ABSTRACT
The process of design is the point at which theory meets practice and the partnership must be operationalized in order to enable implementation. In the early days of educational technology development, such as exemplified in Skinner’s teaching machine for example (1968) it is hard to recognize design from an aesthetic standpoint, but easy to see the pedagogical drivers. Now learners and teachers rightly expect sound design: aesthetically, pedagogically, technically and interactionally. The chapters in this section are a contemporary mix of high-quality contributions that could be described according to a range of categorizations. For example, one could collect the chapters by Balaam, Duncan, Craft and Robertson under the heading Design: Practical Tools and Methods; Fischer, Mwanza, Looi & Wong, Luckin et al., under the heading Design: Frameworks; Mavrikis et al., Kay et al. and du Boulay under the heading Design: Adaptive Systems, and Prieto et al. and Mor under the heading Design: Narratives and Patterns. However, there is a critical, crosscutting theme within the chapters in this section, a theme around which we prefer to view the work presented. This central theme is Design: Enabling end-user and stakeholder involvement. The chapters in this section of the book derive and demonstrate methods that go beyond simply inviting users to comment on and contribute to designs post-hoc. Contributors offer frameworks, approaches and practical methods that have been tried and tested with a wide range of participants.
