Smart Spaces for Making
Networked Physical Tools to Support Process Documentation and Learning
Carnegie Mellon University’s — Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and School of Architecture (SoA) as part of an NSF-funded exploratory research and design project are developing smart technologies to scaffold documentation practices in creative project based learning experiences. As a powerful form of project-based learning, the Maker movement has become an increasingly popular paradigm for 21st century learning experiences in contemporary education. This is true across formal and informal settings and spans K-12 through higher education. Despite the popular uptake of creative, hands-on, maker learning experiences, the educational spaces provided in schools and universities have seen little innovation to support these new pedagogical modes of activity. Digital fabrication technologies like Arduinos, 3D printers and laser cutters, enable students to create impressive-looking artifacts, but their production is often disconnected from a critical or reflective learning process. In studio-based learning environments, documentation tools and collaboration platforms need to evolve with educator practices to facilitate and better support the learning routines and habits of mind that foster noticing, reflection, articulation and disciplinary-based critique of one’s own process and learning.
Drawing on the practices of documentation and portfolios in the arts and design, our learning design research team at Carnegie Mellon University has been working with educators in an extended co-design process to envision and prototype working examples of integrated smart documentation tools and strategies to better connect students with reflective practices that strengthen and deepen learning.This project is a close creative collaboration with three practice partners that represent undergraduate, informal and formal maker learning contexts — the AlphaLab Gear's Startable Program and Quaker Valley High School and IDeATe@CMU.
Networked Physical Tools to Support Process Documentation and Learning
Carnegie Mellon University’s — Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and School of Architecture (SoA) as part of an NSF-funded exploratory research and design project are developing smart technologies to scaffold documentation practices in creative project based learning experiences. As a powerful form of project-based learning, the Maker movement has become an increasingly popular paradigm for 21st century learning experiences in contemporary education. This is true across formal and informal settings and spans K-12 through higher education. Despite the popular uptake of creative, hands-on, maker learning experiences, the educational spaces provided in schools and universities have seen little innovation to support these new pedagogical modes of activity. Digital fabrication technologies like Arduinos, 3D printers and laser cutters, enable students to create impressive-looking artifacts, but their production is often disconnected from a critical or reflective learning process. In studio-based learning environments, documentation tools and collaboration platforms need to evolve with educator practices to facilitate and better support the learning routines and habits of mind that foster noticing, reflection, articulation and disciplinary-based critique of one’s own process and learning.
Drawing on the practices of documentation and portfolios in the arts and design, our learning design research team at Carnegie Mellon University has been working with educators in an extended co-design process to envision and prototype working examples of integrated smart documentation tools and strategies to better connect students with reflective practices that strengthen and deepen learning.This project is a close creative collaboration with three practice partners that represent undergraduate, informal and formal maker learning contexts — the AlphaLab Gear's Startable Program and Quaker Valley High School and IDeATe@CMU.
Collaborating Partners
AlphaLab Gear
Through a co-design process, we designed a suite of cooperative IoT-enabled technologies that can be rapidly adapted to support the the cultures and practices of documentation in any maker space. These include an experience sampling button, a context-aware projector, and an overhead camera, etc. We want these objects to feel at home in a makerspace and are inspired by the cardboard aesthetic of Google AIY . This project will investigate the product design, packaging, and user experience with these tools.
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IDeATe Physical Computing Lab
We are exploring how to use emerging technologies to help spatially and temporally scaffold documentation practices in creative, constructive project based learning experiences. Through a two year co-design process with Quaker Valley High School educators and administration, the project team has generated multiple proposals for connected technologies solutions to support documentation practices for their sophomore year Self Directed Learning (SDL) project experiences. Quaker Valley stakeholder see the proposal for a Pitch Booth installation as being a highly promising way to try to foster ongoing student reflection and documentation of work products, while increasing students’ self-confidence in presenting and explaining their final projects in a public Pitch Session.
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IDeATe Physical Computing Lab
Our goal is to understand the ways in which the IDeATe Physical Computing lab can be augmented with design and/or smart interventions. In particular, focusing on the way in which community knowledge and shared/co-curated documentation can be fostered around electronic parts, prototyping supplies and inventories. The project will examine the opportunities for NFC-enabled inventories, building on a prototype developed by the Smart Project, deliver a series of quickly actionable propositions, and translate them into simple working interventions within the space.
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