Title: Reimagining Systems for Learning Hands-on Creative and Maker Skills
In the last decade, HCI researchers have designed and engineered several systems to lower the entry barrier for beginners and support novices in learning hands-on creative maker skills. These skills range from building electronics to fabricating physical artifacts. While much of the design and engineering of current learning systems is driven by the advances in technology, we can reimagine these systems by reorienting the design goals around constructivist and sociocultural theories of learning to support learning progression, engagement across artistic disciplines, and designing for inclusivity and accessibility. This one-day workshop aims to bring together the HCI researchers in systems engineering and learning sciences, challenge them to reimagine the future design of systems of learning creative maker skills, form connections across disciplines, and promote collaborative research in the systems of learning creative skills. more »« less
Jelen, Ben; Richards, Olivia K.; Whitman, Samantha A.; Ongwere, Tom; Kresnye, K. Cassie; Siek, Katie A.
(, Proceedings of the 14th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare)
null
(Ed.)
As the worldwide population ages, HCI researchers are designing technologies to better support older adults. We investigated how older adult crafters would customize technologies using electronics by building on their crafting skills. This supported them to explore customizing devices for themselves and advance the design of pervasive health technologies for older adults. We first conducted a survey of 42 older adult crafters to learn more about their crafting habits and gauge interest in technology and health tracking. We then conducted a participatory design workshop with 10 older adult crafters, focused on mutual learning to support them in prototyping how they would customize technology with maker electronics. They brainstormed customized devices around health, games, and safety, as well as aesthetically enhanced artifacts integrating electronics. We discuss how promoting older adult crafters to design and build customized pervasive health technologies impacts future research, and we provide guidelines on how to do so.
Jelen, Ben; Richards, Olivia K.; Whitman, Samantha A.; Ongwere, Tom; Kresnye, K. Cassie; Siek, Katie A.
(, Proceedings of the Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth ’20))
As the worldwide population ages, HCI researchers are designing technologies to better support older adults. We investigated how older adult crafters would customize technologies using electronics by building on their crafting skills. This supported them to explore customizing devices for themselves and advance the design of per- vasive health technologies for older adults. We first conducted a survey of 42 older adult crafters to learn more about their crafting habits and gauge interest in technology and health tracking. We then conducted a participatory design workshop with 10 older adult crafters, focused on mutual learning to support them in prototyp- ing how they would customize technology with maker electronics. They brainstormed customized devices around health, games, and safety, as well as aesthetically enhanced artifacts integrating elec- tronics. We discuss how promoting older adult crafters to design and build customized pervasive health technologies impacts future research, and we provide guidelines on how to do so.
Berry, C.; Gennert, M.; Reck, R.
(, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)
In September 2019, the fourth and final workshop on the Future of Mechatronics and Robotics Education (FoMRE) was held at a Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, MI. This workshop was organized by faculty at several universities with financial support from industry partners and the National Science Foundation. The purpose of the workshops was to create a cohesive effort among mechatronics and robotics courses, minors and degree programs. Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (MRE) is an integration of mechanics, controls, electronics, and software, which provides a unique opportunity for engineering students to function on multidisciplinary teams. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, it attracts diverse and innovative students, and graduates better-prepared professional engineers. In this fast growing field, there is a great need to standardize educational material and make MRE education more widely available and easier to adopt. This can only be accomplished if the community comes together to speak with one clear voice about not only the benefits, but also the best ways to teach it. These efforts would also aid in establishing more of these degree programs and integrating minors or majors into existing computer science, mechanical engineering, or electrical engineering departments. The final workshop was attended by approximately 50 practitioners from industry and academia. Participants identified many practical skills required for students to succeed in an MRE curriculum and as practicing engineers after graduation. These skills were then organized into the following categories: professional, independent learning, controller design, numerical simulation and analysis, electronics, software development, and system design. For example, professional skills include technical reports, presentations, and documentation. Independent learning includes reading data sheets, performing internet searches, doing a literature review, and having a maker mindset. Numerical simulation skills include understanding data, presenting data graphically, solving and simulating in software such as MATLAB, Simulink and Excel. Controller design involves selecting a controller, tuning a controller, designing to meet specifications, and understanding when the results are good enough. Electronics skills include selecting sensors, interfacing sensors, interfacing actuators, creating printed circuit boards, wiring on a breadboard, soldering, installing drivers, using integrated circuits, and using microcontrollers. Software development of embedded systems includes agile program design, state machines, analyzing and evaluating code results, commenting code, troubleshooting, debugging, AI and machine learning. Finally, system design includes prototyping, creating CAD models, design for manufacturing, breaking a system down into subsystems, integrating and interfacing subcomponents, having a multidisciplinary perspective, robustness, evaluating tradeoffs, testing, validation, and verification, failure, effect, and mode analysis. A survey was prepared and sent out to the participants from all four workshops as well as other robotics faculty, researchers and industry personnel in order to elicit a broader community response. Because one of the biggest challenges in mechatronics and robotics education is the absence of standardized curricula, textbooks, platforms, syllabi, assignments, and learning outcomes, this was a vital part of the process to achieve some level of consensus. This paper presents an introduction to MRE education, related work on existing programs, methods, results of the practical skills survey, and then draws conclusions based upon these results. It aims to create the foundation for standardizing the development of student skills in mechatronics and robotics curricula across institutions, disciplines, majors and minors. The survey was completed by 94 participants and it was clear that there is a consensus that the primary skills students should have upon completion of MRE courses or a program is a broader multidisciplinary systems-level perspective, an ability to problem solve, and an ability to design a system to meet specifications.
