FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 12, 2020
New York, NY — The FabLearn Program and the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab (TLT Lab), both directed by Paulo Blikstein at Teachers College, Columbia University 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.
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.
The 2020 cohort of about 20 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.” The book will be the third published by FabLearn Fellows — the previous two, “Meaningful Making vol. 1” and vol. 2 (https://fablearn.org/fellows/meaningful-making-book/), have been downloaded more than 20,000 times.
“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.”
Despite the recent popularity of the maker movement and FabLabs in education, most teachers work in isolation, cut off from other practitioners doing similar projects, as well as learning sciences researchers. One of the main objectives of the FabLearn Fellows program is to bring researchers and practitioners together to help bridge these gaps. By connecting educators and researchers in the field, we hope the Fellows will learn from each other’s experiences, share these lessons with their local community, and together, create educational materials for use internationally.
Learn more at https://fablearn.org/fellows/2020-announcement/ or by reading about the FabLearn Fellows Program (https://fablearn.org/fellows/). For questions, email info@fablearn.net.
Applications from educators working with underrepresented or underprivileged students are encouraged, especially from developing countries. The application period for the 2020-22 FabLearn Fellows Program will be open until September 13th, 2020, at 11:59pm USA Eastern Time. Apply here: https://forms.gle/7CBdro8TS3u2Wqs6A