Digital Doors: Magnets in a Teaching Method About Online Safety
With her graduation project Digital Doors, designer Sterre Dingemanse makes online safety tangible for young people. Magnetenspecialist supplied the magnets for her prototypes.
How do you explain to young people why they need a different password for every account? Not with another screen, thought designer Sterre Dingemanse. With her graduation project Digital Doors, she developed a physical teaching method that allows students to experience firsthand how to properly secure themselves online. Magnetenspecialist supplied the magnets for her prototypes.
A teaching method without a screen
Sterre graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in July. For Digital Doors, she tested her design in five rounds of testing with a total of around 200 young people, including at secondary schools in Eindhoven. The result is a wooden board with little doors. Each door represents an app or website that young people use daily, such as Instagram, YouTube, and Netflix. By opening and closing the doors, students discover why each account deserves its own lock.
Because students get to hold and operate something themselves, an abstract topic like digital security suddenly becomes tangible. That is exactly what makes the method so effective: no explanation on a screen, but an experience that sticks.
Magnets in a design
Magnetenspecialist supplied the magnets for the Digital Doors prototypes. Magnets are useful in designs like this because they allow doors and components to close invisibly and without any mechanical parts, while keeping the whole thing sturdy yet easy to operate. Do you want to make doors or flaps close magnetically yourself? Read our tips in Magnets at home: 10 handy applications or check out our disc magnets.
Nominated for the Social Design Talent Award
Digital Doors has been nominated for the Social Design Talent Award from the municipality of Eindhoven. This award is given every year to a graduate in Eindhoven with a socially relevant project. The winner receives 10,000 euros to further develop the concept.
On display at Dutch Design Week
During Dutch Design Week, from October 17 to 25, Digital Doors will be featured at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show. Every day at 2:00 p.m., Sterre will give a workshop in the graduation show's bookshop, where she will demonstrate how the teaching method works. Registration is not mandatory, but is recommended.
Why we support this
We love it when our magnets contribute to projects that go beyond technology alone. A teaching method that helps young people be safer online fits that perfectly. Are you a student, designer, or teacher working on a project with magnets? Contact us: we are happy to help brainstorm. Looking for ideas for the classroom? Read Magnets in the classroom: 6 experiments for primary education.
