OUR HISTORY

In 1999 a small and committed group of Design and Technology teachers met to share ideas on how to teach the subject they loved.

They believed that Design & Technology is a fantastic, challenging and inspiring subject, but often teachers needed help to find good resources and quality teaching material. Excited about the prospect of supporting other Design and Technology teachers they formed Designability in August 2000. Over 10 years later the vision is just as strong and our resources keep growing.

Aims

Our number one aim is to provide teachers of Design and Technology subjects with classroom ready resources to help teach their subject in the most inspiring way they can.

Every school is very different according to the skills of their teachers, their equipment and resources. This makes a standardised text book for our subjects almost impossible.

Our approach is to develop units of work that can be easily adapted to your school situation. It’s a smorgasbord rather than a set menu. We support these units of work with teaching materials, project materials, equipment and professional development.

That’s why we call them ‘fully resourced projects’.

Design Education

We are passionate about what introducing students to the world of design can do.

The goal of every subject is to help students see the world a little differently, and to understand the world they live in.

This is true also of a design education, and so our approach is two pronged: to help students understand materials and processes through making (design capability) and to help them understand the designed world (design awareness).

Further to this, we believe that as the quality and status of the subject continues to grow, so too will the quality of Design and Innovation in Australian homes and industry.

meet the team

Merrick Russell

managing director

Merrick has been a Design and Technology teacher for over 17 years and brings a wealth of expertise and experience when it comes to designing classroom projects. He is passionate about Design and Technology and loves helping schools maximise the learning opportunities the subject offers.

Sarah Chan

Accounts

Sarah ensures all our systems are working well. She is an important member of the team and seems to be able to fix any problem that arises. You may be speaking to her the next time you call us.

Marty Harris

Trainer

Marty is a full time Technology teacher and manages to fit in time to develop new and exciting projects. He is never short of a creative idea and loves to help schools run high quality programmes. Marty is also the CNC guru.

Charlotte Campbell

Workshop Manager

Charlotte studies Industrial Design at UTS. She is super creative and enjoys solving problems and that makes her a valuable member of the team. She is keen to see good quality projects get into Australian schools and beyond. She is pumped about design and knows the value of having great teachers.