Designing For Learning

2021 has been busy. Working with a widely talented group of educators and designers, we have been working on a multitude of design and development projects. One significant project has focussed on the design of online learning for senior secondary students. The project brief was tricky as these students will engage in this learning while onsite at their learning institute, learning independently from home or completing workplace experience.

A driving vision was to design for learning the ‘hard’ technology skills demanded by industry and developing the soft skills expected by most employers. Industry demands ‘job ready’ students, but our learning design also recognises students’ desire to be independent, curious, express their opinions, ask questions, be creative, and ultimately confident change agents in their world…to make the world better.

We have designed for development of digital skills as well as soft skills such as communication, teamwork, planning and problem solving. These programmes include experiences such as visual design, web page construction, coding, digital art, 3D modelling, social media management, customer service and telecommunications, to name a few. Our work and that of others will allow for mapping against digital credentials.

Here is a creative example, just for fun. This example provokes students to think about the technicalities of designing in the digital world, such as building 3D mesh, blocking, animation, lighting, and the complete design process. They get to see how design teams function and how creative industries work in highly collaborative ways.

We hope that students leave this type of applied learning feeling curious, confident and optimistic about their futures.