The Design Museum Collection for iPad

The Design Museum Collection App for iPad presents 59 remarkable objects from London’s Design Museum; these key pieces from the collection are explored through film, audio, text and photographs. Search options include: time, material, colour, location, manufacturer and designer. Classic pieces include: the Anglepoise lamp, the Dyson vacuum, the Thonet chair, the Face magazine, the British telephone box, the Vespa and the Kindle, a recent addition to the Collection.

The App includes video commentary from Deyan Sudjic, Design Museum Director, and Helen Charman, Design Museum Head of Learning. Stephen Bayley - Design Museum Founding Director has also written an observation on each item.

The Design Museum is one of the world’s leading museums devoted to architecture and industrial design. It is a charitable museum located by Tower Bridge on the South Side of the River Thames, London. Founded in 1989, the museum has hosted exhibitions showcasing some of the most important pioneers of design including Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Jonathan Ive, Manolo Blahnik, Saul Bass and Dieter Rams. The museum’s collection has over 2500 objects that range from the early modernism of the 1900s to the cutting edge of contemporary design. The collection celebrates the history of design in mass production and includes furniture, lighting, domestic appliances and communications technology.

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/design-museum-collection-for/id510964197?mt=8

Jonathan Ive interview: Apple's design genius is British to the core

Apple’s design guru Jonathan Ive, who receives a knighthood today for creating products such as the iPad, tells Shane Richmond why this country’s industrial heritage lies behind his success.

Read the full article here.

Formula 1 team joins fight to save design and technology

Red Bull Racing has backed an entrepreneur’s campaign to keep design and technology on the National Curriculum.
The Formula 1 team’s principal, Christian Horner, and Adrian Newey OBE, chief technical officer, are supporting calls for the Government not to strip the subject of its protected status.
The results of a National Curriculum review, launched by Education Secretary Michael Gove last year and intended to produce a greater focus on science, English and maths, are expected soon.

Read the full article here.

Free hands-on workshop for D&T teachers designers and architects at the prestigious Clerkenwell Design Week 5.00 – 7.00pm 24th May

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with the Design and Technology Association are running an evening workshop on the circular economy – a new and exciting approach for teaching aspects of D&T. The workshop will provide an introduction to circular economy thinking and relate this to practical product disassembly. During the session, you will disassemble products, and explore how they could be re-designed for a future of finite energy and resources.

Download the invite.

Network of Computer Science Teaching Excellence

Computing at School and the BCS are seeking expressions of interest from schools that wish to join a network of Computer Science teaching excellence consisting of five hundred schools (250 in the first instance) together with universities.

You may well be aware of the increasing emphasis on computing in the curriculum. The D&T Association has been making the case that where D&T departments are using microcontrollers (such as PICs), or other work such as robotics, they are making a significant contribution to teaching both hardware and software aspects of computing.

We feel that a network of Computer Science Teaching Excellence would be impoverished if it failed to include D&T departments doing this kind of work. If you work with microcontrollers or robotics in D&T then we encourage you to work with colleagues in your school to apply to join this network.

Details are at: http://academy.bcs.org/upload/pdf/expression-interest-cs.pdf
Further information at: http://academy.bcs.org/category/16655
Application form at: https://forms.bcs.org/cs-schools/

At the start of this week just over 170 schools had registered an interest. The deadline for applications is April 30 and they're only looking for 250 schools in the first instance. Apparently the numbers registering have surged since term started, so please make sure you get your school to register before the deadline if this is something that interests you.

PLEASE NOTE: [It's a very short application form; but we would advise applicants to be explicit about the D&T basis of their application. On the application form, one of the questions is ‘Is computer science currently taught in this school. We recommend that if computer science is not taught in your school, you answer no to this question, but in the question below, ‘If yes, at what level, include the text "We teach programming through D&T at KS3/GCSE/A level" [Delete as necessary]

New EYFS Framework includes D&T

The Design and Technology Association is pleased that the new statutory Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (England) clearly incudes design and technology. The Association has worked hard to secure the place of design and technology within the new framework, which will be implemented this September. We are particularly grateful to the long list of colleagues who supported our submission to the DfE as part of the main consultation last year.

Design and technology is specifically named in the ‘Expressive Arts and Design’ area of learning and development, which ‘involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.’ page 5
The related early learning goals for the area of learning indicate the level of progress children should be expected to have attained by the end of the EYFS:

• ‘Exploring and using media and materials: children sing songs, make music and dance, and experiment with ways of changing them. They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.’ page 9
• ‘Being imaginative: children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories.’ page 9

Download the new EYFS Statutory Framework.

Design and Technology and Circular Economy

As we transition from our current linear economic system based on a throughput “take-make-dispose” model -, education for a circular economy becomes increasingly relevant. This coherent framework describes how an effective economy based on distinct materials cycles operates long term. The Design and Technology Association is working with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to produce resources for use in key stage 3, 4 and post 16 design and technology lessons. Design and technology provides the perfect opportunity for young people to explore possibilities brought about by ‘rethinking the system’ and the way we use resources including energy within the design and manufacturing world. The resources are conceived to introduce students to the vision of a circular economy, equipping them with the necessary skills to think and work in systems, considering how different stages of a product’s lifecycle can be designed for an effective whole system, designing out waste and closing the loop.
The resources are being developed and piloted in school by practicing D&T teachers and will be available to download from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org in September 2012.

Dame Ellen MacArthur went back to school

Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur went back to school last week, teaching a lesson to Year 7 pupils at Kingsford Community School in East London. She’s kick-starting Teach First Week.

Click here to see full story

2012 – 2022 Where next for D&T?

On 1 March, the Design and Technology Association, the national body which provides subject leadership for D&T in education held the first of a series of events to engage a broad community to debate and explore the future of this vital 21st century subject, both within and outside education.

Our aim is to articulate a new vision and plan to ensure a dynamic and secure future for D&T.

See a summary of the discussion that took place in Birmingham here. Those attending were members of the Association – teachers, headteachers and education consultants.

A new vision for D&T – Join the debate

We’re now opening up the debate to everyone. Follow the link to the D&T Association Campaign website and comment on our blog to start creating the future for D&T.

This site offers everyone the opportunity to get involved and tell us what D&T means for you and what we might do with it in the future.

New Primary Website

The D&T Association has launched a new sub-site which makes finding resources and information quicker and easier than ever before. The site contains a wealth of free and membership resources for all ages and focus areas within primary D&T, as well as cross-curricular resources and subject leader advice and help.  Linked from the main site where the current information will remain available, this new portal offers simple and clear access to classroom resources, and once logged in, members can find ready-to-teach new and adapted units of work to make a D&T co-ordinator’s job much easier.

Find the site at http://www.dandtprimary.org.uk