civic making : connecting makers to community
TRANSCRIPT
CIVIC MAKINGConnecting makers to community
December 8, 2015Paul Treadwell@ptreadwell
Hello!I am Paul TreadwellI am Distance Learning Advisor at Cornell Cooperative Extension. I also work (when I can) with youth and technology in New York State, and Nicaragua.
My blog is at: http://paultreadwell.com
You can find me on Twitter: @ptreadwell
Defining our conversation
■ Civic – Of or relating to the duties or activities of people in relation to their town, city, or local area - OED online
■ Making - The process of making or producing something - OED online■ Maker Movement - the name given to the increasing number of
people employing do-it-yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others ( DIWO) techniques and processes to develop unique technology products. - techopedia
Defining my orientationA curriculum which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and information are calculated to develop social insight and interest. – Dewey, John. Democracy and Education : an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education.1st Free Press paperback ed. New York: Free Press , 1966.
MAKING IN, FOR, AND WITH
COMMUNITYFrom self-referential to tech transfer to participatory
development
Making in community
■ Organized spaces:– Makerspaces, fablabs, etc. as community.– Membership, norms, rules…..
Making in community
Knowledge sharing
Tool sharing
Cost sharing
Personal expression
Making for community:
■ I have an idea:– Making to solve an issue or problem
■ I have the expertise.■ Here is the thing I made to fix x.
I can fix that!
I see the problems
I see the solution
I’ll build the solution
Technology transfer
Making with community:
■ Making with community:– Making in consultation and collaboration with a specific
community to identify, define and solve an issue or problem.
We can…
Define the problem together
Develop solutions together
And do it again…
Participatory design and development
Technology as tool for change?
Weaving technology and community action together■ Pilot session July 2015■ Youth gathered data about
community issues■ Design teams focused on an issue
and developed a prototype solution
■ Civic making seeks to enlarge the scope and impact of making in order to embed the practices and affordances a diy mindset into the reality of our lives as civic beings.
Civic makers pilot July 2015
Computational to procedural to community literacy■ Making is an act of agency. ■ Working with technology develops a mindset, a literacy.■ By developing an understanding of code, and coding practices,
participants will develop a procedural literacy that can then be used to understand, re-create and build a diverse range of systems, including technological, legal, governmental and social systems.
The praxis of civic making
■ It is critical reflection and action in order to transform reality.■ Explicit connection between:
– a concrete community with issues and needs – digital/computational literacy and maker mindsets
■ It is critical hope in action.
Inspirations and others doing similar■ IDEO – Human Centered Design
– https://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit■ Fab Labs and other MIT things
– https://www.fablabs.io/– http://littledevices.org/– And much more
■ Meaningful Making – Projects and inspirations from FabLabs and Makerspaces (pdf)– http://fablearn.stanford.edu/fellows/sites/default/files/Blikstein_Ma
rtinez_Pang-Meaningful_Making_book.pdf
Image credits
■ John Dewey - http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a51565/■ Making in community from:
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/fab-lab/■ I can fix that: http://
etc.usf.edu/clipart/72700/72765/72765_burroughs.htm■ All other photos - Paul Treadwell