globalisation

Do the right thing- combat our unsustainable future with design education

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Design Education Strategy

Governments, policy makers and environmental activists across the globe, entered the 21st century with a renewed focus in combatting the impact of humanities unsustainable practices. To achieve this goal a paradigm shift towards being environmentally responsible and accountable is required in which humanity will have to adopt radical personal change. This paper therefore aims to address the unsustainable future that humanity faces through investigating the role of education as agents of change in motivating sustainable practices and inspiring personal, ethical conduct amongst university students.

 

The Myth of Unified Global Culture: transcoding national cultures within website interfaces

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Software, UX & Game Design

This paper probes two areas relating to transcoding culture in a website interface development context. Firstly, culture is interrogated through the lens of current anthropological models of dimensions (traits/tendencies) of national culture. Secondly, transcoding anthropological models of dimensions of national culture into culturally adaptive website interfaces through the graphic design process.

The Ethical Dilemma of a Rapidly Receding Watering Hole: Implications For Design Education

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Design Education Strategy

Ethos, the origin of the word ethics, originally meant a place where animals frequent. When the herds gather at the watering hole how do they interact with other herds, species or competition? How do they behave in a way that they will be welcomed back?

The dilemma of technology acceptance from industrially developed countries to new emerging economies

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

Industries from developed countries tend to overlook the fact that people in new emerging economies are different in terms of context, ergonomics, social and cultural dimensions. Evidence from the literature shows technical design problems involved in adapting technology and that it may require the development of new ergonomics principles because of the diverse nature of people. Users around the world are no longer willing to settle for one-size-fits-all products with standardised technology.

The Latest New Media Pedagogy: The Medium or The Message?

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Discipline: 

Software, UX & Game Design

This paper attempts to look at digital media and design education at a university level exploring the question of teaching software and medium specific technical skills over broader theoretical and conceptual ideas of contemporary technologies. In the past, the focus of digital media programs has been conceptual experimentation and innovation, it seems pedagogy is now being driven purely by technical concern. The university system demands the technical aspect of "digital media" to be taught, but the field demands the creative and conceptual.

Design Education for Crafts Communities: a Global - Local Approach

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

Craftspeople still practice crafts as a live tradition and/or as an economic activity. Crafts in India has been continue to contribute to design education in numerous ways. In fact, the very approach to design education in India was laid on the foundations of crafts practices in the country.

An assessment of the contribution of design education to the knowledge economy in South Africa

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Design Education Strategy

The Education White Paper (SA, 1997) identifies that the knowledge economy is dependent on knowledge workers that can contribute to the economical development of the country. The White Paper further motivates that it is the role of higher education to provide education and training to develop the skills and innovations that are necessary for national economical development and successful participation in the world economy.

Redesigning Design Education

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Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy

Note: A full reviewed paper was not submitted after the conference.

The last 15-20 years has seen an explosion in design awareness worldwide, with a concomitant restructuring of design education curricula. Increasingly, national innovation strategies are beginning to integrate design, art, social sciences and the humanities into their programmes, and there is a corresponding developing integration of the creative and social disciplines in the curricula of science and technology.

Learners as Agents: design as a learning vehicle

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Discipline: 

Design Education Strategy

This paper proposes design as the guiding pedagogical metaphor for education in the 21st century. Educational reform literature is preoccupied with notions of indeterminacy in relation to learning because of major social changes that have occurred over the last two decades. Globalization, pluriculturalism, informalisation, consumerism, the rise of the network or information/knowledge based society have increasingly become defining markers of these changes.

DEFSA conferences

DEFSA promotes relevant research with the focus on design + education through its biennial conferences, to promote professionalism, accountability and ethics in the education of young designers. Our next conference is a hybrid event. See above for details.

Critical skills endorsement

Professional Members in good standing can receive a certificate of membership, but DEFSA cannot provide confirmation or endorsement of skills whatsoever. DEFSA only confirm membership of DEFSA which is a NPO for Design Education in South Africa (https://www.defsa.org.za/imagine).