Educational complexity: Centrality of design and monitoring of the experience

Abstract

In the first part of the paper we discuss why the characteristics of the "organic" era of interaction, we are living, make us claim the centrality of the "Design" as an element of possible innovation for the whole educational scene of this new century and more so for educational processes that have strong relationships with design domains and practices (HCI, IxD, Design for experience, TEL, etc.). The dissemination and the acquisition of the "design literacy" require, however, the adoption of complex educational processes, like the "organic process", that, in turn, requires the development of an equally complex monitoring system, able to assist teachers/tutors in the evaluation of qualities of the educational Experience and individual Experience styles, to customize, contextualize and, more in general, improve the experiences. In the second part of the paper, thus, we present, as a first step toward the realization of such monitoring system, the development of tools and methodologies that allow to monitor in quasi-real time the social level of the interaction and the quality of the social emotions, i.e. individuals' emotional feelings and emotional nuances of their relationships. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.