Democratizing children's engagement with the internet of things through connectus

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT), through which billions of everyday objects are becoming embedded with the abilities to sense their environment, compute data, and wirelessly connect to other devices, has been widely recognized as the new disruptive technology of our time. The predicted ubiquity of connected devices indicates that IoT technologies are quickly becoming an important part of the digital fluency curriculum, however, no research yet exists on suitable pedagogical approaches for teaching children about the IoT. The current research explores the design and deployment of a pedagogical approach and associated tangible toolkit, ConnectUs, that will enable 10-13 year old children to explore and design for the Internet of Things

[DiaGram]; Rethinking Graphic Design Process

Central to any graphic design education is the teaching of a design (or creative) process as an aid to problem-solving. This study draws upon experimental workshops within design education, together with current thinking from the broader arts, emotional psychology and the brain sciences, to explore the idea of repositioning process as the ‘main event’ – rather than it being a means-to-an-end. The study sought to frame learning experiences that enabled students to consciously become the object of their own study; including themes that explored ‘personal identity’, ‘dualism’, ‘mind-wandering’ and ‘habit’ as mechanisms to enhance our creative capacity, and evidenced significant improvements in the students’ confidence, dexterity and working methodologies (including the elusive ‘risk’ and ‘play’). The emerging conclusions propose key anchors (‘dissociative creativity’, ‘process as the main event’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘immersion’) that we believe ought to be central to the development of any new teaching (esp. within graphic design). Keywords: Design, Education, Process, Creativity, Risk Full paper. Delivered 31 May 2017. Page 81–95 of attached document