Multimodality, Makerspaces, and the Making of a Maker Pedagogy for Technical Communication and Rhetoric

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2019. Major: Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication. Advisor: Ann Duin. 1 computer file (PDF); xi, 233 pages.This dissertation investigates how students create multimodal solutions to address complex problems via technology-enhanced maker practices informed by design thinking. It contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversations around multimodality and multimodal composition by understanding the new material affordances of rapid prototyping technology and dedicated spaces for collaborative invention, fondly known as makerspaces. By investigating how students compose and create multimodal artifacts through making and design thinking, this project identifies useful pedagogical intersections between the Maker Movement proper and technical and professional communication (TPC). To do so, I studied the use and operation of three academic makerspaces in the U.S. at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Minnesota. I then conducted a case study of a maker framework based on the findings from the makerspace ethnography. The deployment of the framework––tentatively known as maker pedagogy––occurred in a TPC course. Combining the results from my makerspace ethnography and the pedagogical case study, I discuss the implications of a maker pedagogy for TPC, including the cultivation of a maker mindset, disruption to conventional ideologies, and an exploration of the material dimension of writing. I also discuss ways in which making and design thinking can be assessed in the context of TPC pedagogy

Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments

This open access book contains observations, outlines, and analyses of educational robotics methodologies and activities, and developments in the field of educational robotics emerging from the findings presented at FabLearn Italy 2019, the international conference that brought together researchers, teachers, educators and practitioners to discuss the principles of Making and educational robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education. The editors’ analysis of these extended versions of papers presented at FabLearn Italy 2019 highlight the latest findings on learning models based on Making and educational robotics. The authors investigate how innovative educational tools and methodologies can support a novel, more effective and more inclusive learner-centered approach to education. The following key topics are the focus of discussion: Makerspaces and Fab Labs in schools, a maker approach to teaching and learning; laboratory teaching and the maker approach, models, methods and instruments; curricular and non-curricular robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education; social and assistive robotics in education; the effect of innovative spaces and learning environments on the innovation of teaching, good practices and pilot projects

Remote laboratory to support control theory

The Control Systems plays a vital role in the industry, which is the most essential application of the Electrical Engineering. The control concepts are present in most of the automation systems. The Control Systems theory is the key concept to achieve the automation and makes world faster. But, in reality the study of control engineering is decreased in the recent years, because of the difficulty in learning the concepts of the control theory. Most of the students feel difficult to understand theoretical concepts of control systems. The traditional teaching methodology is one way of teaching control systems concepts. Even though books are proper way of teaching control systems in a systematic way, we need additional tool to create interaction between the subject and the students. The teaching platform is worth to analyse the possibility to add or complement the way of standing with means able to add Real evidences. In another way, it is important that the provided lab experiment should be affordable. The teaching platform to support control theory has been introduced with set of experiments to create Real evidences, and manuals to carry out those experiments, slides to have a guidance and Graphical User Interface (GUI) to have an interaction with the control system is provided

Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments

This open access book contains observations, outlines, and analyses of educational robotics methodologies and activities, and developments in the field of educational robotics emerging from the findings presented at FabLearn Italy 2019, the international conference that brought together researchers, teachers, educators and practitioners to discuss the principles of Making and educational robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education. The editors’ analysis of these extended versions of papers presented at FabLearn Italy 2019 highlight the latest findings on learning models based on Making and educational robotics. The authors investigate how innovative educational tools and methodologies can support a novel, more effective and more inclusive learner-centered approach to education. The following key topics are the focus of discussion: Makerspaces and Fab Labs in schools, a maker approach to teaching and learning; laboratory teaching and the maker approach, models, methods and instruments; curricular and non-curricular robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education; social and assistive robotics in education; the effect of innovative spaces and learning environments on the innovation of teaching, good practices and pilot projects

The Effects of Mobile Devices & Maker Projects on Middle School African American Students’ STEM Knowledge Base & Interest

