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Session 3
Three personas as Lifelong Learners
Q&A
ACTIONS
Members: Aslı Kıyak İngin, Harun Ekinoğlu, Ertuğrul Belen
HN: I guess our minds work in order to discover credentials
in different ranges of understanding not necessarily formal.
We have Artin, who is a no tag designer. He is old and
locally recognised. He is also a craftsman perhaps. He does
not necessarily design novelties but he is part of a tradition.
In other words, he carries on by not carrying a design. He
is a maker sometimes as he solves design problems for ship
building by metal and wood work. He is recognised and
identified mostly through word of mouth. He is formally
uneducated but he is a potential tutor if he is discovered by
a life long learning initiative or an education institution or
a network which has the ability to connect him to potential
learners. Another guy whose works is in similar vein but on
a completely different set up is Viki the hacker. She has no
age but she is very young. She is a digital maker. She has
the self assigned duty of gap finding in existing systems.
She has problems with the formal systems of banks and university
institutions. Although she is communally recognised
in a circle that knows her, she is never out in the lights. She
does open source design therefore receives open source
credit in wiki sense collective design. Sometimes Viki and
her friends work together even without knowing each other.
It is what we call peer to peer crediting. She receives her
appreciation by crediting through her circle. Cesar however,
is a male tag collector. He exists in complete opposite of the
former two. He is formerly educated and officially recognised.
His network is heavily accredited via his linked-in
profile. He maintains his contacts and manages reputation
and credits. He is within or by the side of a school system.
He loves trophies and collects certificates. He has registered
certain achievements. These are the three personas and
different types of recognition and credential. Thank you
very much.
EA: What about Viki the hacker’s contribution to design?
Why do you need to create this character? What do you
mean?
HN: Viki actually discovers design faults in a system via
hacking. She can misuse her skills or she can convert them
into a positive cause. As you all know, banks have been
trying to hire hackers by their security officers that tries to
learn something from them. There are also hackatons, where
leader hackers come together and work on some certain
projects. But they are not formal designers. They do not
design a product but they design a digital system. Systems
also do have design don’t they.
EA: What is the purpose of hacking into systems then?
HN: Hackers find faults or gap openings in systems. They
also let owners of the systems know that their systems are
flawed.
AS: Hacker is not only in a system sense of hacker it is
also metaphoric. In a more palatable term we could call it
a trendscout. Trendscout is a gap seeker in current developments.
He looks for the scouts and whispers them to the
developers. So this is I think the persona used in here.
AKI: We want to choose some extreme levels with hackers
and no tag designers. By such cases, we can see the different
possibilities of learning systems.
DG: My problem was this, in terms of life long learning we
have been discussing and mourning in the examples. The
credentials do not have to do with evaluating design. They
have to do with evaluating learning. So this is not a question
of trends by people who says that whether designers
are good or not. As I understand it, the credentials has to
do with systems not a person. But a system where everybody
is involved in the process of lifetime learning agrees
to a certain framework of beliefs when they agree that
there are a lot you can do as part of your lifetime learning.
But it is important to measure them and it is important to recognise
or inscribe them. It is not so much the individuals as
systems. I think that it is an important differentiation when
we talk of the overall thing. Because, the first thing is that
once people realise that life long learning is a good thing
then they are individually responsible for taking care of it.
Then it is good that they have some system of measurement
and some system of recording it. So I do not think it is the
individuals whether they are hackers or not, it is the system
that I think has to be built in some way and recognised.
HN: But the thing is that we tried to identify personas who
are in a sense might be incorporated into a system of learning.
As I said, first of all we are trying to be interesting.
Secondly, a person can be made use of the goodness and
the improvement of a system by creating ways of learning
from them.
AS: In this case it is not really the factor but it is the peer to
peer crediting that is the point. I think the group wants to do
that there is a system where peer-to-peer validation is relevant.
It is not necessarily formalised, standardised, codified
system of values but it is the peer-to-peer recognition which is
relevant for the success and coming of these people.
Cihan Çankaya (CÇ): There is one more thing I would like
to add about the hackers. The hacker idea is also changed
nowadays because it is not just about codes and algorithms
anymore. For example, there is this newly heard movement of
makers that hacks into mechanical systems as they contribute
the systems instead. So the hacking is not just an underground
or a coding thing anymore but it is rather a design thing
because making becomes designing. That is what I would like
to add.
HN: To turn David’s contribution, how would we relate that to
lifelong learning? That is the main issue.
CÇ: That is important because maker movement teaches
about trial and error in the cases of lifelong learning.
Cİ: Thank you for all the comments.
Group Conclusion
Lifelong Learning happens at any time, anyway. Credentials
received vary from the very personal amongst peers – informal,
yet delicately tuned by those who share the same
language, to framed documents recognized by the general
public – these could be trophies - or the space/attention given
in mass media.
Recognizing that certification schemes of the established
educational institutions are not able to appropriately keep
pace with developments in society and technology. Hence,
the challenge for this group was to identify the gaps that are
not covered by credentials as dispensed by formal systems.
Credentials may be the result of successfully hacking accepted
norms and values, producing highly personalized badges
of recognition and trust that could be collected, augmented,
traded for higher valuations, and exchanged in various denominations.
Moderator: David Grossman
Outline
Lifelong Learning goes along with Evidence-based
Education/Learning. Blueprints – that are made of new
concepts – for new vocational formats should consider
how project-driven learning within concrete use-cases
can enhance the development of competences and
produce meaningful credentials that help people join or
build most fitting working environments.
Relevant Questions
• Where is the need for Lifelong Learning most
evident?
• How does project-driven learning impact the
development of competences?
• What engagements can foster and reward
learning as context anchored experience?
Group Summary
The set of competences required by professional designers
is varied and changes dynamically during their
lifetime. To maintain relevance and provide effective
service, designers must continuously upgrade knowledge
and skills. Knowledge- and skill-base established in the
formal studies period serves only as a foundation on
which to expand.
There are numerous opportunities for designers to
continue learning – structured and unstructured, formal
and informal, intended and unintended, recognized and
unrecognized. These range from courses and formats
that are offered by educational institutions and professional
entities, to conferences, lectures, workshops, and
also personal development efforts that can be highly
individual.
It is important to plant the seeds of lifelong learning in
the minds of professionals at an early stage - as part of
the formal study curriculum, and to make them recognize
not only the need for ongoing learning, but also the
readily available spectrum of learning opportunities. A
system, best introduced and maintained by the professional
community, that would measure, recognize, and
record ongoing learning efforts can support such efforts,
producing formal/informal credentials.