Relecting on the design process - week 3

This week I engaged with the "plan" aspect of the design cycle.

Image from http://mypdesign.weebly.com/design-cycle.html

I can see how great this process would be to complete in groups, or even individually then sharing with others. The reason I'm thinking a Vygotsky driven, socially collaborative approach would be valuable here is students could come up with so many ideas by 'bouncing' ideas off one another. Each person brings their own past experiences to the table and have their own levels of creativity. I came up with two ideas on my own for my idea challenge that I think would suit well, but I'm sure a group of school-age children, working together, could have come up with far more. I'm eager to see what feedback I get from my peers to see if they have any other great ideas for my project (creating a sustainable herb garden from recycled materials).

The use of a design matrix was a confusing concept at first, until I simply thought of it as setting criteria for the design by thinking "what does my design need" and "what would be great for my design to have (extras)". This made it easy for me to think of the criteria and is probably a break-down that I will use with school-age children too. Then it was simply a matter of comparing the two designs I had come up with and thinking about how they met each criteria. I then looked at the necessities in my design (the "needs" criteria) to see which design was most suited to the needs of the project. I then made my final decision. Presenting ideas in such a graphic way was great for me as it simplified the decision making process and I think it would also be very beneficial to students for the same reason.

Overall, I found this week's design challenge phase very interesting and helpful for my future design and digital technologies teaching practice.