Abstract: Have you ever stacked LEGO blocks to develop a sitemap for your organization’s website, thrown a ball of yarn to discover professional connections or used glue sticks and paper to refine your content management system? The workshop introduces several creative strategies for stewarding educational technology projects and organizational innovation. It is ideal for teachers, instructional designers, application developers and administrators who are conducting educational technology projects with multiple stakeholders and various interests. The workshop offers hands-on examples for using design thinking and serious play to collaboratively find solutions for wicked problems. It provides participants with participatory development techniques and tools for orchestrating conflicting ideas, identifying singular needs and common goals, making productive use of diverse backgrounds and developing a shared vision.

1. Stefanie Panke
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
AACE E-Learn 2016
November 18th
Washington, DC
Design Thinking for Educational
Resources: Reimagining
Instructional Design through
Engaging Participatory
Approaches

2. Schedule
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Introduction
• Wicked Problems
• Design Thinking, Serious Play, Participatory Design
• Creative Design Techniques - Examples
• Workshop Planning
• Evaluation

3. What’s on your plate right now?
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please take five minutes to write down what’s on your plate – for
example a current project you are working on.

4. Why is it tricky? – Recognizing wicked problems
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• No right or wrong solution: Problem resists traditional scientific and
engineering approaches.
• Unclear boundaries, ill-formulated: Many parties are equally
equipped, interested or entitled to judge the solution
• Value-driven: Judgments are likely to differ widely based on personal
or group interests and values.
• Cascading effects: Implementation will generate waves of
consequences over an extended period of time

5. Why is it tricky? – Recognizing wicked problems
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Traditional Model:
Wicked Problems:
“The information needed to understand the problem depends upon
one's idea for solving it” (Rittel & Webber, 1973, 161).
Problem
Definition
(Analyzing)
Problem
Solution
(Synthesizing)
“Tell me what
success looks
like”.

6. Why is it tricky? – 10 characteristics
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks

7. Why is it tricky? - Discuss
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
How do you recognize wicked problems in your own work
environment?
Share and discuss with you
neighbor: What part of my
work / my project has traits of
wicked problems?

8. What’s the idea? Design Thinking
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Design Thinking is problem solving method geared to overcome wicked
problems.
Characteristics
• Transcend the immediate boundaries of the problem to ensure that the
right questions are being addressed
• Analyze, synthesize, diverge, generate insights from different domains
• Drawing, prototyping and storytelling (Brown, 2009)
• Constraints as inspiration (Brown, 2009)
• Not directed toward a technological "quick fix” but toward new
integrations of signs, things, actions, and environments (Buchanan, 1992)

9. What’s the idea? Design Thinking
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks “Even on a cursory inspection,
just what design thinking is
supposed to be is not well
understood, either by the
public or those who claim to
practice it”.
Kimbell, 2011

10. What’s the idea? Design Thinking
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/
• 80 minute,
interactive video
with individual and
partner activities

11. What’s the idea? Design Thinking
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Plattner, Meiner & Leifel, 2011
Rules of Design Thinking
• All design activity Is ultimately social in nature
• Design thinkers must preserve ambiguity
• All design is re-design.
• Making ideas tangible always facilitates communication

12. What’s the idea? Design Thinking
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Design Thinking is not the opposite of science
or translated to ‘anything goes’.
A ‘new’ solution is not automatically a good
solution.

13. What’s the idea? Participatory Design
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Participatory Design is an approach that involves the users of a
product early on in the development process.
Characteristics:
• Paradigm shift from ‘users as subjects’ to ‘users as partners’
• Based on participatory action research - empowerment
Barriers:
• Difficulties in organizing and expressing ideas
• Difficulties in harmonizing implicit design goals
• Difficulties in maintaining openness

14. What’s the idea? LEGO Serious Play
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Lego Serious Play is a collaborative, creative method that uses Lego
blocks and figures to develop scenarios for organizational
development, conflict resolution or web design.
Characteristics:
• Strategic planning tools and systems
• Improve group problem solving
• Learning, listening and collaborating by making and creating
• Building solutions and prototypes using bricks
• Creating flow experience for participants

15. Creative Techniques: Examples & Demonstration
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Interface
• Audience
• Content
• Priorities & Values
• Categories
• Navigation
• Networks

16. Interface: Traffic Light
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please note one feature per post-it.
I don’t like
it, but it’s
okay, I
guess.
Hate
this!!!!
This is
cool, don’t
get rid of
it!

