Craft- and Project-based Pedagogy for Digital Fabrication and Making

Digital technology is radically changing people's lives and work in industry, finance, services, media and commerce, and this requires a change in the education and training arena as well. However, changes in educational practices are taking a long time to reflect the increasingly pervasive use digital technologies in our 21st century society. In this course I will draw from the experiences of introducing digital fabrication and making to formal and informal education contexts using a solid craft- and project-based pedagogical approach deployed within five interconnected stages: ideation, planning, creating, programming and sharing. The course covers the use of making technologies in education, detailing this design thinking and inquiry-based pedagogical methodology as well as technological platforms that support the deployment of digital fabrication and making tools within learning ecosystems. The course is carried out as a three-hours practical session, including hands-on group work to develop a physical computer-supported artefact.