#design the brave new world: an owner’s manual
DESCRIPTION
Chapter 5: On mass-education Domus Academy, Milan, 18th September 2014TRANSCRIPT
Anne-Sophie Gauvin, Stefano Mirti
#Design the brave new world: an owner’s manual
Chapter 5. On mass-education
Domus Academy, Milan, 18th September 2014
Last year we came and we presented: “Brave New World, a user’s manual” book.
This year, we focus on one specific theme: how we educate people in the Brave New World.
That is, people like you.
Since last time we met,we made some projects related to education.
At first we did this MOOC (massive on-line open course) called “Design 101”
Then, this February,we launched the “Relational Design” master.
A one-year master class, in collaboration with Abadir Academy of Design and Fine Arts in Catania.
Well, actually, we did a lot of teaching using this platform called “Whoami”.After a lot of try and try over, it is now a format:
we use it quite often and we keep improving it day after day.
Let’s use “Design 101” as a starting point.First, some data for you to understand.
A course of 101 days long.101 video-postcards / 101 pdf-letters / 101 exercises
A modular machine, reiterating itself every day, for 101 days.
Now, some data:
42.895 students enrolled10.025 started the course629 completed it350 asked for the certificate300 submitted works for the final show100 came to berlin to the final show7 came to our summer workshop3 came to our office to do an internship1 remained with us to work
If we think to our MOOC,the big question should be addressed to the students who finished it.
Why did you finish?How could you make it all the way to the end?
Don’t you feel a little bit strange?
If you think that the previous data was astonishing,you ain’t seen nothing yet...
Let’s go through some other interesting data.
How many people? How many hours?How much money does it cost to produce a course like design 101?
Three people producing conceptual content and entertaining the studentsThree people producing visual contentTwo people producing videoclipsOne person editing sounds
Roughly speaking, we are talking about 6000 hours of workIf we pay these people 10 euro per hour, it makes an impressive 60.000 euro overall
iversity gave us 25.000 euro Hence, to play this gig, we lost 35.000 euro from our own pockets.
If we look at the students’ data, our MOOC was a total failure.
If we look at our work (how many people were involved, how much we worked, how much money we lost), it’s even worse.
Why did we do such a thing?Why we are happy?Why are we doing it again this year?Why are we adding a new course?
In the teaser for Design 101, we said that our goal was to set up a community.
We never said we wanted to educate thousands people.We never said we wanted to become rich.We never said we wanted to set up a start up or silly things like that.
We were extremely clear with our intended goal.And this we did.
Let’s talk about the Design 101 community.Again, we give you some data (by now you understood we like data…):
2936 people in our Facebook group6700 likes on our Facebook page1429 followers on Twitter1523 pictures with the #Design1o1 hashtag on Instagram
Altogether, we set up a community of some thousand people (from the close to the loose ones).They like us, we like them, we like each other.They are waiting for our next courses, they want to help us.They want to get involved in what we do.
A community. Of some thousand people.This is quite priceless, isn’t?
How did we manage to set up a community?
We started with a mindset.We had fun and shared our process.
We spent lots of time/love/energy communicating all kinds of Design 101-related things.
Conversations started offline,some were continued online,some started online and continued offline.
Most of the time, fueling us up with energy,sometimes positive, other times negative,over all, making the community growing.
At some point during the course,the students asked us if they could become the teachers for a day.This is what happened on day 98.
Then, there was #blaueblumen,the end of the year show, party, exhibition at designtransfer in Berlin.About 100 students came from all around the world.
And two months later,3 students came to Milan to help us in the office and learn some new tricks.
Together, they made a beautiful archive of Design 101 and worked hard on communicating our summer camp.
Architecture, Between the Sea and the Sky, the online / offline summer camp we did this summer, on Google+ and in Siracusa
Another big project we’ve been working on is the online/offline Master Relational Design. The first edition started in February 2014.
The first edition started on Valentines’ day,but we are now preparing a second edition for January 2015
In January, we will have two masters starting:this second edition of Relational Design and a brand new one called Macchine Pensanti.
Macchine Pensanti (or “Thinking Machines”)is about architecture.
Over one year, the students will build a house together.
For our master programs,we work in modules. 12 modules over a year.
As a general we have,10 modules of 21 days online and 3 days offline, 1 summer camp and 1 winter camp, offline.
When we meet “offline”, it is always in a different place around Italy.
We travel a lot.
We talked about Design 101.We gave you a general idea of our master courses...They are in fact our biggest education-related projects for the moment.
The other ones (either past, present or upcoming...) are collected on our Whoami website.
Every time, every course, every master is an experiment.
Usually, we are very happy,but we are also very tired...
What we’ve learnt so far (1): We are absolute beginners
What we’ve learnt so far (2): To teach very complex things is fairly easy. To teach very simple things is actually quite difficult.
What we’ve learnt so far (3): If using social media while teaching, the class needs to be transformed into a community.
What we’ve learnt so far (4): Teachers are game moderators. They set a frame of work and press play.
What we’ve learnt so far (5): The success of a course is given by the quality and quantity of interactions between the students and teachers.
What we’ve learnt so far (6): We need times for students and teachers to meet in person.
Some useful things for you to know (1):we work on things we really like and we are passionate of
Some useful things for you to know (2): we learn and teach through narratives
Some useful things for you to know (3):we take the complete challenge,
including the financial side
Some useful things for you to know (4):we learn while we do
Some useful things for you to know (5):we learn from mistakes
Some useful things for you to know (6):we go step by step
Some useful things for you to know (7):we iterate improving upon time
Some useful things for you to know (8):we work with the network
Some useful things for you to know (9):we use existing tools
Some useful things for you to know (12):things we do are fun
Thank you for listening!
Now, it’s time to play a game.You will make a mask for yourself.Then, you will make a selfie (wearing the mask),and share your selfie online using this hashtag: #domusmask
Stefano Mirti on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Anne-Sophie Gauvin on Facebook, Instagram