User:FLEM/thesisoutline

What do I want to write about?

Last year I started questioning my notebook's practice and tried to build a new paper device that would satisfy better the needs of my brain in that moment. To get there I asked myself what were the problems in the device I was using and how changing something small could already improve my use of the notebook. I then wondered: "Why are we all using a device with the same structure? And what impact does it have on our learning, thinking and living, as well as on the imaginary of self?".

I believe this is really a personal matter and that every individual should or could find their personal answers to this. How can I, through research and explorative sessions, discover more about the topic and create a generative structure that can be interpreted by every person in their own way to promote creativity and self-expression?

The thesis will begin with an analysis the use of notebooks and why writing is important for humans. It will research, from a sociological point of view, learning processes and learning types and the connection between writing and learning; how the act of making can help this discovery.

Then, it will focus on the arrival of the industrial revolution and how it changed humans' approach to making, how capitalism and consumerism changed our vision of notebooks' use and how going back to making could save us from the consequences of these historical changes; what is standardisation and its impact on humans' existence.

The final chapter will talk about making as an act of subversion: how we can create our own narrative and our personal perception of the world through the act of making our own tool. Making the creation experience as part of the learning process.

Table of contents

[section A: Why are we all using the same structures?]

Introduction: History on the use of notebooks

In this section I will give an overview on notebooks' history and evolution, how it changed when standards have been included through the arrival of automation and industries.

0.1 How and why has it been created?

0.2 How did it evolved till the most common structures we use nowadays?

Chapter 1. Industrial revolution and consumerism

In this section I will analyse why we all use similar items,

1.1 The Arts and Crafts Movement:

1.2 Consumerist habits and psychology: why do we all use the same objects?

1.3 The value of the process of creation after industrialisation / in consumerism

1.4 Personalisation vs standardisation in society: why do we create standardised objects? How do they interfere with humans' existence?

[section B: What impact does it have on learning thinking and living, as well as on the imaginary of self?]

Chapter 2. Learning types and different structures of the object

2.1 Learning types in sociological studies

2.2 How in design different structures produce different results/uses of the object?

2.3 The self-learning process: ?????????????

[section C: What does happen to the user when they become the creator of their own tools? How the act of making help them to understand themselves and their needs better?]

Chapter 3. Building your own tool: how making becomes a process of self-discovery

3.1 Making as an act of subversion: the impact of crafting on learning and development of personhood [how my creating our own tools we are claiming our space in the world, expressing who we are by not submitting to standards as definitions of who we are?]

[Primary research method, qualitative research, action research]

3.2 The CES (Collaborative Explorative Sessions): an overview based on observation

3.3 What is this process of self-discovery? The process for others (analysis of texts that my case studies will write to analyse their personal process towards a notebook that works for them)

→ keep it separate

Final instructional piece: How to create your notebook. → the outcome of the thesis and the graduation project together.

Why?

One of the main urgency I have to talk about this topic is that both from my personal experience and the experiences of others during growth, standardised learning types are a big problem in education. Students are all the same and need the same time to read a text, understand it and talk about it properly. Obviously, it is not exactly like this. We are supposed to satisfy standards and generalisations throughout our entire lives, in which someone is able to stay on their track, some others are instead more fragile, especially if we talk about young humans that are still building up on their personality and still discovering their abilities and strategies.

I don't like that we are all the same, that expressing who we are is not part of daily life but it's a shaming process that has a lot of impact on growth.

I would like this research to be a sort of manifesto for a general context but using the notebook as a  "metaphor": who are you? how does your brain work? how do your ideas come along? what are your needs from a tool that society provided in a standardised form?

It is not only about making a notebook, is how making a notebook will put us in the position of questioning who we are and the objects we use, why we use them and how something made for us from us could look like.

How?

The thesis will follow the graduation project alongside: it will research theoretical studies to create a context and answer my questions. Then, I will analyse the results and documentation that will follow the CES (Collaborative Explorative Sessions) that are part of my graduation project.

As this process is really personal, I will not be able to produce charts or standardised results; instead, I will be working on observational essays that will try to create a more general overview of the outcomes of the processes of the sessions.

3 key issues/research questions?

1. Why are we all using a device (a notebook) with the same structure?
2. What impact does it have on our learning, thinking and living, as well as on the imaginary of self?
3. What does happen to the user when they become the creator of their own tools? How does the act of making help them to understand themselves and their needs better?

Bibliography

Blair, A. (2004). Note Taking as an Art of Transmission. Critical Inquiry, 31(1), pp.85–107.

Gibson, M. (2019). Crafting communities of practice: the relationship between making and learning. Int J Technol Des Educ 29, 25–35

Hamzah, F., Sharifudin, S., Kamarudin, A. and Azlan, M. (2016). The use of personalized notebook among first semester students of UiTM. National Conference of Research on Language Education 2016.

Illich, I.D. (1985). Tools for conviviality. London: Marion Boyars.

‌Kealy-Morris, E. (2015). The bookbinding workshop: Making as collaborative pedagogic practice. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, [online] 14(2), p.119.

Korn, P. (2015). Why We Make Things and Why It Matters. David R. Godine Publisher.

Sanders E. B.-N. and Stappers P. J. (2014). Convivial design toolbox: generative research for the front end of design. Amsterdam: Bis.

Sennett, R. (2009). The Craftsman. Penguin UK.

https://www.thecollector.com/industrial-revolution-arts-and-crafts/