Chapter+8

** Designing with Technologies ** ​ Summary:
 * Describes 4 areas where use of technology and design activities can enhance learning in a constructivist fashion: Drawing designs with computer-aided design software; Testing designs and building metal models with simulation software; Developing programming skills while designing in the media arts; Designing music with composition software.
 * Demonstrates how design can be used in classrooms to motivate students, teach 21st century skills, facilitate learning that has a real world context, and create activities that require students to look deeper and consider a multitude of possible outcomes.
 * Describes real examples of teachers and students using technology to design a variety of different projects and outlines the benefits of these learning activities.

​  Significant Quotations:
 * "Design problems are among the most complex and ill structured of all problems" (p. 170)
 * "Despite the often-stated goal of finding an optimal solutionthat meets multiple criteria within determined constraints, real-world design problems usually have vaguely defined or unclear goals with unstated constraints. They possess multiple solutions rather than a single 'right' answer..." (p. 170)
 * One of the challenges of using design tasks in classrooms is that many students are not skilled at converting their conceptions into usable graphics that can then be examined and developed further" (p. 171)
 * "One such feature-limited yet powerful CAD program, //Pro/DESKTOP//...is based on their 'industrial grade' //Pro/ENGINEERING Wildfire// program. Schools benefit from this arrangement by having Windows-based //Pro/DESKTOP// available for students' use at no cost, while the software producer benefits when students, weaned on their products, hit the job market and as new employees show higher rates of productivity using the CAD program on which they cut their teeth" (p. 172)
 * "Students can use the simluator to run a large number of experiments in one or two class periods" (p. 178)
 * "They key to [//Impromtu//]'s approach, seen earlier in Logo and subsequently in //Scratch//, lies in how it has users -primarily school aged or older -work with musical 'chunks,' or groups of musical sounds, rather than individual notes on a five-line score when constructing a musical piece. This enables users to grasp the composition more as a conceptual whole, as it contains far fewer parts, and each part has its own familiar sense and meaning" (p. 185)
 * "Design is not the panacea to all of education's ills, but it is one additional tool for teachers that can give an added measure of meaning to work done in the classrooms" (p. 187)

Probing Questions 
 * <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">How can utilizing design create cross-curricular connections for teachers and students?
 * <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">How do we embed techonolgy-based design principles and "know how" into our curriculum so as to create vertical teaming?
 * <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">How can teachers use theories behind design to create materials (lesson/unit plans, projects, assessments)?

<span style="color: #dd3131; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Links:

<span style="color: #dd3131; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Drawing Design Ideas With Computer-Aided Design Software: <span style="color: #dd3131; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Testing Designs and Building Metal Models With Simulation Software:
 * CAD Program
 * [|Trebuchet Simulator ->Science/Tech Ed Project]
 * Design In The Classroom -> Design activities for students to investigate science and engineering ideas

Developing Programming Skills While Designing in the Media Arts:
 * Scratch
 * iStopMotion

Designing Music With Composition Software:
 * Musical Sketch Pad

<span style="color: #dd3131; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Design Competitions for Students:
 * FIRST Robotics and Lego Design Competitions
 * [|Science Olympiad]
 * [|ASME Student Design Competitions]