Education Summit

Since the Education Summit is about educating the next generation of interaction design students, we wanted to involve those who are currently at the very heart of this topic: the interaction design students of today. Thus eight Design for Interaction master students from Delft explored, in collaboration with their provocateur, each of the four themes through brief interviews with fellow students, educators and practitioners. This resulted in four short movies, voicing their ideas and opinions about a particular theme.

You are invited to join the discussion!

Theme #1 Alternative models of education

Students: Sascha Naji, Stephan Hooft

Recently alternative educational platforms such as edX, Udacity and Interaction-Design.org have started to offer open access to high-level learning materials, challenging traditional institutions such as design schools, to reflect on and possibly reframe their ways of teaching. What is the value of these alternative models of education to such a rich and experiential domain as interaction design? Can they really be a addition or even a substitute for the traditional design studio model?

Theme #2 Design schools vs. Industry

Students: Niké Bruinsma, Jantien Doolaard

Industry is complaining that design schools are not turning out students who have the qualities that are currently needed. Large companies are therefore starting special camps to give these students additional training. One viewpoint of this theme is that these camps came to being due to misunderstandings of the industry as to what an interaction designer is. Industry often sees Interaction Design students as programmers, or something related to it. They think interaction designers make digital things for people’s use, while in reality it is merely about shaping digital things for human use.

Theme #3: Online presence and portfolios

Students: Mike Bond, Suhwa Lee

Presenting their work in meaningful and appealing ways, is becoming increasingly important for design students when competing for a job. What qualities should a good interaction design portfolio have and how are these best presented using online and offline platforms?

Theme #4: (New) forms of apprenticeships

Students: Jonas Bähr, Ilse Blom

What is the current value of apprenticeships? What can industry offer? What can schools offer? What could be new ways to give design students on-the-job experiences?