Centering Community Educators’ Expertise in Designing for High-Tech Low-Cost Digital Engagement

Our workshop introduces participants to work completed in our National Science Foundation grant developed out of a belief that 1) cost should not be a barrier for meaningfully including technology in creative learning; and 2) the expertise of community educators of color working with working class communities ought to be centralized in designing equitable digital making activities. As an introduction, our team will share some design commitments and background on the development of the research and design project. For the majority of the workshop (40 minutes) we offer participants two different inquiry experiences. Each project comes from a high-tech low-cost activity developed by team members either 1) digital and physical Spirograph play or 2) paper boat design. Because of the online format, we chose two projects that participants can do from home, but will be guided through a more complicated design project with the support of after-school educator guides. These guides are freely available on the project website and will allow participants to dive deeper into these and other projects long after the workshop is over. Finally, we will gather and reflect as a group about how these and other projects can support equity within digital and computing learning environments.