The FabLearn Program and the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab (TLT Lab), both directed by Paulo Blikstein at Teachers College in New York City, have opened applications for the third cohort of FabLearn Fellows. The application deadline is September 13th, 2020.
FabLearn Fellows are educators in formal, informal, or alternative learning environments who are “pioneers in generating ideas, best practices, and open-source resources for makerspaces, fab labs, and other spaces for creative educational work.” The FabLearn Fellows are also “global ambassadors communicating the value of constructionist learning, culturally-aware pedagogies, educational equity, and diversity.”
The theme for the new call for FabLearn Fellows is “Cultural Making.”
“We want to engage diverse educators from all over the world in documenting ways that maker education is happening around the planet,” says Blikstein, Associate Professor of Learning Technology Design. “We are interested in how local ideas, culture, and practices are both inspiring and being inspired by maker education, and how we can build a more diverse and meaningful movement, inspired by non-U.S. constructivist education scholars such as Paulo Freire, Ubiratan D’Ambrosio, and Terezinha Nunes.
The 2020 cohort of FabLearn Fellows will produce an edited book, to be titled “Cultural Making Around the World,” that will provide “a comprehensive, global portrait of making practices using high-, low-, or no tech.”
“We want to document and tell the stories of people using traditional digital fabrication but also alternative materials, such as recycled electronics, low-cost robotics, eco-friendly materials, bioplastics, clay, wood, natural fibers, and traditional textiles,” Blikstein says. “We are also interested in how educators from around the world are adapting their maker-inspired activities to the new COVID-19 scenarios.
Those selected as FabLearn Fellows make a 24-month commitment (from October 2020 through September 2022) to provide teachers and educators with the resources to turn their own successful education activities and experiences in makerspaces into shareable, open-source educational materials. This program targets educators who are either actively using or building makerspaces or fab labs, or who work in any alternative spaces in which children engage with the creation of objects -- even if they do not have digital fabrication technologies.
Learn more at https://fablearn.org/fellows/2020-announcement/ or by reading about the FabLearn Fellows Program. For questions, email info@fablearn.net