Rapid Prototyping in education?

Posted on | January 12, 2009 | 3 Comments

No doubt you have heard someone say the two words, rapid prototyping.

Typically the idea of rapid prototyping applies to physical objects, a bike, a broom, that thing that is going to make your life easier.

And you can actually get training is rapid prototyping!

But what about applying the ideas and methodology of rapid prototyping to the physical structure of education itself?

Media education would seem to me to be a great place to unleash the experiment!

I am not suggesting toss out all that is in place.  But I am suggesting that we need a set of core courses and then we need a set of courses that are as up to date as they can be with the means of creation and dissemination of ideas, if we are talking about media education.

Do the acid test!

Look up the media program of your choice.

1. do they teach students how to write for blogs, facebook and other social networking tools?

2. at what point is twitter being used and exploited in the curriculum?

3. google apps? Any idea what they are and are they in a course?

I was part of a group lead by Danny Munnerley who explored how we might actually be able to rapid prototype WEB 2.0 education!

The whole concept was developed by others and that includes the original Zayed University take on the exercise.  But what it does is explore how WEB 2.0 ideas. Can be used in education.

What makes WEB 2.o and rapid prototyping kin, so to speak, is the simple fact that web 2.0 technologies are changing and developing so fast that the curriculum needs constant change.

So, why not take the idea a step further and build a curriculum even a program that int he last year it is being rapid prototyped to keep pace and lead the reality that is unfolding around us?

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