Author Archives: idacadmin

New project – "Makerspace i skolan"

IDAC took part in a 3 million grant application that has now been accepted by Vinnova for the 3 year project “Makerspace i skolan”. We are about 40 partners (teacher educations, municipalities, universities, etc) in this 3 years project, so we can actually establish a foundation and make a difference in the Swedish school system. Announcement: http://www.vinnova.se/sv/Aktuellt–publicerat/Pressmeddelanden/2015/150521-Digitalisering-i-skolan-kan-forbattra-larandet-/

Summary:
Makerspace in School
Project Makerspace in school aims to contribute to innovation in Swedish schools by creating a physical and virtual test environment to systematically conduct research, test and evaluate concepts, digital literacy and learning in programming, makerspace and maker culture. The project aims to create better conditions for digital learning in the bridge between the physical and digital worlds. The test environment will include students, teachers and school principals from the included test schools. It will also include companies that retail and create the tools (digital to analog) that the project needs, as well as research, teacher training and informal learning environments such as science centers.

The project will be working to
* develop specialized test beds in pre-school, primary school, secondary school and special school.
* develop specialized test beds for maker culture and programming in the areas of procurement and technology, informal learning environments and teacher education.
* attract suppliers to develop and provide methods, models and materials for a wide use in Swedish schools at different levels
* develop a platform and methodology for continuous virtual training and innovation among specialized test beds
* conduct at least one major meeting point per year(MakerDays)

The project will be organized in the design of a decentralized test-bed, where it operates as close to practice as possible. Concepts, tools, materials and methods vary depending on the age of the students and circumstances. There are various specific test beds for different school types and ages. Test beds regarding teacher training, procurement and informal learning are needed for the future.

Paper accepted for IDC´15

A systematic literature review on methods for designing with children with special needs, have been accepted at the conference IDC´15. The paper is a joint effort of the members in the Touch AT! http://touch-at.se/ project. The paper will be presented by Peter Börjesson in June in Boston (USA) at Interaction Design and Children – IDC’15 http://idc2015boston.org/ . The title is:

“Designing Technology for and with Developmentally Diverse Children – A Systematic Literature Review”

Here follows a resumé:

“This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review of research papers on the involvement of developmentally diverse children in design. The review shows that there is a growing tendency to include developmentally diverse children in the design process. Compared to other groups of developmentally diverse children, children with high-functioning autism between 8 and 12 years old are the ones that are most often actively involved in the design process. Other groups of children often have a more passive role, being observed, both in the requirements, design and evaluation phase. Working with mixed groups of children, either children with different disabilities, or typically developing children together with developmentally diverse children, also occurs more seldom. Compared to design with typically developing children, adults are involved more intensively in the design, either as users, proxies, experts and/or facilitators. Specific guidelines for how to prepare and perform design sessions with developmentally diverse children often emphasize the need for a coherence of activities, a clear structure in the sessions, verbal as well as textual explanations, and the active participation of caregivers, teachers and therapists. Based on these findings we give several suggestions for further research.”

IDAC organizing NordiCHI'16

The next nordic conference on human-computer interaction, NordiCHI’16 will take place in Gothenburg, October 2016. The theme of the conference is Game-Changing Design.

Several members of IDAC are in involved in the organization and IDAC founder Eva Eriksson is one of the general chairs.
For more information check out the web site www.nordichi2016.org.

Children MAKE – new project

More places are needed where children can meet, create and share their experiences. Twenty-five years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To mark the anniversary, SI is producing Children MAKE, which is both a method and a set of practical activities highlighting children’s right to culture and participation.

In Children MAKE we let the children themselves control the process. We create a place and supply them with tools for their work – in what is known as a makerspace. The concept is based on the ‘maker culture’, a global movement that has grown steadily in recent years. It’s just what it sounds like: a culture where making or creating is the core pursuit and which brings together people with different skills and backgrounds. Arts and crafts and other types of handiwork are combined with modern technology such as 3D printers, robotics and computer programming. Making things together, co-creating, is a time-honoured practice but the emergence of community interaction and both physical and digital places in which to share knowledge and tools is a comparatively new phenomenon. The catchwords in the maker culture are interdisciplinary, knowledge transfer and openness.

Funktek

Funktek is a co-creative design project targeting museums and people with special needs, funded by The Swedish Inheritance Fund Commission. The aim of the project is to design and develop new forms of experiences for specific target groups through a user centered design process. Through this work the project wants to enable more people to take part in the museum activities and exhibitions.

The project asks how technology in museums can be used to enhance participation and democracy, how can people with special needs experience museum exhibitions and work on equal terms, and how this form of work can lead to sustainable urban development and more democratic urban environments. Together with a broad group of young people with different special needs the project wants to anwer the questions. On a practial level the project will explore, design and develop new technologies that will work in a museum context, and that can be spread nationally and internationally.

New project – MOSAIC

IDAC is part of the project  MOSAIC: Teaching the understanding of, respect towards, and empathy for other people, which has received funding from VINNOVA. The project will develop apps aimed at  training understanding and empathy for others using a user-centred approach together with schools.

 

Makerspace in school – new project with IDAC

The project Makerspace in school aim to create a physical and virtual test environment in order to be able to systematically research, test, and evaluate the possibility to develop a robust concept for implementation of Makerspace in school. The project strive for better support for learning and digital ways of working on the bridge between the physical world and the digital, where IT is considered a material for design.

The project consortium consist of:

Partille kommun (applicant), Göteborgs Stad, Kungälvs kommun, Sollentuna kommun, Interactive Institute Swedish ICT,  Collaboratory,  IDAC, Dataföreningen, Business Region Göteborg, KTH.

The project runs until March 31, 2015.

IDAC at the IDC'14 conference

During June 17-20, Olof, Eva, Wolmet, Sofia, Peter B and Robert from IDAC went to Aarhus in Denmark in order to attend the Interaction Design and Children Conference IDC’14 http://idc2014.org/. IDAC was involved in organizing 3 workshops: “Child-Robot Interaction: Social Bonding, Learning and Ethics”, “Interaction Design with Children with Disabilities” and “Curriculum or Not – Show Us How You Teach Interaction Design and Children!”, further, IDAC was represented by one short paper “Towards a Constructively Aligned Approach to Teaching Interaction Design & Children”.

We are also very proud of our students Cathrine Hedler and Jennie Berggren from Chalmers’ master’s program in interaction design, who presented their short paper “CamQuest: Design and Evaluation of a Tablet Application for Educational Use in Preschools”

Much exciting input and interesting discussions during these intensive days!