Resources

Lyndsay Grant, Futurelab
with Greg Villalobos, Bold Creative

The full version of this handbook (including a separate poster) is available to download in pdf format - see boxes below - or you can order a free hard copy. On this page you'll find the handbook's introduction.

Introduction

This handbook provides guidance on the process of designing a project, product or process that uses technology-enhanced learning to promote social justice.

The handbook is intended to be of use to grassroots practitioners involved in designing new projects and adapting existing ones; to developers designing digital tools and resources; and to funding bodies wanting to ensure robust processes in their supported projects.

This handbook is not a ‘how-to’ manual or recipe book that provides one formula to follow in all situations. Every project is different, with different aims and different contexts. Also, every design process will be different, depending on the particular aims, the people involved and the resources available. However, there are some common issues and questions that every design process will need to consider. This handbook therefore aims to provide a framework for a design process that you can take, adapt and use in ways that are appropriate for your particular aims and context. There are no easy answers or one-stop solutions to questions of social justice, but we hope that this handbook will provide advice, guidance and support along the journey of designing projects to promote social justice.

Section 1 this introduction, stakes out the ground that the handbook covers, provides working defi nitions of the key concepts used throughout the handbook, and explains how the handbook itself was developed.

Section 2 explores the role of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environments in more depth, discussing the potential for the use of new digital technologies to play a role in facilitating learning in projects designed to promote social justice. A selection of case studies illustrates the diverse ways in which TEL environments can promote social justice.

Section 3 describes a number of considerations that will be relevant to most design processes. These considerations are not intended to be prescriptive, but raise important questions that should be considered by everyone involved in the act of designing in terms of how they relate to their own aims, values and contexts. The considerations presented in Section 3 provide general advice and a rationale for taking a user-centred approach to designing; this general guidance is complemented by and cross-referenced to Section 4, which provides practical methods for implementing this guidance.

Section 4 provides a selection of practical methods and techniques for implementing the considerations. Ideas for how to generate ideas, involve non-experts in design decisions, and build partnerships are provided, which can be adapted as necessary. Methods and techniques have been cross-referenced to the key considerations presented in Section 3.

Section 5 provides a number of case studies of relevant design processes in real situations. Each can be used and adapted to fi t your own circumstances.

Section 6 provides details of and links to selected further reading and related projects. For a more detailed discussion of the research, theory and project literature underpinning ideas of user-centred design of technology-enhanced learning environments to promote social justice, an Opening Education report is available free at: www.futurelab.org.uk/openingeducation.

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