Using Design Challenges in the Classroom 

So far completing the design challenge has been both interesting and at times confusing. I have rather enjoyed using the wiki page as it looks so professional having all the information and steps of the design challenge collated together. It is time consuming uploading everything to the site, however once it’s on I feel a great sense of satisfaction at seeing each step completed. I could see how this sense of accomplishment would be beneficial for students.

 I also like the wiki as it provides students with a permanent collection of work that they can keep and refer back to throughout their education. The main confusing element so far of the design challenge has been to understand which elements of the design challenge I prepare as the teacher and which elements I complete as the student, however Heather has been very good at helping to work this out. This would not be an issue though when teaching students how to complete a design challenge as it would be clearly defined what they had to complete.

I have really enjoyed ‘thinking out the box’ with this task; I have to consider elements of the design cycle that I wouldn't normally come across in my everyday life and work. I have found myself looking at various elements of life in a different way because of what I learnt from this subject. I can see how using design challenges would be beneficial to students as they get to experience that content of digital technologies and design first hand, instead of just learning them via the text and talk method.

The peer feedback aspect of this design challenge has been rather helpful. It is great to know what others think of my design challenge; and it’s also interesting to find out how they personally interpret the challenge. From the feedback I received I was able to tweak my challenge here and there to add more information into the wiki. Using the wiki made this feedback process easy, as you can just access everyone’s challenges very easily to give feedback.   I think I would consider teaching using this wiki method to complete a design challenge in a class room setting as so far I have found no real downsides to it.