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Blog by John Hagel reviewing new book, Design in Nature, by Adrian Bejan and J. Peder Zane, looks like it was published in January 2012. As a systems person, this review resonates with me and speaks to what the WLStudio can do to help women redesign their learning systems as well as the currents that flow through their systems. They must avoid others who wish to dictate where and what and how learning opportunities are available to them. Reworded more constructively, women need to design and nuture their own learning opportunities. Excerpts from review: The book introduces us to constructal law: "For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it." The authors caution "that nothing operates in isolation; every flow system is part of a bigger flow system, shaped by and in service to the world around it." "As the title of the book suggests, the constructal law is ultimately a law about design. It determines which designs will survive and thrive over time. The constant interplay between flow and design drives the evolution of flow systems. The design of flow systems must evolve to enhance the flows within the system or they will die." Final excerpt from book review: The bottom line So, what does this mean for all of us? The message is simple and compelling. If we are not enhancing flow, we will be marginalized, both in our personal and professional life. If we want to remain successful and reap the enormous rewards that can be generated from flows, we must continually seek to refine the designs of the systems that we spend time in to ensure that they are ever more effective in sustaining and amplifying flows. As the authors observe, "it is not love or money that makes the world go round but flow and design"

Article by Timothy Stafford, November 2014, eLearn Magazine. Reports on study of 25 instructional designers who had at least three years of experience in p.i. design and one year of implementing social media into their instructional design platforms. Most interesting to me is the equal weight given to 3 learning theories to drive design and very broad definition of social media (which I agree with). Conclusion "Learning is shifting, but in many ways it is the foundations of learning that are having the most profound effect on contemporary instructional designers. Defining social media, digital literacy and learning, knowing, and expertise are only the tip of the iceberg for the future of learning within digital environments."

Emanuella Grinberg reports on Better By Design including offices, hospitals, etc. The office better by design is open spaces that boost creativity and collaboration. The workplaces of the future - and, in many cases, the present - will have fewer high-walled cubicles and private offices. "The good news? Innovative companies with commensurate budgets are creating offices that bring employees together in colorful communal workstations and collaboration areas, making "The Office" look like a monochrome vestige of a bygone era. And, designers are working with companies to maintain private spaces within open offices where employees can drill down on a report or take an important phone call beyond earshot of colleagues. It's part of the "alone but together" philosophy taking hold in office design, which attempts to balance employee collaboration with privacy in an era when personal space is shrinking,"

Good companion piece to the Genius is Dead NYTimes article

Connected Learning, a new research-driven initiative was introduced at the Digital Media and Learning Conference 2012. This blog post by Jackie Gerstein discusses its essence and includes TED video of Henry Jenkins and separate video of Mimi Ito. See excerpt on core values and principals of connected learning: At the core of connected learning are three values: Equity - when educational opportunity is available and accessible to all young people, it elevates the world we all live in. Full Participation - learning environments, communities, and civic life thrive when all members actively engage and contribute. Social connection - learning is meaningful when it is part of valued social relationships and shared practice, culture, and identity (http://connectedlearning.tv/connected-learning-principles). This initiative is being driven by the following design principles: Shared purpose - Connected learning environments are populated with adults and peers who share interests and are contributing to a common purpose. Today's social media and web-based communities provide exceptional opportunities for learners, parents, caring adults, teachers, and peers in diverse and specialized areas of interest to engage in shared projects and inquiry. Cross-generational learning and connection thrives when centered on common interests and goals. Production-centered - Connected learning environments are designed around production, providing tools and opportunities for learners to produce, circulate, curate, and comment on media. Learning that comes from actively creating, making, producing, experimenting, remixing, decoding, and designing, fosters skills and dispositions for lifelong learning and productive contributions to today's rapidly changing work and political conditions. Openly networked - Connected learning environments are designed around networks that link together institutions and groups across various sectors, including popula

