Frugal Education
Creative, practical, and sustainable education
The concept takes its inspiration from the practice of Frugal Innovation: the art of reducing the complexity and cost of products and services, and their production, to meet the needs of developing countries, conscious consumerism, and sustainability. Building on this foundation, the concept incorporates aspects of design thinking, systems thinking, the circular economy, doughnut economics, and sustainable development, and applies them within an education context.
Design with an
Open Mind
Leverage Available
Resources
Build at the Speed
Of Need
On this site you’ll find a set of guiding principles, each of which has been broken down into three frugal aspects. Whatever you’re looking to create, from in-class activity to learning space; module content to course design; innovation lab to university campus; we recommend you consider each aspect, and their relationship to one another, to help guide you in the creation of great frugal education practice.
Latest Posts
Frugal Education at the International TS25 Colloquium 2021
I was honoured to be invited to speak at the International TS25 Colloquium 2021 this month as part of a discussion panel on frugal education and playful learning towards building resilience in 21st Century classrooms. The colloquium was delivered in collaboration with...
#Dispatches: Research Time to Reflect and Refocus
During the past few months I’ve been busy continuing my research into frugal education as part of our ACES international research project, which has been a very productive time. Our partners have been busy delivering educational activities in a variety of locations...
#Dispatches: Refining Aspects of Frugal Education
An Exercise in Essentialism, distinguishing the vital few from the trivial many. The ACES project is now in full swing and over the coming months our teams across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam will be identifying a series of research case studies. Through these...
Teaching More with Less: Education’s Frugal Future
In the grips of a global pandemic — one thats impact may well last for several years — established educational institutions are facing increasing pressure to save money, sweat their assets, and find new ways to deliver teaching and learning to a population of students...
Expanding Frugal Education Research through CreativeCulture 4.0 and ACES Initiatives
As we embark on the next chapter of the GameChangers programme, frugal education will play an important role in the design and development of our future initiatives. Establishing and building GameChangers alongside Sylvester Arnab, Kate O'Leary (formerly Green), and...
A Frugal Education Shout-Out
This week I was pleasantly surprised to have my Frugal Education principles feature in DigiEduHack’s Twitter thread series. They do an excellent job of setting the scene with Navi Radjou’s inspiring frugal innovation TED talk, as well as highlighting some excellent...
The Guiding Principles are up!
It’s been a long time coming but the Frugal Education guiding principles are now finally up on the site. These have been a work in progress for some time and due to a lack of spare time and a global pandemic to contend with it’s taken a little longer than I had...
#Dispatches: So… I’m a Student Again
After what feels like a thousand year hiatus, I'm finally back in the classroom. Today was my first lecture as a PhD student. It felt strange being at a desk listening, and not stood at the front speaking, but it was a refreshing change nonetheless. Absorbing to a...
#Dispatches: The Beginning of the Beginning
Today marks the first day of my PhD journey. I'm currently optimistic, enthusiastic, and full of ideas... I expect this will last about a month. Just kidding! 😆After completing my proposal back in August I've been busy on a variety of projects in my day job, and...
The Importance of Empathy in Learning Design
This week I had the pleasure of seeing my dear friends Dr. Fitri Mohamad and Dr. Jacey-Lynn Minoi who were visiting the lab as guest speakers at this year’s Remix Play 3 event and Creative Play workshops. As if no time had passed, Fitri continued a conversation we’d...
What’s Best for the Student?: The Most Important Question You Should Ask.
Recently, I’ve been working on a project to redesign the main student-facing aspects of our learning management system (LMS), focusing primarily on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) Nice detailed explanations of the difference can be found here,...
#Dispatches: Finding my Own Writing Style
Even at this early stage in learning the ways of academic writing, I’ve come to find that there's a lot of variation in style, depending on who you talk to. It seems there are several ways in which people approach their writing. I have one friend who likes to write in...
#Dispatches: PhD Proposal Submitted
This weekend I’ve finally submitted my PhD proposal, now I have my fingers crossed that it makes the grade. It’s been a hard but interesting few weeks getting acclimatised to the ways of academic research, but it’s definitely been worth it. Thanks to Sylvester Arnab (my director of studies), Richard Hillier, Alan Richards, and Jonathan […]
There’s Madness to the Method
I’m going to use this site to record my thoughts and ideas, starting with relatively unstructured snippets that I can start to combine into more considered concepts. At least that’s the idea. I think it’ll help to get thoughts onto ’paper’, so to speak. I’m hoping the...
GamUp Remixes the Game Design Workshop in Egypt
I was chuffed to find out that my instructional post about Game Design Rapid Prototyping Workshops had been discovered on Medium (where I reposted it ☺️) and used by the team at GamUp to conclude their Game Jam Night in Egypt back in February. Susan Abadir kindly...
#Dispatches: Updates from the Coalface
I've been squirrelled away of late preparing my PhD proposal and it's been quite the journey so far. 😅 Apart from constantly questioning my ability to string even the shortest of sentences together, it's been a valuable learning experience. It's also given me the kick...
Cast Your Slides with Keynote Live
Sync your slides with your audience’s screens for an engaging presentation experience.
Smart Learning Spaces in Bangladesh
Leveraging Frugal Innovation at the Pathshala Institute in Dhaka.
Hack Your Writing; use Your Voice Instead.
How to cure writer’s block by dictating you words of wisdom.
Introducing Design Sprints to Creative Culture Malaysia
Design Sprints are being embraced in Malaysian Education, and it’s awesome!