17. Interface: Key Features
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks

18. Interface: Crazy 8
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Crazy 8: Take a sheet of paper, fold, fold it again, and again, and again.
• You have 5 minutes total to draw eight sketches, one in each panel.
• Repeat.
• Share if you wish.
• Particularly useful for mobile interfaces,
progressions, key features, segments,
details, flow.

19. Audience: Personas
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Personas are fictional, yet data-driven, user biographies that allow
design teams to relate to the users’ point of view instead of focusing on
personal experiences and anecdotes.

20. Audience: Personas
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Before the workshop: participants
email list of audiences
• Aggregated list is reviewed in
workshop
• Additional brainstorming
• Groups work on personas
• Completed personas are displayed
and ranked (voting)

21. Audience: Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks Knowledge
Behavior
Attitudes
Skills
• Describe what learners will
know and will be able to do
after taking this course /
using this resource.
• Share / discuss /group
Duration: 30 minutes

22. Content: What’s on your plate?
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks

23. Content: What’s on your plate?
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please review your plate:
This thing I do is on the website
This thing I do is not the website, and it
shouldn’t be
This thing I do is not the website, but people
should know about it and find it there

24. Content: Structuring Content Types
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Goal: Identify organizational
output, recurring website
elements
• ‘Information Curators
describe the content using
the building blocks provided
• Add additional elements as
needed
• Time: Approx. 25 minutes

25. Results
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks

26. Mockups
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Balsamiq Mockups

27. Categories
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeksStatus Quo: Multiple, Different, Overlapping Category Systems

28. Categories: Bottom-up
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks

29. Categories: Round 1
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Form 5 Teams (1-2)
• Each team categorizes 3 sites
• Each team assigns 2 categories per resource.
• Time: 5 Minutes!

30. Categories: Round 2
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
• Switch sites between team
• Assign 2 categories, only if needed
• Change and edit as you see fit!
• Time: 5 Minutes!

31. Categories: Review existing taxonomy
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Review Categories with posters, stickers

32. Categories: On the fly
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks Participants shout
out categories,
facilitator documents
on mindmap

33. Categories: Results

34. Priorities and Values: Finding Balance
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
This is an approach for
talking about and
eventually resolving
conflicting ideas and
priorities in the design
process. It forces
stakeholders to see the
virtue in opposing
positions, and the merits
of compromise.

35. Navigation: Museum Map Flyer
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please think about
the website as a
museum. What are
10 things you want
to point visitors to?
(Really useful
resources,
interesting events,
services, downloads,
projects…)

36. Navigation: LEGO Structure
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
As a group, try to structure the main areas of the website.
Content Sections
Annotate

37. Networks: Spin your yarn
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
This is an activity designed to show the social capital of a
network. It is a great way to start a conversation about
organizational / team structure and how it should be
reflected on a website.
Alternatives:
• Throw the ball of yarn to someone you know. How do
you know this person?
• Through the ball of yarn to a person with whom you have
something in common. What do you have in common?

38. Workshop Planning
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Work on a workshop or meeting activity you want to do with your
clients / your team.
Warm-up Activity: Crazy 8
• Take a sheet of paper, fold, fold it again, and again, and again.
• You have 8 minutes total to sketch eight prompts/ slides / activities,
one in each panel.
• Share with your partner, brief feedback and ideas (5 minutes).
• Use 15 minutes to work on your concept.

39. Workshop Planning – Structure
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Crazy 8: Take a sheet of paper, fold, fold it again, and again, and again.
You have 5 minutes total to draw eight sketches, one in each panel.
Adapted from Sanders, Brandt & Binder, 2011

40. Workshop Planning – Feedback
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Crazy 8: Take a sheet of paper, fold, fold it again, and again, and again.
You have 5 minutes total to draw eight sketches, one in each panel.
Present your workshop or meeting activity to the group and receive
feedback.
• Be brief: 2 minutes each.

41. Problems, Pitfalls, Challenges
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Let’s talk about all the things that can go wrong… and how to plan for
it.
Here is what I heard;
is that what you said?
What else do you
want me to know?
I am here for you,
not vice versa.
What should we do
next?
We can do either …
or … - what will
help you most?
Let’s give it a try for
15 minutes.

42. Evaluation: Traffic Light
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Please note one idea / concept per post-it.
I might try
this in the
future.
This is not
useful for
me.
I can
definitely
use this
for….

43. Thank you!
Please take five minutes to write down projects you have been working
on during the past 2-6 weeks
Reader on Google Drive: https://goo.gl/jVHlMg
Slides on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/stefaniepanke/
Contact at panke@sog.unc.edu
Blog at http://blog.aace.org