures, and critical accounts. I’m always fascinated by graduate design projects and the idea of design research. It can be a challenge sometimes, to see the application of the work, but the questions that are raised, and the discussions that happen,…
 
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Just announced are the winners of the Learning Lab Designers category of the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition. The competition is supported by the MacArthur Foundation and administered by HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory). The Digital Media and Learning Competition, now in its third year, is an annual effort designed to find — and to inspire — the most novel uses of new media in support of learning. In May…
 
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In the latest issue of Fast Company magazine there’s a fascinating article, ‘A’ Is for App, on how technology may unleash childhood creativity and transform education.  The article begins with the usual stories about how children, often just a year old, are naturals with the iPhone. Simple yet playful apps help them build vocabulary and learn basic concepts. For example, First Words lets kids move tiles on the screen to spell words, and touch crayons to…
 
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I’m very interested in how we develop the next generation of interactive design talent. Partly because I’ve been both a educator (teaching and developing curricula at Art Center) and an employer (my own studio, Triplecode, and within other firms). And also because my own personal path has covered a wide range of professions. David Malouf wrote a interesting post on Johnny Holland about design education: Interaction Design’s Early Formal Education & Beyond. He starts with…
 
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