This paper explores the possibilities for enhancing the Irish-language learning experience through students collaboratively constructing digital artefacts in the form of stories via design-based learning activities aligned with curricular knowledge in and through the medium of Irish. Irish is one of Ireland's two official languages where Irish is the national minority language and English is the dominant majority language. For quite some time, however, significant weaknesses have been noticeable in the teaching of Irish as a second language in the primary education system. This study culminates in a practical innovative model called TALES (Technology, Activity, Language Learning, Engagement and Story) and offers a possible solution to the problem of underachievement in Irish. TALES integrates all four language skills through the storytelling phase and maps them to four corresponding multimedia skills during the digital recreation phase, developing language and technology skills in the process. It externalises student thinking whilst co-creating sharable learning artefacts, negotiating meaning and deepening learning. TALES engages students in the meaningful production of the Irish language, and provides them with increased and spontaneous opportunities to speak and write the language through creative writing and digital recreation activities. It supports a curriculum-aligned, student-centred, technology-enhanced, design-based, constructionist and collaborative approach to language learning. Students demonstrated a more positive attitude towards Irish and were intrinsically motivated to learn it. They became more digitally fluent as they became more adept at designing and creating, developing interpersonal, communicative and problem-solving skills in the process.
Attempting the hands-on activities typical of makerspaces without in-person expert facilitation can lead to frustration and decreased engagement. This study aims to explore the collaboration affordances of REACH, a novel communication device that allows users to share gestures around a common artifact while in separate locations. Using a modified version of the divergent collaborative learning mechanisms framework (DCLM), this paper highlights the affordances of REACH to support students in collaboratively engaging in joint attention and boundary spanning perception and action, even when they are physically disparate.
This paper introduces PaperCut, software that enables novices to design textured 3D vessels from paper cutouts. The software and accompanying workflow were developed to enable novices to explore 3D printing entirely through hands-on craft-based activities, bypassing traditional Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Machining (CAM) software workflows. The approach is designed to enable novice creators to apply their expertise in traditional craft to interactions with a 3D printer. We describe our approach and discuss a workshop in which participants used PaperCut to create 3D printed forms in clay and a custom 3D printable play-dough.
Making and constructionism offer teachers novel ways to engage students in learning. These novel approaches allow students to engage in rich, meaningful learning while building their broader STEM skillset. However, rates of adoption and curricular integration remain sporadic and difficult to understand. For many teachers, the question of integrating making and technology within their classroom becomes “is it worth the effort?” With few teachers expert in maker technologies before entering the classroom, issues of cognitive load associated with technology adoption are of high importance for teacher adoption of technology. How much mental effort it will take for them to learn a technology and subsequently teach it are essential parts of making informed instructional decisions within schools and classrooms. We use the term Technological Instructional Overhead (TIO) to evaluate and engage the various cognitive and practical considerations for teachers when potentially adopting maker projects and technologies within their classrooms.
Justifying universal K12 computer science (CS) education requires a clear articulation of why CS is valuable for all students. Drawing from Constructionist perspectives on the relationship between computers and cognition, we analyze interviews with secondary school students at the end of their time in a 2-year, constructionist CS course to better understand how these students’ CS education affected their experiences with computing in their everyday lives. In doing so, we identify three types of experience where students begin to “re-see” technology: respect, curiosity, and an impetus to do more. We analyze these experiences using Constructionist perspectives on computer cultures, material intelligence, and liberatory pedagogy. Finally, we discuss how computational identity development is a unique process mediated by learners' participation in communities of practice and explore implications of this analysis for the goals of K12 CS education.
