Duffy O'Connor

I don't share the Asia Society's enthusiasm for social media.  The issue of misinformation is not addressed in this module and should be.  I see in some of the comments that social media and digital media are conflated; digital media is essential to communication but I find social media to be mostly superficial.  

The virtual exchange idea is a really good one - there are a lot of opportunities in this area.  I would like to see more emphasis on learning a foreign language in these modules.  It can be difficult and is time consuming, but we cannot expect the rest of the world to speak English.  We have the opportunity to appreciate the true diversitiy of the world when we learn to communicate in other languages. 

This module has led me to reconnect with German furnishings organizations and educators to create opportunities for my students.  I teach Internship for Interior Design students so I am involved in their work-based education.  I would love to see some of our students find opportunities in Europe and Germany in particular.  

I am glad to see that critical thinking and problem solving are mentioned in this module.  I have always been a proponent of students taking classes in creative disciplines because they are an excellent to learn creative problem solving.  Tech skills are a lot easier to learn than it is to learn how to come up with an original solution to a unique problem.  

the animation addressed an important problem of recycling of plastic and why some plastics aren't recycled, although they could be.  what to do about products that end up as landfill waste (carpet), solving problems of recycling, and improving the type of materials used in products in the Interior Design industry are some of the issues we have been dealing with for my entire 22 years in this field.  it is interesting to encounter an example of this from a different industry.  

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are very interesting to me and I will add some of it to one or more courses that I teach.  International manufacturing affects my subject area of Interior Design and sustainability is a matter that has grown in importance in this field in the past 20 years.  

Communication was brought up in one of the videos, something that is very important when considering an international component to CTE courses.  A former colleague that worked in furniture design and manufacturing used to tell the students, "learn Chinese."  Now I'm thinking of how that might be applied to my classes.  Some of what I teach is drawing and that can get around some or a lot of the limitations of spoken language.  

I enjoyed the Nepali cuisine example.  In the History of Furniture course I teach the students have the opportunity to research and share information about furniture history from their birth countries.  We have a lot of students from India and they have presented information about Indian furniture over the past several years, enhancing the knowledge of the rest of the students and myself as well. 

while the module offers a lot of general information, it did make me think a little more about seeking opportunities to place students in internships and jobs with International companies that serve the Interior Design industry.  a lot of these companies hava a professional presence in and around Chicago and I'd love to see more of our students involved in the international side of this.  

I would guess that more than one in ten of our students in Interior Design at Harper College is foreign-born so the opportunity to empshasize an international outlook is strong.  There are a lot of opportunities to educate the students born in the U.S. about other cultures and opportunities in other nations.  An Iranian-born student has presented information on Perisian design, and explained to her classmates the background of the complex patterns found in Iranian decorative arts.  I am fortunate that I can learn along with the students in my classes, thanks to the many students born in other nations.