HASTAC discussion by badge designers, 10/2012 Note this excerpt: Include badge earners in the design process of your program. Understand their motivation, what drives their involvement, and what they hope to get out of the program you are creating. Consider the diversity of your learners; they are likely to be driven by different goals. Assessment is just as important in a badge-based learning system as it is in more traditional learning environments. In order for badges to have value to the earner and to those who would consider using the badge to impute the skills or competencies of an individual, appropriate assessment practices need to back up the process by which the badge was awarded. Craft a badge system that is flexible enough to accommodate a range of learning styles, motivations and pedagogies. Some contexts call for more proscribed badging opportunities, where experts set up gauntlets which learners pass successfully before earning badges. Other systems call for a more grassroots approach, in which learners set their own goals and pursue less well-defined pathways that get them where they want to go as individuals, with badges in hand to show for their efforts. Creating a badge system that can adapt to a variety of contexts and audiences is a worthy challenge. Break up complex requirements into simpler steps and attach a badge to each step (so the badges act like waypoints on the overall path).

Post by Chris Corrigan on need to build reflection and quiet time for individuals into group designs. November 25, 2013. Nancy White identified this post for me in her blog. ""Please consider integrating some introvert work into your designs. You don't have to worry about the extroverts: while you give the group quiet time, which is giving the introverts permission to reflect inwardly, most extroverts will just go on doing whatever they want to do but the introverts will feel better if you give them permission to reflect. It only has to be a minute of reflection before speaking but it can make a huge difference to the introvert's experience in small group talk.""

Chapter seven on everyday by design by Jennifer Stratton, HASTAC, 7/2013--used in MOOC that Lisa is taking from Cathy Davidson and others.

Great blog on website design--when to know it's done and requires only tweaking/updates by Pamela Wilson, March 2014. Emphasizes basics of home page, about page (which ours doesn't totally conform to), products/services (don't know anymore about how strong it is), and blog (credible job for us, I think).

interesting description of design thinking/creative process

More examples of simple but effective logo designs. I like the use of space in some of them.

article by Simone C. O. Conceicao, July 2014, on designing online learning for learners. Reviews book: Design Alchemy by Roderick Sims. Excerpt "The learner should be engaged in a learning activity at any point in the course. Sims recognizes the need to test assumptions, construct solutions, adjust variables, and/or introduce content within the online environment. "

Catherine Davis outlines 5 simple things to do when designing e-learning for adults with low level literacy skills or for non English speaking adult (ESL) populations. Basically it is: simple interface without bells and whistles; simple short sentences; lots of visuals (infographs) and photos; on-screen text and visuals that support audio - audio is the driver of the pages; provide supplemental full audio transcript

Good to incorporate this into the proposal and brings up the need to investigate using audio and video as much as possible

Nice discussion of email design from Ernie Smith at Associations Now --did not know its complexity until now

tips on website, blog design

blog post by Clark Quinn, September 25, 2012, on transcending experience design "they argued that what was due next was a "transformation economy", where people paid for experiences that change them (in ways that they desire or value).

Reflection blog post by Nancy White on 1.9.13 on her Project Community course that she co-taught at the Hague. Offers many insights including this jewel below on what the learning design must bring together: "The other aspect of the design was to bring three elements together: sense making discussions about the subject matter (synchronously in class and asynchronously on the class website), insights from weekly "guests" shared via 5-10 minute videos (to bring a variety of voices), and action learning through small group experiences and team projects. I know there are strong feelings about team projects, but building collaboration skills was part of the course learning objectives, so this was a "must do." And we spent time talking about the how - -and reflecting on what was and wasn't working as a vector for learning these skills."

Jenny Mackness does it again: making important distinctions between curriculum led and community led learning within MOOCs; and how the balance may change based on successful formation of learning groups within the MOOC. She also asks about the difference between learning design and planning for learning. 1.14.23 on her blog.

Great TED talk on interactive design and why MoMA has acquired and is displaying video games.

Great TED talk and good thoughts about interactive design. Just to spark our thinking about online interaction

Valuable questions to consider when designing or reviewing a logo.

Both the discussion method (Tweet-chat) followed by private reflection and public writing, as well as the topic--design thinking are fascinating to me. Written by David Kelly on April 24, 2012. Is method of learning relevant to WLStudio?