LABoral takes its school dropout prevention programme to Stanford University
The experience will be presented to a panel at FabLearn, a conference dealing with the use of digital fabrication in teaching and learning
fabLAB Asturias, the digital fabrication laboratory at LABoral. Photo: LABoral/S. Redruello
LABoral will take its experience with the school dropout prevention programme to Stanford University. Head of Education programmes at the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón, Lucía Arias, and the researcher and designer of new educational programmes linked to digital technologies Susanna Tesconi, who collaborated with LABoral on this programme, will share their experiences gained from the school year 2012-2013 with an expert panel.
Located between San Francisco and San Jose, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University is recognised as a world leading institution in the field of research and education. And it will be here where, this Sunday 27 and Monday 28, FabLearn will be held – a conference organised by Paulo Blikstein and Katheryn Papadoulos, professors at this university, where educators, students, designers, researchers and makers come together to present, discuss and share their experiences on the use of digital fabrication in learning. Its purpose is to transform or put forward new educational alternatives based on the application of the latest technologies.
Lucía Arias and Susanna Tesconi will give a presentation of their experience with this programme organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Principality of Asturias in which a selection of students groups following the diversification curriculum from 12 educational centres in Asturias participated.
Focused on three work areas, digital design and fabrication, audiovisuals and the introduction to creative computer programming, the early school drop-out prevention programme is aimed at building new learning spaces through research projects and activities which motivate kids with learning problems, supporting a change in the organisational and curriculum model. In the case of LABoral, the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón aimed to develop knowledge of technical language in order to achieve a cross-cutting usage of ICTs while also fostering experimentation and critical thinking, using as its main tool fabLAB Asturias – the art centre’s digital fabrication laboratory. At the same time, the centre worked with teachers to provide them with the tools to create innovative learning environments.
The key objective of LABoral’s educational programme is training, based on an understanding of training as providing the public (general and initiated) with the knowledge and tools needed to critically analyse artistic and cultural productions and, even, facilitating pathways for them to become creators or content producers.
