Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Maker: Sensorial Wonderment in the Maker Literacies Research Project

• In Event: Techné in the Making: Literacies, Technologies, and Wonder in Research and Practice

Abstract

Objectives

To align with the theme of the conference, we will explore the possibilities of the maker movement for literacy researchers and the necessity to untangle some of its assumptions and practices. There is a wonderment enacted in maker spaces that simultaneously intrigues and confounds us and in this paper, we will untangle the curious mix of wonderment and detachment that we have observed when children and adults alike engage in DIY design work with digital and non-digital materials. Combining Delagrange’s (2011) notion of technologies of wonder with Carter’s (2004) work on material thinking, we will offer an alternative reading of ubiquitously popular maker approaches to learning.


Theoretical Framework

This research is informed by maker culture mindsets (Dougherty, 2013; Author 6, 2012) to conceptualize maker literacies through participatory DIY approaches. Maker epistemologies outweigh elementary tool and technology use by propelling student learning in holistic ways. In view of this integrated approach, further research is needed not only on students’ development as crafters, but also on the ways that makerspaces create greater mobilities for young people. Applying Carter’s (2004) work on material thinking, we will focus on four young people who either made or brought artifacts that celebrate the ways that they live literacies at school and in the community and the utopian nature of their artifacts.


Methods

Based on a larger three-year research project entitled Maker Literacies, we will focus on four telling artifacts that illustrate what we will describe as sensorial wonderment and untangle the properties of such maker work and their implications for maker-based research. Maker Literacies adopts a qualitative, participatory framework to reveal in-depth data accounts of student, teacher, and art professional renderings of ‘making.’ Conducting fieldwork over 8 months, we collected ethnographic observations of 100 middle and high school students’ multimodal practices and participant-made productions. We also recorded focus group interactions between teachers and art professionals on maker culture. The chosen research methods are participatory and empowering, giving participants the necessary space to enact their agency and learn about each other through objects.


Data Sources

Data include transcriptions of focus group discussions, multimodal student productions, and teacher feedback on assessment and curriculum needs. Working with a team of researchers and analysis specialists, we processed data using the qualitative software Atlas.ti.


Scholarly Significance

Applying Delagrange’s (2011) notion of technologies of wonder, we will provide a new way of viewing maker movement work that accounts for sensorial, emotional and felt engagements with materialities thereby pointing to the crucial nature of such work for participatory maker research methods.

Authors

• Jennifer Rowsell, Brock University

• Amélie Lemieux, Brock University