The nature of future employment is rooted in the sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Educating the current and future workers will require the inclusion of STEM education, especially in the K-12 classrooms. African Americans run the risk of being left behind in future STEM jobs due to their poor STEM representation throughout institutional education. In general, African American students have a poor attitude towards and poor academic performance in STEM. This research was explored using ubiquitous smartphones and a unique form of student-centered learning called maker education to increase the attitude and STEM knowledge of African American middle schoolers. A mixed method approach was utilized through a pre- post- questionnaire, comprised of three Likert-type scales for Attitude: Interest, Difficulty, and Importance, and a knowledge base multiple-choice portion to investigate the study quantitatively, supplemented by direct observation and focus groups to investigate it qualitatively. Twenty-nine African American students from four St. Louis, Mo., middle schools were divided into two groups, one of 24 treatment and one of five control participants. The research setting for both groups was a local Boys and Girls club. The treatment group completed two maker-ed interventions with smartphones, while the control participants completed two similar interventions without smartphones or maker activities (see Appendix F). The qualitative data were thematically coded, and the quantitative data were statistically analyzed for significance. The knowledge base of both the treatment and control groups showed no statistically significant difference, either before or after the interventions, which supported the null hypothesis H1o. The Likert-scales suggested a slight increase in African American middle schoolers\u27 attitudes in both treatment and control groups, but it was not statistically significant, supporting null hypothesis H2o. The thematic analysis of the observation and focus group data was logically inconsistent with the Likert-scales data in that it suggested a strong increase in attitude in both groups. More research is warranted in this area to increase African Americans in STEM

Break, Make, Retake: Interrogating the Social and Historical Dimensions of Making as a Design Practice

Making and digital fabrication technologies are the focus of bold promises. Among the most tempting are that these activities and processes require little initial skill, knowledge, and expertise. Instead, they enable their acquisition, opening them up to everyone. Makerspaces and fab labs would blur the identities between professional and amateur, designer and engineer, maker and hacker, ushering in a broad-based de-professionalization. Prototyping and digital fabrication would unite design and manufacturing in ways that resemble and revive traditional craftwork. These activities and processes promise the reindustrialization of places where manufacturing has disappeared. These promises deploy historical categories and conditionsexpertise, design, craft production, manufacturing, post- industrial urbanismwhile claiming to transform them. This dissertation demonstrates how these proposals and narratives rely on imaginaries in which countercultural practices become mainstream by presenting a threefold argument. First, making and digital fabrication sustain supportive environments that reconfigure contemporary design practice. Second, making and digital fabrication simultaneously reshape the categories of professional, amateur, work, leisure, and expertise; but not always in the ways its proponents suggest. Third, as making and digital fabrication propagate, they reproduce traditional practices and values, negating much of their countercultural and alternative capacities. The dissertation supports these claims through a multi-sited and multinational ethnographic investigation of the historical and social effects of making and digital fabrication on design practice and the people and places enacting. The study lies at the intersection of science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and design research. In addressing the argument throughout this scholarship, it explores three central themes: (1) the idea that making and digital fabrication lead to instant materialization of design while re-uniting design with manufacturing; (2) the amount of skill and expertise expected for participation in these practices and how these are encoded in rhetoric and in practice; and (3) the material and social infrastructures that configure making as a design practice. The dissertation demonstrates that that the perceived marginality of making, maker cultures, digital fabrication allows for its bolder promises to thrive invisibly by concealing other social issues, while the societal contributions of this technoculture say something different on the surface

The new role of citizens as co-creators of socio-digital innovations and urban development: A case-study of participation and co-creation in the smart city development of Barcelona.

