Digital Fabrication within Participatory Design

To Change Children’s Perceptions of Factual Literature

This student project is aimed at supporting and improving schoolteachers‟ use of factual literature within 4th to 6th grade (children between 10 and 13 years). The purpose of the project is to change pupils perceptions of factual literature as something difficult and/or boring. The project tries to accomplish this by opening up to new experiences with factual literature through letting pupils design „inspirational toolboxes‟ for themselves and teachers. The toolboxes include a range of inspirational design proposals made by the pupils that participated in our workshops and can be used as inspirational material in lessons that include subject specific reading.

About the demo
In the upcoming „technology inspirational toolbox‟ the same pupils will explore, establish, gather and design with Makey Makey, Scratch and/or Kinect technologies. With these different technologies, the students will be in groups of 3-4 exploring and designing with digital fabrication technologies followed by an inspiration card workshop where pupils establish and gather materials on the grounds of the same questions asked in the „pencil inspirational workshop‟.

It is our hope that different inspirational toolboxes will unlock different kinds of ideas, values and motivations as well as show a development in pupils creations and design proposals.

The project will be presented in the form of video showcasing the design concept, a poster outlining the workshops and our findings as well as the pupils „inspirational toolboxes‟.

Download demo poster

Presented by:
Troels Lykkegaard Jensen – MA student in ICT-based educational design, Aarhus University.
Heidi Svale Andersen – MA student in ICT-based educational design, Aarhus University.
Susanne Nordquist – MA student in ICT-based educational design, Aarhus University.
Jens Andersen-Mølgaard – MA student in ICT-based educational design, Aarhus University.
Rikke Toft Nørgård – Center for Teaching Development and Digital Media, Aarhus University.