1. www.nominettrust.org.uk
Digital Makers
How can we support young people to be confident digital makers?
Ravensbourne College, 25th May, 2012
Dan Sutch dan.sutch@nominettrust.org.uk
@dansutch @nominettrust
2. Social investor & grant maker aiming to redesign ways of
addressing social challenges through the use of digital technology
www.nominettrust.org.uk
Foundation charity of Nominet – the .uk domain registry (over 10 million .uk sites)
3. Young People’s Investment Programme
To investigate and demonstrate how digital technologies can
be used to support young people to engage socially and
economically with their communities.
4. Digital Makers – in partnership with Nesta and Mozilla
An aspiration to increase participation and access to digital
making activities, developing a generation of digital makers
What does it mean to be a ‘digital maker’
... to participate in cultures and communities of digital makers?
... to actively participate in cultures and communities that privilege
digital making and production?
What does digital making mean to you and your work?
5. Context: economic, social, personal...
Recent discussion about importance of computer science and
economic role of schooling
Rise of ‘networked society’; importance of ‘network literacy’;
challenge of interaction of ‘organisation’ with ‘network’
New forms of employment and ways of organising work
New business models and opportunities
New ways of participating in socially useful activities
Long tradition/recent arguments of learner centred education
(Creators not Consumers)
Your/your communities’ social and economic needs
6. Types of engagement
•Confident users of digital technology
•Digital safety
•Making sense of information online (Bold Creative)
•Critical, digital and •Publishing and presenting (RadioWaves)
web literacies
•Making with and through the web (Hackasauarus)
•Digital conduct (personal,
professional, legal) •Creating physical digital products
•Focussing on enabling young people to engage
•Coding and programming socially and economically with their
communities
•Design, content, interaction
•Computer science,
network literacy
7. Challenges to address
The catalysts and disconnects as young people
engage with digital making?
The productive capabilities needed for digital
making and the signposts across non-linear
progression/development?
How can we ‘loosely tie together’ efforts across
the wide range of digital maker activities to greatest
effect?
Notas do Editor
Participation is keyWhat does it mean to participateWhat does it mean to be a maker or to work in the context of digital making
We know about the reasons for exploring digital making – I don’t need to go over these point, but I hope you recognise, and will add to this listWhen we think about involvement in digital making, we must think broadly about participating in activities around digital making. Not just the act of coding, digital design – but of interacting with digital content and with the structures created through the digital tools we use and the digital evironment in which much of this context is played out – or with which it interacts.One of the key areas of context for me is the intersection between socio-technological networks and existing ways of doing. How we support young people to engage in these contexts is vital to their making and confident use of digital tehcnologies.
This is not exlusive or complete – but a sense of the bredth of digital making and the capabilities required for ‘productive engagement’Not linear progressionNot constant of consistent engagementThe others will talk about different aspects of this – picking up really important elements of what it means to be a digital maker & to participate in digital making activities.