Die vorliegende Masterarbeit untersucht aktuelle Trends in der Stadtplanung und Design, um zu analysieren, wie Bürger an der Mitgestaltung von Smart Cities beteiligt werden können. Ziel ist es, ein ganzheitliches Verständnis der neueren Konzepte und Methoden von Co-Design und Co-creation zu entwickeln und diese mit den etablierteren Forschungsfeldern der Bürgerbeteiligung und Koproduktion zu vergleichen. Koproduktion und Co-Creation können als verbesserte Partizipation oder Partnerschaft in Bezug auf die Partizipationsleiter verstanden werden, da beide Konzepte Beziehungen auf Augenhöhe zwischen Bürger und Stadtverwaltung voraussetzen. In ähnlicher Weise gesteht Co-Design, Designern und Usern die gleichen Rechte und Möglichkeiten im Gestaltungsprozess zu. Es wird eine ganzheitliche Definition des Co-Creation-Prozesses dargelegt, die Erkenntnisse aus Co-Design, Co-Produktion und Partizipation beinhaltet und Co-Creation als einen Prozess versteht, der aus Initiation, Design und Produktion besteht. Die Smart City als sich rasch entwickelndes Forschungsfeld, Definitionen und Charakteristika sowie populäre imaginäre und dominante Diskurse werden vorgestellt. Um die Rolle des Bürgers zur Smart City zu verstehen, werden die unterschiedlichen Verständnisse von Smart Governance erläutert und Aspekte von Open Data, Big Data und Big Data Analytics sowie die Rolle von Bürgern und Gefahren der Smart City diskutiert. In der Fallstudie zur Bürgerbeteiligung werden Methoden und Werkzeuge zur Förderung der Mitgestaltung einer Smart City anhand Partizipationsleiter von (Arnstein 1969) diskutiert und analysiert. Die Smart City Entwicklung in Barcelona wird vor dem Hintergrund der gemeinschaftlichen Entwicklung sozialer Innovationen in Smart Cities analysiert. Die Fallstudie verweist auf Mängel im Hinblick auf Bürgerbeteiligung an der Entscheidungsfindung und an der Verlagerung von Machtverhältnissen in der Entwicklung der Smart City Barcelona, die dafür aber mit neuen Werkzeugen und Technologien für partizipative Stadtentwicklung experimentiert und sich zu einem alternativen Smart City Modell entwickelt. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse sind abschließend im Methodenkatalog zusammengefasst, der Methoden und Tools aus Theorie und Fallstudie aufgreift um zu dem Verständnis beizutragen, wie Smart Cities gemeinsam gestaltet werden können.This thesis studies current trends in planning and design studies to analyse how citizens can participate in the co-creation of smart cities. It aims at developing a holistic understanding of the new concepts and methods of co-creation, and co-design and compares those with the more established research fields of citizen participation and co-production. Co-production and co-creation can be understood as instances of enhanced participation or as a partnership in participation, as both concepts require equal relationships among citizens and the city administration. Similarly, co-design requires designers and users to share the same rights and possibilities in the design process. A holistic definition of the co-creation process is provided that incorporates insights from co-design, co-production and participation and defines co-creation as a process consisting of initiation, design and production. The smart city as emerging research field, definitions and characteristics, as well as popular imaginary and dominant discourses, are presented. To grasp the role of the citizen in the smart city, the different understandings of smart governance are explained and aspects of to open data, big data and big data analytics, as well as the role of citizens and perils of the smart city are discussed. In the case-study of citizen participation methods and tools fostering the co-creation of a smart city are discussed and analysed with the introduced participation framework, which is based on the ladder of participation (Arnstein 1969). The smart city development in Barcelona is analysed against the backdrop of co-creating social innovations in smart cities. There might be a lack of citizen participation in decision-making and shifting power relations in the city, which experiments nonetheless with new tools and technologies for the participatory environment experiments with new formats and technologies for economic and urban development and evolves to become an alternative model of the smart city. The main findings are included in the toolbox based on methods and tools from theory and the case-study contributing to the knowledge of how to co-create of smart cities

The Counter-testimony of the Maker

The chapter begins with the question of critique, mainly how and why does one critique but more importantly why does no one critique effectively anymore. Such is a sentiment echoed by Bruno Latour in the paper Why has Critique Run out of Steam? He states: “It does not seem to me that we have been as quick, in academia, to prepare ourselves for new threats, new dangers, new tasks, new targets. Are we not like those mechanical toys that endlessly make the same gesture when everything else has changed around them?”(Latour, 2004:225). According to Latour, the absence of principles is to blame. As he puts it, critique has battered through all claims to a ground and the lack of a sure ground argument has backfired. The result is that there isn’t even a sure ground for criticism. Without a ground, it’s hard to differentiate a rigorous critical claim from a conspiracy theory. That’s why conspiracy theory books are best sellers. Latour mourns the death of critique. In its remnants lies a whole industry denying the Apollo program. My claim is that the absence of principles transforms critique into an issue around the strength of evidence and the credibility of the testimony. Effective critique is synonymous with a counter-testimony of a reliable witness. A witness is someone who is present at the time of an event, often a crime, and is able to testify before the law. They are able to give direct evidence in relation to the events. However, they often rely on foggy memories and blurred vision. It is not too difficult for the defence or prosecution to put the reliability or credibility of the witness in doubt. Here is where the role of making comes into play. More often than not, in the post-critical age, a testimony, or counter-testimony, is not simply uttered but is rather constructed. Latour is the first to admit that a critique has to be made. As such the eyewitness is no longer a person but a photograph, a video or other forms of surveillance. Juries are more decisive when they are presented with the facts, the evidence, more often submitted as objects as opposed to a fuzzy testimony of a witness. Critique, or counter-testimony, is a material process enabled by infrastructure. Is a practice-based question of physics, chemistry and the material forms of agency. Given all this this chapter explores further the role of critical making as counter-testimony. From aesthetic practices of forensics, counter-forensics to the role of labs in media archaeology and investigative practices, I will tell the story of makers that present their objects as a counter-narrative to pressing socio-political issues. More importantly, however, I will address the issue of how critical making practices can establish credibility in a world of fakes and loss of belief

Graduate School of Engineering and Management Catalog 2018-2019

The Graduate Catalog represents the offerings, programs, and requirements in effect at the time of publication