Inventions

One idea can change everything

[Best practice]

The workshop is designed for classroom educators to acquire insights on fabrication design and to give hands-on experiences on specific tools that together can form the basis for a didactic redesign. The focus is on the learner, who through a playful and experimental approach creates knowledge and concrete products, using digital fabrication and Makey Makey.

Place: Session B – 15:30 at INCUBA 147.

Introduction and Background
Many teachers are concerned with exploiting the way children and young people learn in their spare time and when they are playing. They see a potential in informal learning processes and want to integrate them in the schools learning environment. Many children have a lot of ideas on how the world might look like and also some very specific ideas for inventions that can solve challenges and make life easier for us. It is therefore important that the school can provide learning environments and fabrication designs that promote this type of learning.

“Bricolage” or tinkering is the idea Seymour Papert evokes to describe an image of “improvisational” learning with “self-directed activities” that resemble play and that simulate “the way children learn in non-school settings” (Papert, 1993, “the children`s machine”). Our experience is that children are motivated for learning by solving problems based on real-life situations and by creating and providing concrete solutions.

About the Workshop
The workshop is designed for school teachers and educators, designers and practitioners who work with children in 4th to 6th grade. The workshop has an academic focus on mathematics and technology understanding and will cover, partly a brush up on fabrication design processes and structured design methods and, partly give hands on experience with different materials and tools.

Program

  1. Introduction to the educational use of Makey Makey focusing on inventions inspired by Storm P.
  2. Hands on makey makey creations
    a. Fruitpiano
    b. Drumset of kitchen tools Water meter
    c. Water meter
    d. Musicstation with Soundplant
  3. Joint presentation, discussion and reflection

Materials
Makey Makey, McBooks, plasticine, bananas, etc.

Outcome
This workshop is designed for classroom educators to acquire concrete tools for teaching students to become engineering designers.

Learning outcome:

  • Knowledge of conductive materials.
  • Understanding the creative processes in working with real-life challenges.
  • Learners can act with discernment in creative processes.
  • The learner can participate reflected in social situations.

About the workshop facilitator
Emil Pallesen is part of an ICT taskforce in the municipality of Aarhus. The taskforce is one of a number of measures in Aarhus that are taken to ensure the optimization of teachers skills and competences. It includes work-based learning and involvement of resource persons for new inspiration.

In 2013/14, teachers with skills in Danish, English, Mathematics and Music / Art have been part of the taskforce. The aim is that through cooperation, sharing knowledge and inspiration from the outside – including from researchers and developers – the municipality of Aarhus will create a innovative and strong resource team to support schools in the pedagogical and didactic use of ICT.

Emil Pallesen is a also a teacher at N.J. Fjordsgade skole. He teaches 4th – 6th graders. He has various experience with fabrication design, both on a school-level as a practitioner close to the children and on a municipal level by sharing knowledge and networking across schools in Aarhus.

Download the full workshop description