Remote Learners, Home Makers: How Digital Fabrication Was Taught Online During a Pandemic

Abstract

Digital fabrication courses that relied on physical makerspaces were severely disrupted by COVID-19. As universities shut down in Spring 2020, instructors developed new models for digital fabrication at a distance. Through interviews with faculty and students and examination of course materials, we recount the experiences of eight remote digital fabrication courses. We found that learning with hobbyist equipment and online social networks could emulate using industrial equipment in shared workshops. Furthermore, at-home digital fabrication offered unique learning opportunities including more iteration, machine tuning, and maintenance. These opportunities depended on new forms of labor and varied based on student living situations. Our findings have implications for remote and in-person digital fabrication instruction. They indicate how access to tools was important, but not as critical as providing opportunities for iteration; they show how remote fabrication exacerbated student inequities; and they suggest strategies for evaluating trade-offs in remote fabrication models with respect to learning objectives. CCS CONCEPTS• Applied computing → Education; • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models.

Impact of digital technologies upon teaching and learning in higher education in Latin America: an outlook on the reach, barriers, and bottlenecks

“…This includes, to name but a few, emergence of state-of-the-art learning tools or platforms such as: Flipped classrooms, Augmented reality (AR), Virtual reality (VR), Learning Management Systems (Moodle, Canvas, Blackboards, MOOCs), as well as, learning elements or components like Serious games and gamified learning platforms, Mobile learning (m-learning) (Er et al, 2019 ; Gordillo et al, 2019 ; Hincapie et al, 2021 ; Lin & Wang, 2021 ; López et al, 2021 ; Rubio-Fernández et al, 2019 ). Along these lines, this current study note that with support of TEL (Bälter, 2021 ; Chiu, 2020 ; Hosseini et al, 2021 ; Okoye et al, 2021 ; Sen & Leong, 2020 ; Smith et al, 2021 ), otherwise allied to the “digital technologies for education” in this paper, that learning has surpassed the need for physical infrastructure (e.g., face-to-face classrooms), and has transferred the instructional or pedagogical responsibility for Educators to provide innovative alternatives to physical infrastructures for the students (e.g., remote and distance learning, working facilities at home, technology at home) (Benabdallah & Bourgault, 2021 ; Chick et al, 2020 ; Crick et al, 2020 ; Jimoyiannis et al, 2020 ; LALA, 2020 ; Martens et al, 2020 ; Okoye et al, 2021 ; UNESCO, 2021b ). Also, TEL-based Education (digitized-education) have attained flexibility and mobility in its mode of delivery or paradigms (Aguilera-Hermida et al, 2021 ; Diaz-Nunez et al, 2021 ; Okoye et al, 2021 ; del Rio-Chillcce et al, 2021 ; TEC, 2020b ).…”

Toward Video-Conferencing Tools for Hands-On Activities in Online Teaching

“…Several recent studies have documented the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and educators, demonstrating that the instructors' workload increased as a result of transferring their teaching activities online [6,9]. In particular, the instructors experienced the growing need to engage and interact with the students more and in many different ways [6,9].…”

“…Several recent studies have documented the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and educators, demonstrating that the instructors' workload increased as a result of transferring their teaching activities online [6,9]. In particular, the instructors experienced the growing need to engage and interact with the students more and in many different ways [6,9]. Teachers usually created more quizzes and other online materials, and engaged in more direct conversations with students [9], as well as provided more pedagogical support in the form of progress check-in meetings and targeted sessions [6].…”

“…In particular, the instructors experienced the growing need to engage and interact with the students more and in many different ways [6,9]. Teachers usually created more quizzes and other online materials, and engaged in more direct conversations with students [9], as well as provided more pedagogical support in the form of progress check-in meetings and targeted sessions [6]. However, despite increased pedagogical efforts, students experienced a reduction in the quality of education, and satisfaction [6,83], primarily due to the lack of sense of community and flexible opportunities for engagement with peers and instructors [83].…”

Six Feet Apart: Online Payments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Identifying how service oriented sectors beyond telehealth might incorporate interpersonal interactions is an important design implication for digital payment infrastructure. Findings from transitioning physical courses online [12] can potentially be applied to sectors that are currently difficult to digitize (Home & Repair), though future work is necessary.…”