Biowearables Critical Making Workshops

Research Overview

Making activities create opportunities for learners to articulate and examine their interests, values, and understanding among themselves and with knowledgeable others. In collaboration with Tangible Embodied Child-Computer Interaction Lab (led by Dr. Alissa A. Antle) and Brilliant Labs, we explore how maker activities can support children’s engagement in critical reflection on ethical issues of biowearable technologies.

See the description of the whole project on Dr. Antle’s page.

Project Members

  • Alissa N. Antle – Simon Fraser University (Project and Design Lead)
  • Yumiko Murai – Simon Fraser University (Project and Education Lead)
  • Alex Kitson – Simon Fraser University (Project and Design Co-Lead)
  • Alisha Collins – Brilliant Labs (Education Advisor)
  • Jeff Wilson – Brilliant Labs (Supervision)
  • Natacha Vautour – Brilliant Labs (Special Project)
  • Josh Keys – Brilliant Labs (Innovation Engineer)
  • Amanda Sherman – Brilliant Labs (Purchasing Coordinator)
  • Azadeh Adibi – Simon Fraser University (Research Assistant)
  • Yves Candau – Simon Fraser University (Research Assistant)
  • Katrien Jacobs – Simon Fraser University (Research Assistant)
  • Zoë Dao-Kroeker – Simon Fraser University (Research Assistant)

Papers and Presentations

Murai, Y., Antle, A.N., Kitson, A., Candau, Y., Adibi, A., Dao-Kroeker, Z., Desnoyers-Stewart, J. and Jacobs, K. (2022). Facilitating critical reflection in online distributed maker workshops: Case studies. International Journal of Child and Computer Interactions, 33.

Antle, A.N., Murai, Y., Kitson, A, Candau, Y, Dao-Kroeker, Z, and Adibi, A. (2022) “There are a LOT of moral issues with biowearables”: Teaching design ethics through a critical making biowearable workshop. In Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children 2022 (Braga, Portugal, 2022). 

Murai, Y., Antle, A.N., Kitson, A., Candau, Y., Adibi, A., Dao-Kroeker, Z., Desnoyers-Stewart, J. and Jacobs, K. (2021). Facilitating online distributed critical making: Lessons learned. In Proceedings of FabLearn Europe ’21, Rorschach, Switzerland.

Antle, A.N., Kitson, A., Murai, Y., Desnoyers-Stewart, J., Candau, Y., Adibi, A., Jacobs, K. and Dao-Kroeker, Z. (2021). Opportunities and scaffolds for critical reflection on ethical issues in an online after school biowearable workshop for youth. In Proceedings of FabLearn Europe ’21, Rorschach, Switzerland.

Dao-Kroeker, Z. M.-T., Kitson, A. J., Antle, A. N., Murai, Y., & Adibi, A. (2021). Designing Bio-Tech Ethics Cards: Promoting critical making during an online workshop with youth. In Proceedings of Interactive Design and Children Conference (IDC ’21). Virtual.

Sponsors & Supporters

NSERC Discovery, SSHRC Insight and SFU Innovates grants (PI: Alissa N. Antle)