FabLearn 2015

Last weekend I attended and presented at the FabLearn 2015 Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education. The FabLearn conference focused on the maker movement, the theme was equity and diversity in making. Dr. Nichole Pinkard was the keynote speaker--as well as being an Associate Professor at DePaul University, she is considered a groundbreaking designer of digital and hybrid learning environments where she engages youth who has been marginalized from mainstream education. To read more about Nichole's work, check out  Digital Youth Networks. Her work bridges the theoretical understandings at ways we look at learning environments and design and a deep, pragmatic understanding of youth's lives.We spoke about introducing girls to the maker movement through e-textiles, primarily lilypad arduino (Buechley, 2006), a small microprocessor similar to the arduino, often seen in robotics. The conversation revolved around meaningful ways to engage girls in making; how to create an equitable environment for learning. We discussed whether e-textiles were an appropriate methodology of introducing circuitry, design and programming to girls. Overall, the design of the projects that I have seen in e-textiles seems simplistic, lacking aesthetic and design appeal. In introducing e-textiles, are not the design aspects of the projects of the project an integral part of the learning? Are e-textiles the most appropriate way to scaffold learning for girls about programming? Or is this the pinkification of the maker movement? Are we creating a further divide between the genders through the maker movement? Leah Buechley, in her wonderful and perhaps infamous keynote at FabLearn two years ago decried Make magazine for excluding girls--in an informal study she showed that meant were featured almost exclusively on the covers of Make magazine and projects that appeal predominately to boys, i.e. robotics were most often represented in the pages of Make.In the past two years, e-textiles has taken on a slightly more substantial role in the maker movement, but the question still remains, what are we trying to encourage girls to learn? Are we supporting them with enough design skills to engage in meaningful project based learning? When, we as educators design PBL, are we looking at the learning outcomes we want to achieve, or are e-textiles just the new buzzword in learning? There is a lack of meaningful e-textiles curriculum. and a lack of role models creating work in this area. Are we simply re-creating the home economics and industrials art classes of the 1960s, where students that were not traditionally academically oriented were encouraged to take? When I wanted to take "shop", I was told that those classes were first, just open to boys, and not recommended for students that were "academic".Lets make sure we are not re-creating these same gender divisions in the maker movement. Additionally the curriculum that develops around these activities need to be meaningful, both from an intellectual and making perspective.