A domain-specific language (DSL) design space describes a collection of related languages via a series of, often orthogonal, dimensions. While PL and HCI researchers have independently developed methods for working with design spaces, the communities have yet to fully benefit from each others' insights. In pursuit of new approaches informed by both PL and HCI, we first review existing approaches researchers employ to conceptualize, develop, and use design spaces in DSL design across the two disciplines. For example, HCI researchers, when developing interfaces backed by DSLs, often treat the design process as core to their research contributions and theory-building. In PL, researchers have explored formal approaches to design spaces that help automate design space exploration and provide powerful conceptual clarity to language design tradeoffs. We then discuss areas where the two fields share common methods and highlight opportunities for researchers to combine knowledge across PL and HCI.
Pengcheng An, Kenneth Holstein
(, CHI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
Recently, the HCI community has seen increased interest in the design of teaching augmentation (TA): tools that extend and complement teachers' pedagogical abilities during ongoing classroom activities. Examples of TA systems are emerging across multiple disciplines, taking various forms: e.g., ambient displays, wearables, or learning analytics dashboards. However, these diverse examples have not been analyzed together to derive more fundamental insights into the design of teaching augmentation. Addressing this opportunity, we broadly synthesize existing cases to propose the TA framework. Our framework specifies a rich design space in five dimensions, to support the design and analysis of teaching augmentation. We contextualize the framework using existing designs cases, to surface underlying design trade-offs: for example, balancing actionability of presented information with teachers' needs for professional autonomy, or balancing unobtrusiveness with informativeness in the design of TA systems. Applying the TA framework, we identify opportunities for future research and design.
Turakhia, Dishita G, Blikstein, Paulo, Holbert, Nathan R, Worsley, Marcelo, Jacobs, Jennifer, Anderson, Fraser, Gong, Jun, DesPortes, Kayla, and Mueller, Stefanie. Reimagining Systems for Learning Hands-on Creative and Maker Skills. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10354906. CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems . Web. doi:10.1145/3491101.3503732.
Turakhia, Dishita G, Blikstein, Paulo, Holbert, Nathan R, Worsley, Marcelo, Jacobs, Jennifer, Anderson, Fraser, Gong, Jun, DesPortes, Kayla, & Mueller, Stefanie. Reimagining Systems for Learning Hands-on Creative and Maker Skills. CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10354906. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3503732
Turakhia, Dishita G, Blikstein, Paulo, Holbert, Nathan R, Worsley, Marcelo, Jacobs, Jennifer, Anderson, Fraser, Gong, Jun, DesPortes, Kayla, and Mueller, Stefanie.
"Reimagining Systems for Learning Hands-on Creative and Maker Skills". CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (). Country unknown/Code not available. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3503732.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10354906.
@article{osti_10354906,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Reimagining Systems for Learning Hands-on Creative and Maker Skills},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10354906},
DOI = {10.1145/3491101.3503732},
abstractNote = {In the last decade, HCI researchers have designed and engineered several systems to lower the entry barrier for beginners and support novices in learning hands-on creative maker skills. These skills range from building electronics to fabricating physical artifacts. While much of the design and engineering of current learning systems is driven by the advances in technology, we can reimagine these systems by reorienting the design goals around constructivist and sociocultural theories of learning to support learning progression, engagement across artistic disciplines, and designing for inclusivity and accessibility. This one-day workshop aims to bring together the HCI researchers in systems engineering and learning sciences, challenge them to reimagine the future design of systems of learning creative maker skills, form connections across disciplines, and promote collaborative research in the systems of learning creative skills.},
journal = {CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
author = {Turakhia, Dishita G and Blikstein, Paulo and Holbert, Nathan R and Worsley, Marcelo and Jacobs, Jennifer and Anderson, Fraser and Gong, Jun and DesPortes, Kayla and Mueller, Stefanie},
}
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