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The Travelling Party: Assembling Post-Digital Technologies for the Learner’s Quest
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In post-digital learning environments, learners assemble their “travelling parties”, which are a shifting assemblage of tools, technologies, and platforms that respond to their educational needs. Gathering this team becomes essential early on, as students must quickly assemble the right supports while navigating new content, expectations, and unfamiliar modes of engagement from day one. For example, some design students explore image-based generative AI tools on their own, source visual references through image-heavy social media, follow design content creators for software tips, and test out new workflow shortcuts promoted by design influencers. Their learning does not emerge from a single source but from their ongoing, personal curation of diverse and sometimes competing inputs. As learners move forward with these assembled parties, they inevitably encounter moments that test how well their companions serve the journey. Drawing on reflections from studio-based design education, this chapter introduces flow, fixation, and friction as lenses for evaluating these dynamics. Flow marks periods when tools and platforms align with the learner’s direction, and momentum builds. Fixation appears when over-reliance on a single companion causes progress to stall. Friction emerges when competing inputs or assumptions, such as the pressure to choose the “right” companion, slow or confuse the learner’s movement. These moments are not failures but integral to learning in motion. Crucially, because these shifts happen outside formal curriculum, their impact often goes unnoticed by educators. Yet they shape how and whether students move forward. Educators can better support learners by helping them recognise when to hold onto a companion, when to let go, and how to rebuild their party for what lies ahead. Rather than focus solely on the learning path, this chapter draws attention to the evolving party that travels with the learner.
keywords: postdigital design education
- year: April 2025 — ongoing
