Design And Technology Education

Posted October 2516, 2021 by admin & filed under Distance Learning Plus News.

Perhaps I’m getting old, but I remember when woodwork and metalwork were taught in schools as part of the mainstream curriculum. Loved it!

They were useful, practical subjects that could support career choices further downstream (construction, cabinet making, furniture design, etc), and allowed ‘boys to be boys! We could get our mitts on tools and other cool stuff and learn something useful. At least that’s how I felt.

Today such practical subjects all now come under the umbrella of ‘design and technology and also includes ICT (Information and Communications Technology) – or ‘computer science’. And they’re available to members of both sexes. Girls are no longer limited to learning cookery, sewing, and embroidery, although I understand they can study them as GCSE subjects if they wish. As can boys.

There is now massive demand for design and technology courses for adult learners (post-16). More scope exists too, with an increasing requirement for digital design tools such as those offered by Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, and Illustrator, and 3-D Modelling becoming ‘de rigeur’ for aspiring inventors.

Paper and ink ‘technologies’ have little place in design, not least because the digital technologies make conceptualization so much easier and faster for non-designers.

They’re expedient to the ‘nth degree too. Once created, those concepts can be easily distributed digitally by email. They can cross entire continents within seconds; manufacturers and workshops are then able to produce a working model within hours. Such processes previously took weeks and months, as they were dependent on the land, sea, and (later) air travel to transport the designs to the factories.

Regardless of my curmudgeonly review of modern processes, there is still a thirst for practical craft subjects, and a real need for their 21st-century offspring. Learners from a wide range of age groups and backgrounds want to understand them properly, and delight in doing so.

Design and technology courses in Digital Photography, Living Space Planning, and Interior Design, for example, are increasingly popular at Distance Learning Plus. Course subjects in more specialised areas such as sports equipment design, software engineering, and application design are similarly growing in popularity.

Design and technology courses can be studied online or by distance learning. These methods provide a flexible, affordable, and – for many – much more convenient, educational experience.

Distance Learning Plus’s Design and Technology faculty includes courses in all the subjects mentioned above, and their qualification development team produces more every month. Go to https://distancelearningplus.com now to see what’s on offer…