Maker Movement in Formal Education: Workshop for Research Design, Practices, and Technologies
08 June 2015 at CSCL2015
Papers Welcome but not Required
Target date for those submitting papers or for indicating intent to attend: 15 April 2015
M2-CSCL-2015
This participatory workshop has several objectives. The maker movement has garnered significant attention internationally and is known to leverage or obligate important cognitive and affective dynamics, including those associated with agency, motivation, and imagination. Yet, with the exception of unusual pre-college settings that focus on design and engineering, the maker-type activities predominantly take place outside of formal school settings. There is enormous opportunity to leverage the power of making in school settings, especially those subject to external pressures of curriculum assessments or national requirements.
In this workshop, we will introduce digital media making – that is, creation of interactive videos and games - as one promising pathway for bringing making into formal education settings. We solicit in this workshop the involvement of others with research or intervention experience in promoting learning by making in formal educational settings. Although our approaches are purely digital in format, and we invite participation by others in digital making, we also especially invite those CSCL attendees whose efforts entail creation of physical artifacts (e.g., with 3D printers, Arduino kits, etc.).
Based on projects funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US State Department’s Fulbright Research Program, we have a sizable collection of data pointing to students and teachers responding to media-making in highly charged and positive ways. Many of these dynamics entail altered sense of identity through cross-generational collaborative in media-making, help-giving, help-seeking, and identify shifts when new artifacts are part of peer-tutoring. In this workshop, we wish to size up ways to theoretically specify these and other shifts. Ultimately, we believe that formal educational environments of the future will differ dramatically from those of today, and a research foundation in the area of greater agency, ownership, imagination and collaboration will spark much of those changes.
Workshop Aims
Future learning environments will entail ascendant characteristics of creativity, collaboration, generativity, and making. This workshop is designed to contribute to building a shared vocabulary that enables theory-building, storytelling and knowledge exchange in this area. We envision development of a synthesis of participant research and ideas in service of an emerging theoretical framework for 'making' in formal learning environments. We expect new partnerships and proposals to emerge from this workshop.
How to Apply
Participants are encouraged to contribute a paper **by 15 April 2015**, one or more short papers (2-4 pages, using the CSCL conference template, through EasyChair submission system). Paper topics may fall under the following categories, though the following are not exclusive.
- Descriptions of and research on the implementation of computer-supported collaborative making activities in formal school activities.
- Theory and experimentation related to the nature of identity shifts and other dynamics associated with making. These papers do not need to be focused on formal school settings. The intent is to elaborate on the potential for
- Concept papers on computer-supported collaborative making activities for use in formal school settings, with emphasis on the potential to simultaneously reach the formal school objectives while harnessing crucial dynamics associated with making.
Those wishing to attend but not submit a paper are also very welcome. The session will be lively and productive, and we welcome all interested CSCL attendees. Please simply send a note to the organizers at hiroo.kato@pepperdine.edu and eric.hamilton@pepperdine.edu, indicating your name, institution, and field of research or interest. The conference organizers should also be contacted for any suggestions or questions.
Workshop organizing team:
Eric Hamilton, Sandra Sarmonpal, Kimberly Welch, Traci Garff, Hiroo Kato, Helen Teague, Antha Holt
All reachable at firstname.lastname@pepperdine.edu