SewSimple in Practice: Designing an E-Textile Tutorial for Primary Computing Education

Abstract

We present a tutorial for teaching e-textiles with BBC micro:bit and the "SewSimple" maker kit aimed at developing computational making skills. We approach instructional design by drawing on the authors' lived experiences as schoolteachers, computing education and HCI scholars, and learning technologists, while engaging with the English national curriculum through an interdisciplinary lens that integrates computing with art and design. This approach facilitates the development of creative and constructing skills essential to e-textile design, while enabling students to apply computing knowledge to create functional artifacts. Our work shows how art and design can be effectively integrated with technical skill development. Furthermore, we demonstrate that "SewSimple" offers both usability and educational affordances necessary to support teaching objectives and achieve English computing curriculum goals