A new student-centered school for web/digital designers that want an alternative to the traditional higher education systems in most countries.
The New Digital School (TNDS) is a new approach to the educational system of most countries. Rather than teaching outdated and formatted knowledge, it allows students to learn what they want, the way they want. Being student-centered makes it more open and flexible to make the best out of each student's unique points.
It's very difficult to find web design education done well. On one hand the web industry is too fast, broad and dynamic for universities and most schools to keep up. The pace of evolution and knowledge diversity are incompatible with the curriculum being taught.
Every professional will tell you that "school won't teach you everything" and that "you must keep learning". And yet schools are still formatting students instead of preparing them for this dynamic future. Instead of teaching them how to learn.
As the industry gets more demanding with designers and developers, most graduates will tell you they don't feel confident enough to face a job. And truth is, companies themselves still end up having to train interns.
The employers of the future are looking for experience and experiences, not grades or degrees. Real-life empowering experiences that provide meaningful knowledge to the everyday life. And you can't learn that inside a "lab".
So TNDS starts by avoiding this sterile lab-like environment a school usually is. It raises it to a studio-like environment.
The teacher is no longer the single source of knowledge. With the web in our pockets we can learn about nuclear physics or Python development anywhere we want. But soft-skills are the real training that only experience will teach us.
TNDS is student-centered and anything like the traditional school. It's where and how you apply knowledge that's meaningful to be taught.
There are too many topics and soft skills to learn inside a traditional class room. The current system has curriculum, assessment and a time frame that act "wall out" evolution.
TNDS is open and modular to allow a student to learn how to teach himself and how to keep learning in the future.
Creativity is where evolution is. By comparing students with each other we're slowly killing their originality and unique traits.
TNDS is moulded to the student, it's interests and strengths. Assessment and validation aren't important. The student passes when the new employer validates him and he gets a job or when he starts his own project or company.
Soft-skills, team work and business skills are often forgotten as it's difficult to teach them formally.
TNDS is a place that reflects this multitude of skills as well as the industry's way of being. It has a way to promote networking between students, mentors and companies. It acts as a hub for students to expand, grow and prosper alongside with the industry itself.
These documents and the project itself are a work in progress and intend to be an open-sourced initiative. Feel free to suggest changes and additions or contact us directly via twitter at @newdigitschool.