16 research outputs found

    Towards a Stronger Conceptualization of the Maker Mindset: A Case Study of an After School Program with Squishy Circuits

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    This study investigates the theoretical conception of the maker mindset in a making and tinkering afterschool program using Squishy Circuits. With a qualitative case study methodology, we analyzed the discourse and interaction of one learner guided by two analytical frameworks. Our finding shows the importance of providing making activities with various learning orientations (design, technology, collaboration, play) that challenge learners beyond their preferred engagement style to foster the development of all aspects of the maker mindset. Our finding highlights the need for a more nuanced analytical framework for characterizing how the three dimensions of a maker mindset interlock and diverge through making activities

    The evolution of a toolkit for smart-thing design with children through action research

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    Several workshops use toolkits to engage children in the design of smart things, that is, everyday things like toys enhanced with computing devices and capabilities. In general, the toolkits focus on one design stage or another, e.g., ideation or programming. Few toolkits are created to guide children through an entire design process. This paper presents a toolkit for smart-thing design with children. It revolves around SNaP, a card-based board game for children. The toolkit serves to frame the entire design process and guide them through their exploration, ideation, programming and prototyping of their own smart things. By embracing action research, the toolkit was adopted in actions with children, namely, design workshops. Results of actions were reflected over by considering children’s benefits, and they were used to make the toolkit evolve across cycles of action, reflection and development. The paper reports on the latest evolution cycles, ending with the 2020 cycle for continuing smart-thing design during COVID-19 times. The paper concludes with general reflections concerning action research and design with children, toolkits for framing smart-thing design with children, on-going and future work

    Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments

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    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

    Digital Design Literacy in K-12 Education

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    This dissertation addresses the introduction, sustainment and articulation of digital design literacy in K-12 education. It is the result of my four years of research in the [email protected] research and development project. Within this project, I have researched the topic through constructive design research experiments on both students’ and teachers’ experiences and competencies with digital design as new subject matter in K-12. The contributions presented in this dissertation are positioned within the emerging research field of making in education. The contributions concern new possibilities that making in education creates for K–12 students to develop competencies to design and critique digital technologies. The point of departure for my work was to explore how the implementation of maker settings and technologies might provide novel ways to combine constructionism, design and digital technology with the intention of having students develop digital design literacy. Hence, this dissertation is a response to the question of how to educate K–12 students to understand, use, critically reflect on, and design digital technologies through the emerging educational possibilities enabled by maker activities, maker settings, and maker technologies. The dissertation is comprised of five research papers and two reports framed by an overview that sum up the arguments made in the papers and the contributions from these come together as a whole. The first contribution is a conceptual understanding of digital design literacy. I lay out a genealogy of traditional literacy toward new literacies to legitimize digital design as a new literacy in K–12 education. I contribute an understanding of how design and digital literacies are interrelated, can mutually benefit one another, and be synthesized and articulated holistically as integrated digital design literacy. The second contribution are quantitative measures of the state-of-the-actual in terms of students’ digital, design, and critical literacy and an assessment tool for quantitatively evaluating students’ stance towards inquiry, which I argue to be an important competence of digital design literacy. The third contribution is an understanding of three crucial aspects which must be considered when developing teachers’ capability to teach digital design literacy. I point to impediments for such teaching and to existing practicing teachers’ limited possibilities to meet demands presented by teaching digital design literacy. I contribute a framework for educating reflective design educators who can support students in developing digital design literacy. The accumulation of these three contributions has resulted in what is the main contribution of this dissertation overview: The Digital Design Literacy Framework. The framework contributes a legitmaziation, articulation and operational definitions of digital design as a new literacy and its underlying competencies

    Makers at School, Educational Robotics and Innovative Learning Environments

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    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 student-produced electronic portfolio in craft education

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    The authors studied primary school students’ experiences of using an electronic portfolio in their craft education over four years. A stimulated recall interview was applied to collect user experiences and qualitative content analysis to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that the electronic portfolio was experienced as a multipurpose tool to support learning. It makes the learning process visible and in that way helps focus on and improves the quality of learning. © ISLS.Peer reviewe

    Eye on Collaborative Creativity : Insights From Multiple-Person Mobile Gaze Tracking in the Context of Collaborative Design

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    Early Career WorkshopNon peer reviewe

    Diseño y fabricación digital en entornos educativos: Estudio y validación de casos prácticos

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    Esta tesis se enmarca dentro del trabajo de investigación del grupo DEHAES (Desarrollo de Habilidades Espaciales) de la Universidad de La Laguna, que desde 2004 hasta 2011 ha desarrollado diversas tesis doctorales orientadas hacia el análisis de las aportaciones que determinadas tecnologías (Realidad Aumentada, Videojuegos, …) podrían hacer en la mejora de las habilidades espaciales de estudiantes de Ingeniería. En 2013 este grupo inicia una línea de investigación que incorpora el enfoque de educación preuniversitaria y de enseñanzas artísticas, incluyendo novedades tecnológicas aplicadas a los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. En 2014, miembros del grupo DEHAES contribuyen a crear el Laboratorio de Diseño y Fabricación Digital de la Universidad de La Laguna (Fab Lab ULL). Este laboratorio forma parte de la red Fab Foundation, vinculada al Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) del Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). El contexto de elaboración de este trabajo de tesis se enmarca al Fab Lab ULL, en el que este doctorando ha desarrollado parte de su trabajo de investigación y está asociado a la Línea: Integración de tecnologías de diseño y fabricación digital en diversos contextos educativos. Este trabajo de investigación se ha centrado en los procesos de fabricación digital que se pueden llevar a las aulas del ámbito del Dibujo, Diseño y Artes plásticas, de tal manera que cualquier profesor pueda incluir este tipo de actividades en su docencia. El trabajo realizado se presenta bajo la modalidad de compendio de artículos. Como fruto del proceso de investigación de esta tesis doctoral, se han escrito ocho Artículos para revistas, siete de ellos publicados o aceptados para su publicación en revistas indexadas. Es interesante señalar que los casos prácticos se han realizado mayoritariamente en aulas de educación regladas, pero dos de los casos prácticos se han realizado en aulas de educación especial. En concreto se han realizado en los talleres del centro psicopedagógico de la Orden de San Juan de Dios en Tenerife. Parte de los trabajos se encuadran dentro del proyecto Descubriendo Artistas: Arte y Nuevas tecnologías, desarrollado en el centro psicopedagógico de la Orden San Juan de Dios en Tenerife y financiado por la obra social de la Caixa

    Enhancing Free-text Interactions in a Communication Skills Learning Environment

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    Learning environments frequently use gamification to enhance user interactions.Virtual characters with whom players engage in simulated conversations often employ prescripted dialogues; however, free user inputs enable deeper immersion and higher-order cognition. In our learning environment, experts developed a scripted scenario as a sequence of potential actions, and we explore possibilities for enhancing interactions by enabling users to type free inputs that are matched to the pre-scripted statements using Natural Language Processing techniques. In this paper, we introduce a clustering mechanism that provides recommendations for fine-tuning the pre-scripted answers in order to better match user inputs
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