TY - GEN
T1 - Breaking boundaries
T2 - Strategies for mentoring through textile computing workshops
AU - Kuznetsov, Stacey
AU - Trutoiu, Laura C.
AU - Kute, Casey
AU - Howley, Iris
AU - Siewiorek, Dan
AU - Paulos, Eric
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - With over 13.3 million children living below poverty line in the United States, there is a pressing need for engaging HCI research with children at the socio-economic margins. Drawing from design studio culture and art therapy literature, we explore wearable computing as a creative and tangible medium (similar to markers, paints, clays, etc.) for motivating 'at-risk' children in hands-on making and expressive instantiation of ideas. Working with a local outreach organization for 'at-risk' middle school girls, we conducted five weekly workshops during which participants ideated, designed and implemented personal wearable computing projects. These sessions inspired participants (age 10-12) who tend to be uninterested and uncooperative in educational activities to complete interactive projects and engage with workshop volunteers as mentors and peers. We present the challenges, merits and outcomes of our approach, proposing wearable computing as a healing outlet and a mentoring strategy for at-risk children.
AB - With over 13.3 million children living below poverty line in the United States, there is a pressing need for engaging HCI research with children at the socio-economic margins. Drawing from design studio culture and art therapy literature, we explore wearable computing as a creative and tangible medium (similar to markers, paints, clays, etc.) for motivating 'at-risk' children in hands-on making and expressive instantiation of ideas. Working with a local outreach organization for 'at-risk' middle school girls, we conducted five weekly workshops during which participants ideated, designed and implemented personal wearable computing projects. These sessions inspired participants (age 10-12) who tend to be uninterested and uncooperative in educational activities to complete interactive projects and engage with workshop volunteers as mentors and peers. We present the challenges, merits and outcomes of our approach, proposing wearable computing as a healing outlet and a mentoring strategy for at-risk children.
KW - At-risk children
KW - Design studio culture
KW - Wearable computing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79958126906&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79958126906&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1978942.1979380
DO - 10.1145/1978942.1979380
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:79958126906
SN - 9781450302289
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 2957
EP - 2966
BT - CHI 2011 - 29th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Conference Proceedings and Extended Abstracts
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
ER -