VIRTUAL SCHOOLS

Virtual Schools

Virtual Schools

Introduction

Curricular applications and the instructional process are becoming increasingly information driven. Many different types of disciplines are integrating computer based products and applications into the teaching methodology. This paper proposes a curriculum for a high school e-textile course-a curriculum rooted in our experiences in developing an e-textile construction kit and in holding several courses and workshops with these materials. The paper briefly describes the e-textile kit and reports on our teaching experiences, reflecting on the relationship between the evolving tools and curriculum and our user experiences.

Programming and electronics are fundamentally design disciplines; and as such, it hardly makes sense to limit education in these disciplines to textbook readings and "cookbook" laboratory exercises. Indeed, there is a strong and (in our view) productive tradition of teaching these subjects through design activities. Computer programming might be introduced through the creation of video games, for example; or electronics through the construction of a radio. Even within this tradition of education-through-design, however, there are strong cultural limitations. That is, most projects implicitly fit within existing student subcultures-of gaming, or automotive design, for example-that include some students while implicitly excluding others. There is nothing at all wrong in our view with the support and encouragement of such subcultures; but at the same time, educators should be alert to technological innovations that might spur the growth of new types of student subcultures of programming, engineering, and design.

As a representative of an already-existing subculture of programming and electronics, consider the area of robotics. For at least the past decade, robotics classes and clubs have been popular ways to introduce electronics, programming, engineering and other topics in a hands-on fashion. There are robotics kits, competitions, textbooks, and organizations and so forth aimed at pre-college students. And yet, while robotics is a wonderful introduction to electronics and programming for kids, it is limited in the way that anyone particular educational subculture is limited-namely, in the types of projects undertaken, and the population attracted. By the same token, there are a plethora of fascinating ideas in the wider realm of physical or embedded computation that could be introduced to youngsters through alternative activities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of electronic textiles (e-textiles) as a means of introducing electronics and programming to students. Briefly, our argument is that the advent of new and accessible materials and programming platforms permits the growth of a new educational subculture (or perhaps collection of subcultures) rich in content and creative potential, and (eventually) potentially comparable in interest to the cultures surronnding such activities as robotics and gaming.

We are not the first to express an interest in expanding the range of introductory activities in computing and engineering. Indeed, some recent research [9J and commercial products [8J are aiming to address the limited range of kid-centered embedded computation tools and activities. Still, there is room for a great deal more exploration of the potential of physical computing in k-12 educational ...