Learner Centered Design Education

I am treating design as a text - that can be interpreted. Then again I am using design as food. Which can be queried to seek its genealogy, why is it the way it is? Food is culture. Culture is the ways of a people. And here we have a package - a bundle - that can be opened to reveal. Design seen as a bundle - a thing holding secrets - can reveal the cultural construct.

As you can see I could be making a case against design as a functional, utilitarian commodity making enterprise. Design as you will see is not work, and thus is not a thing done in workplaces. It is life itself. Phew!!

Okay if so - then the bundle (bundle again) - has a key that can be used to unpack, and reveal the secrets it holds. In fact I say that there are ten keys that show design to be a constellation of ingredients. There you are - a dish madde up of ingredients. If design is food then the design of different peoples, of different places ought to be distinct. And so it is.

Yes!

Links

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Who is Soumitri: http://soumitri.com.au/

This is a live recording. I will be coming back to this episode, to ruminate and redo. That version is some weeks away.

This is an episode about temperament. In the past I have posted in my blog about the twin essences of Embodiement and Temperament. Are these unique to design? Or am I making a place and a theme that will allow us to pivot away from the cerebral? Yes to Both.

I am making a case that being within design is a gift. That keeps giving. The managerial-isation of design and the worker-isation of the designer is a strong force in contemporary society. But it is possible to harken back, to reclaim and to channel the soul of design. That takes you to a special place.

The links are – further reading on this subject.

Links

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Who is Soumitri: http://soumitri.com.au/

Blog Post on Temperament: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/2021/09/24/temperament-and-embodiement/

Artistic Temperament: https://larrygmaguire.com/artistic-temperament/

Parable of the sunfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish

Slow Movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement_(culture)

Nissan’s Takumi: https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/releases/nissan-s-legendary-takumi-four-master-craftsmen-who-hand-build-every-nissan-gt-r-engine#

Nissan Takumi (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMqRuN7wyvQ

Nissan GTR: https://www.nissan.com.au/about-nissan/news-and-events/news/2021/september/the-performance-icon.html

Driver’s ownership review (Goldd!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN-dqjJjLNU

Potter Simizu Genji (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybb-HhSrtxA&t=738s

Genji Shimizu: http://mingart.de/albums/hokujo/

Nakashima on Pinterest (Faintvoice): https://www.pinterest.com.au/search/my_pins/?q=nakashima&rs=typed&term_meta[]=nakashima%7Ctyped

I was invited to deliver a lecture lecture at a Refresher course organized by HRDC, Panjab University, Chandigarh on the “Two weeks” Refresher Course (Online Mode) from March 12-25, 2022 on the theme:  "Locating the Contours of Indian Modernities: Challenges and Possibilities".

This audio is a recording of my talk.

Tech: The online event was on Google Meet. I used an iPhone next to the laptop as my recording device. The editing was done on Audacity.

The links are – further reading on this subject.

Links

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Who is Soumitri: http://soumitri.com.au/

Youtube Radio Bakri:  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU7nrcTLINER4JSZVmK268tCVeqEnJxo5

Website Natkhat Ritika Project: https://sites.google.com/view/diya-jalayein/home?authuser=0

My First 6 Months Website: https://sites.google.com/view/mf6m/home

Teachers Toolkit: https://sites.google.com/view/teach-toolkit/home

James Tooley Book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Beautiful-Tree-Personal-Educating-Themsleves/dp/193970912

Freire Banking Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_model_of_education

Madras System (Monitorial System): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitorial_System

Intensive mode of teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjb2rzPr5Y4

Block teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYSwlldgYoE

Learning Contract: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/tips-students/self-directed-learning/self-directed-learning-learning-contracts

Sirohi Goat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirohi_goat

This is an episode about enculturation which is both the process of becoming. A process of becoming a designer. With designer tastes and a designer view. I expand on culture, taste, people an places as key aspects of developing a knowledge of ones own process of enculturation.

The links are – further reading on this subject.

Links

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Who is Soumitri: http://soumitri.com.au/

Bringing Home the Birkin by Michael Tonello LINK

Primates of North Avenue by Wednesday Martin LINK

Enculturation: LINK

Rites of Passage LINK

Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu LINK. Plus Youtube Links.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th0eYWnGZ_4

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaRu4g4_lCw

Diego Gambetta: Podcast - https://socialsciencebites.libsyn.com/diego-gambetta-on-signaling-theory and Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFJQ4PIn4vA&t=1153s

The Taste Culture Reader: Experiencing Food and Drink by Carolyn Korsmeyer - https://www.amazon.com.au/Taste-Culture-Reader-Experiencing-Drink/dp/0857856987

Furniture City:

1. Shunde, Foshan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgYWfRhwUZ4

2. Lecong - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvVdMDlZrr0

What is Design? 

Can be answered in any number of ways. While many would like to give you a definition of Design or Industrial Design. I think that would be wrong. For in the process of essentialising the meaning of design - you may end up speaking about something that you want to push. Are definitions by their very nature amenable to be used for propaganda? Why wouldn't you.

Design like a pair of sneakers, is best worn. And not defined.

And just like sneakers. Design can be apprehended. Held in your hand. And design can make you feel good, cool and awesome (choose your option). If design is like food, good to consume. Then why wouldn't you?

If you are a devoted fan of this podcast, then I am feeding your addition. If you are not. A fan. Then go away.

