In this second blog post I will be critiquing Design Thinking Technology (DTT) and how it can be used to foster student digital creativity and learning.
To understand DTT, it’s important to understand what is meant by the term ‘Design Thinking’. Razzouk & Shute (2012, p. 330) describe Design Thinking as “an analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign”. Henceforth, DTT utilises technology to aid the creative design process. The Interaction Design Foundation (2023) poses that design thinking encompasses 5 key phases which include empathising, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing.
Fig 1.1 (Interaction Design Foundation, 2023)
A great example of a DTT that can foster digital creativity in students is 3D printing technology and software, like SketchUp (accessed here - https://app.sketchup.com/). SketchUp is a user-friendly, 3D modelling application, where starting with basic shapes/forms, users can build almost anything to be printed in 3D (Hoover et al., 2019). Using an application like SketchUp to enhance student learning, would be directly beneficial to achieve Design and Production skills from the NSW K-6 Science and Technology Syllabus (NESA, 2017).
A task for Stage 3 students such as “Using SketchUp.com, design and produce a 3D-printed product that will have the function of holding 10 pens” would help students to achieve Design and Production skills related to the syllabus skills outcome; “ST3-2DP-T; plans and uses materials, tools and equipment to develop solutions for a need or opportunity” as students use tools like SketchUp to design and create 3D-printed pen holder (NESA, 2017).
Fig 1.2 self-produced image to show editing mode in SketchUp from https://app.sketchup.com/
Fig 1.3 An exemplar of a 3D-printed pen holder (resources from https://tutorial45.com/3d-printed-pen-holder-models/)
SketchUp as a DTT in this task allows students to participate in Interaction Design Foundation’ (2023) 5 key phases, where students first try to understand the requirements of the task (empathise), define the goal of the task (define), generate ideas of how they’re going to design their pen holder (ideate), identify the best design (prototype), and finally test whether their design fits the requirements of the task (test).
Ultimately, DTT like SketchUp fosters student creativity as it allows students to engage in creative design tasks through use of the technology to develop a product that fits the requirements of the task.
Whilst 3D printers have many benefits in fostering student creativity, its also important to note that 3D printers may have limitations in education. Some of these limitations include;
3D printers may be expensive – average printers costing approx. $2000+/-
3D printers may be inconvenient – eg. they’re too big, heavy, noisy
3D printing software may be hard for some students to use
Check out this video on how to build a simple wooden pen holder on SketchUp!!!
Check out this video showing awesome pen holder designs being printed by a 3D printer!!!
References
Hoover, C., Brown, A., Tor, B., Sawano, T. (2019). SketchUp Tutorial. UC Santa Cruz.
Interaction Design Foundation (2023). Design Thinking. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking
NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2017). Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus. htps://educatonstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/science/science-and-technology-k-6-new-syllabus
Razzouk, R., & Shute, V. (2012). What is design thinking and why is it important?. Review of educational research, 82(3), 330-348.
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