Week 7

This week was the final stage of our design thinking project. The name of the phase was; Evolution/iterate/ delivery & evaluate. Our project has evolved a lot over the past few weeks and before we went into the school, Kim, Goretti and I met up to discuss the elements that we would like to present on the day and how we would do this. 

We decided to do this simply, not using our basic prototype, but by using images and a presentation (link to our prezi here), along with some physical examples to present our idea to the pupils and teachers at Stengard Skole. This blog will outline what this presentation entailed, and the key ideas that we put forward to the small groups of students in the library of the school.

As i have previously explained in my blogs, we decided to focus on the hallway space in the school and how this could be improved as it is used a lot in the school for many different purposes. At the start of our presentation we told the pupils the information we had gathered on our first visit, and what we thought needed to be done. Most of them nodded in agreement when we mentioned the distracting, crowded space in the hallways, which we saw as a good sign. 

We told them that we had decided that for our project we would like to find a way to change the hallway, to make it a multi functional space for all children to use, whether this is for individual study, group work or relaxing during breaks. We showed the children and teachers our ideas, some easier to implement than others, that could be put in place by the school to maximize the functionality of these spaces across the school. 

These final ideas that we showcased were;

*movable walls; so that children can change spaces from group spaces to spaces for individual work. These can be used during group work or for display purposes (using post-its, notes, posters etc) They are flexible, can put them in the corner or against the wall. They can be used to change a space quickly and easily, with little cost.

*curtains; can be used to change the function of a space quickly and easy. We suggested that pupils can use old curtains or use fabric to make their own curtains.

*flags/signs; signs to show what the noise level should be in an area, or what type of space it is. We showed simple examples of these signs - a 'SHH, quiet area sign - and flags - red for no noise, green for noise allowed. We explained that again these signs and flags could be made by the children. 

*study tent; an alternative idea for an area for individual study/reading space. we explained that this could be used for either recreational time or study.

*An idea we had for the younger children was to have an area in the hallway where they can build their own study spaces, whether this is on the ground using cardboard boxes, or between tables using Lego pieces.

Our main aims for the project, which we stated at the end of our presentation were;

*recycling - we hope that most of the resources can me made from recycled materials
*self-made - some of the resources can be made in class by the pupils
*responsibility - having involvement in the process will hopefully help the children to take responsibility for the space and respect the rules
*flexible - easily changed to create multi-functional spaces

We made several small presentations to groups throughout the afternoon and received feedback from both students and teachers. It was as follows;

- Lego blocks for young children might be a distraction

- Was there a budget in mind for the movable walls? Would these be expensive?

- The recycling is a good idea as it cuts down costs and is good for the environment

- Students could make things like curtains or walls as they have a class in school which teaches practical skills like sewing and woodwork

- children will have more respect for the rules and obey the signs if they played a part in making them or coming up with the rules.

- flags for noise level or different areas could also be good in the library

This feedback was encouraging to us, and gave us some points to think about as we looked at the project to evaluate it. We are hoping that the school will take some of our ideas and implement them in the hallways to create a better learning and recreational environment for the children.

Week 6

After completing the first 3 phases of our design thinking project over the past few weeks, we moved on this week to phase 4. This phase was entitled 'experimentation and prototype', and enabled us to bring our ideas alive and present them to the rest of our class. I looked forward to this phase as i knew we had a few good ideas and wanted to see how they would materialize.

We began the class by using an online tool called "Padlet", a website where everyone in the class could post notelets of their thoughts or quotes from their blogs. These individual posts would all appear on the screen so that we would be able to view them all and discuss with a partner.

After this, we took the drawings from last week of our individual ideas and stuck them to the wall of the classroom with a blank sheet of paper below it. We each wrote our comments on the ideas and then chose one to use. we decided that we liked different parts of each idea, so compiled the final one by using aspects from each. We then used Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats to look at our idea and think about each aspect and how we feel about it. 

Once we had a concrete idea, we had half an hour to create a basic prototype explaining the concept and present this to the class. Kim, Goretti and I used a cardboard box, tin foil, plastic cups, and tissue paper to create a working prototype of our multifunctional hallway. We presented this to the class and were able to demonstrate how the idea would be put in place in the school. 

As we presented our idea, the rest of the class were jotting down things that they liked, ideas they had, questions they had and wishes for our idea. They stuck these on a grid and we were able to evaluate and change our idea using this feedback, in order to make a new prototype and presentation to take to the school this week.

I felt that this phase was the most helpful and productive so far and I enjoyed the class.

Week 5

In class this week we began by looking back at last weeks processes of innovation, and the first two phases of our project. We narrowed down the main concepts to two or three and pitched these to the class so that they could give us feedback in the form of a vote, to give us an idea of which concept to carry forward into an idea.

When we had done this, it was time to move on to the ideation phase of the project. We did a quick exercise outside to get us ready for this, where we went for a walk with a partner and came up with some crazy ideas of what we would take for a trip to the moon. The point was that no idea was a bad idea, and that we should encourage any idea. This led on to some ideas about our own project, our group decided to look more closely at the concept of creating multifunctional spaces for use outside the classroom, and we came up with a lot of crazy ideas e.g. Study caves, hammocks for free time, and a graffiti wall! These were among some more realistic ideas, and we continue the ideation process by sorting all of our ideas into how difficult they would be to carry out, and how many people they would help. 

Individually, we then looked at the array of ideas on the desk and drew what we visualised as the product or solution we would eventually create. These all turned out very differently, but it was good to see how everyone saw our final project.

This weeks class was an interesting one, as we began to see how each person in our group worked and the different ideas of innovation they had. I think some of the ideation processes worked well like the walk on the mood activity, but some seemed a little far-fetched, and I struggled to get into the right frame of mind during these activities. However, our final sketches showed that these were worthwhile and helped us during this ideation process.