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Who is Soumitri: http://soumitri.com.au/

Adrian Forty Book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Objects-Desire-Society-Adrian-Forty/dp/0500274126

You asked me this question. So, what is Design? This podcast is in response to that question.

NOTE: The audio is not great. Lots of background hiss. Wind? Maybe. Maybe, I should have used a wind sock. But I am starting this thing of experimenting with how I do the audio. Anchor asked me - do you want to upload video? And so I have much bigger issues to think about now.

What is the point of asking this question. It is almost as though we are asking what is food? What is music? Or what is life? Okay. Since the question has been asked it has to be answered. Yes?

I can answer this question because yours ago it was a question that I answered in lots of different ways. I'm an engineer, I'm a designer, I'm a social scientist. There, those are three ways to answer this question. 

Learner centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

I have begun to speak to some young Industrial Designers in Melbourne. I have gained enough confidence with the tech, the Zoom camera, to venture into speaking with other people. And shoving the mic under their nose. I am probably not doing it right. But will keep doing it this way, or else I fear falling into the tech aspiration rabbit hole. I have escaped from the ‘indoors’ tomb like sepulchral silence of the corporate podcasts by being outdoors when I speak. Not quite Attenborough, but chill enough so that I don’t take myself too seriously.

So this is Alex. Another student I have admired and marvelled at. They can be quite amazing, the passions and the journeys of these people one encounters in university life. 

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Alex Tatoulis: https://www.instagram.com/lxt.design/?hl=en

Princes Park Playground, Melbourne: https://www.melbourneplaygrounds.com.au/princes-park-drive-playground-carlton-north#.YfIQ2GBxVB0

I went across to Coburg to have an early morning chat, 8 AM, on a Monday. Tim showed me around Coburg Studios. Then we headed off to Coburg lake to have a chat. 

This podcast is a first in a series of conversations I am having with an assortment of people. 

Tim Denshire Key: https://www.instagram.com/tim_t_design/?hl=en

Coburg Studios: https://www.instagram.com/coburgstudios/?hl=en

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

In my imaginary, I booked a table at a restaurant in Seattle. Canlis? Maybe. I invited Jeff and Larry to a meal. To talk about the coming together of the kinds of things they have been talking about. 

This is an epistolary podcast. I speak to a former student, nay I am badgering a former student (as you do) to collaborate with me. Are not all our students agents in an ecology of the global intellect? Well if they are then the world is a community of mentats. Speaking in tongues. For more on mentats you probably need to check out the Villeneuve version of Dune.

I have been in conversation with many people about the need, nay opportunity, for us to reimagine the world. As a though experiment? Poten tally. But also as a philosophy, an ideology of transformation that imagines a utopia. That is collectively being imagined in pockets. So we collect and fill in the gaps. Doing a form of kintsugi of disparate innovations.

The question, nay nudge, is to imagine people as agents. Who are activated and make their bodies amazing. With or without tech, people have from time immemorial been making their bodies become amazing. In aesthetic ways? Yes. But also is what it can do, such as martial arts and endurance regimes. The hidden text here is the body as a well functioning entity. NOTE that I do not use words - health, illenss and disease - that can divert us for the goal of privileging the primacy of the individual and the collective. Essentially people can do a lot to make themselves more able or to make their ecosystem more conducive to producing good bodily outcomes. Just acknowledging that they do this is a useful step. 

Then to reimagine enterprises - such as tech industry - to align and be supportive of the goals and challenges of people is a cause. A worthwhile project and mission to pursue.

This garbled account in the cold goes some way to open a window into a potential space of exploration.

The Intro? I place the podcast on the beach.

The outro? The sound of me crunching through snow and ice covered ground.

The Second Pancreas Project: https://sites.google.com/view/the-second-pancreas-project/home?authuser=0

Measured Man and Larry Smarr: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/the-measured-man/309018/

What Bezos said in 1998: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/daily/nov98/amazon110898.htm

The Smart Home: Can It Replace Traditional Health Care? Link: https://www.verywellhealth.com/smart-home-and-healthcare-in-the-future-4157938

15 Ways To Improve Your Health Using Technology: https://www.forbes.com/sites/leebelltech/2018/03/26/the-best-health-tech-2017/?sh=145282b438df

The ubiquity of fitness-tracking technology in recent years has meant people are generally becoming more conscious about their health.

Increasing mainstream availability of sensors on wearables such as smartwatches - that are able to give us better feedback about what’s happening in our bodies - means more of us are discovering insights into our health and looking at how we can improve it. But with so many health-improving gizmos on the market, it’s not easy separating those that are truly beneficial from those that are nothing more than a gimmick.

I made this episode after our conversation about Art Schools. It rekindled forgotten memories. I have enjoyed travelling back in time. I haven’t teased out s much of the detail, of all the things that preoccupied me. For I buried my USA and UK period of the 80s underneath a furious Italy period, then my Japanese period and finally a China period. So it is fascinating to travel back this far and remember the spirit of the times - the 80s.

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/which-school/

Design Quarterly Issue: https://go.distance.ncsu.edu/gd203/?p=24570

Michael and Katherine McCoy: https://michaelmccoydesign.com/about/

Cranbrook Academy of Art: https://www.1stdibs.com/introspective-magazine/cranbrook-academy-of-art-since-1932/

Lisa Krohn Telephone: https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18648895/