Relearn

learning situations

learning situations

Live notes :  http://osp.titanpad.com/241

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(Un)defining Relearn

Relearn as a prototype for rethinking design education. What are specific questions, topics central to Relearn?

From relearn.be about page:


“This hard- and software represent a technological and cultural heritage that is seldomly questioned”
“A potential that goes unexploited; a more intimate and experimental relation to its toolbox.”
“The culture of free and open source software challenges traditional education paradigms because knowledge is exchanged outside institutional borders, and participants move between roles.”






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Who’s there?





Round table


Redefine what we talk about when we say “education”.

3 main points :
1. Cultural heritage of soft- and hardware is rich but unexplored.
2. Relation to the tools is rich and…

Diane: Use opensource things as a concept is challenging.
The concept of F/LOSS is not accessible enough.
Try to introduce the Open Source concept around design education.

You stick to what you learn during your study.
It’s linked to money questions, making a living, efficiency, etc.
Empowering, not tooling.
To be clear from the beginning.
Learn to learn tools.
Ex. The school (Piet Zwart Institute ) is linked to the student, they learn how to learn tools.
A question of critical mass.
Ok, but free software is not the only way to do this.
Some students come here to learn how they can learn this kind of school to students… (on a professional way).
The founding of the school.
The term “profession” is embedded in the course’s name.
You have to make sure to not scare the students (and the teachers).
Taking them away from their comfortable environment.
If you take them away youre breaking the deal.
Should those questions already be taken into account earlier in the curriculum? Primary school, etc.?

Anne: There is a split between design and art sections at her school.
Ludi: It’s more to give them a different relation with their computers.

How to switch this relationship between those who teach/ those who learn.

Magda: don’t know about role switching, but my relation with the computer is something different.
With high tuition fees: one feels the need to get out of the school with practical skills.
So with regards to learning as an experience versus learning a “product” (programs…) the balance skews towards the latter.

Did that change your relation with the student?
Alex: Here you feel less sollicited. You’re not only the teacher.
Diane: The fact that the organisers were many and that they changed groups and positions helped a lot.
Caroline:  I didn’t get what I was expecting but I liked it. I expected a teacher.  Eg. yesterday no one from the group had knowledge about what we were working on. No one was really the teacher. I expected to learn tools, but it was more learning about myself, about how to teach…
Magda: Actually it was very practical for me.
Thomas: Git is a living metaphore of conflicts that can happen in a group. A meaningful experience of learning.
Steph: Ownership of production by students. Schools are not clear about ownership of students works done in the frame of the curriculum. For some students, the Copyright sign is already there even if they haven’t already finished their work… Teaching free software technology to teach free culture and putting attention on learning situation.

Also linked to the validation system.
It’s important to encourage them to work together and not to only judge on individual results.
In a group dynamics, the place they give to the copyright is quite different.

Christoph: The border between student life and professional life should blur.
Femke:  What is interesting about Free Software coming to school blur the boundaries between professional/experimental in a more constructive way. With Free Software, you keep learning.
Very real questions can bring in more experimental side (school).
Introduce the school, in the open source culture. 
The scope of F/LOSS is also often reduced to Processing, but there is so much other small tools which can be used.

Christoph :Processing, it’s a good beginning. 
Thomas: It’s so clearly laid out and documented, then it’s maybe more accessible for the beginners. 

Can we open the gate? Not just about Free Software, about richness, technicity, complexity?
The imagination of Processing is … (more later, let’s compare with the terminal?)
In the UK no more distinction between academic and professional education.


Discuss “learning situations”


List of the different methods we experimented this week:


A generous utopia


How do you deal with the tension between welcoming people and limiting what is allowed (like “we use only free software”).
Virtual boxes as a way to take away some restrictions?
The rules have to be shared.
A question of commitment.
It becomes more tensed in a “formal” education.
PZI example: everyone installed Gentoo. It was a requirement.
What scale are we talking about. How does it links to validation systems?


Scaling relearn


What/how if we do it again?
Would be a 2 week experience? How can we continue the discussion?
Normally next year would be the last summer school, it’s the end of the residency… but there’s a project to turn the house into a more permanent school.

To be repeated or to be scaled?
You allow yourself to lose control for a week, but probably not for two years.
School: other teachers, people not in line with the ideas. We are isolated.
The expectation and imagination of students are very important.
School as a service. Times are tough. Difficult for students to be generous. Not being valued for that.
How to escape from the anecdotic.
Generosity as the key even if the main message to the student is around shape and individual personality.
It is important to connect to other practices, to other teachers.
This summer school is a gate to enter these questions.
Maieutics: the art of giving birth to ideas.
What reputation can the school gain from using free software?
Question of publishing.

Relearn.be: growing a network of teachers thinking about free sofware and education. Second meeting of it.
Mailing-list is important.
80Column mailing-list.

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