Browsing by Keyword "Maker culture"
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Item Maker culture and its potential for STEM education(2022-04-19) Tabarés, Raúl; Boni, Alejandra; BIGDATADuring the last decade, different values, tools and practices promoted by maker culture have been adopted in formal educational settings with the aim of reinvigorating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. Higher education institu tions (HEIs) have also engaged with maker culture to explore its potentialities regarding education, entrepreneurship and innovation. However, these collaborations with various stakeholders are not always smooth and educators need to deal with significant challenges that arise in these engagements, despite the problem-solving learning opportunities that they can offer their students. This paper presents the results of a case study that dealt with these issues through the establishment of an open and collaborative learning ecosystem (OCLE) between different educators, students and external stakeholders. The empirical work was based on thirty-three semi-structured interviews across four countries, eight focus groups and a final participatory workshop. The study argues that maker culture can offer several potentialities for pushing forward an integrative vision of STEM education as well as other disciplines from social sciences and humanities. An emphasis is placed on how tertiary education can benefit greatly from the adoption of OCLEs and how these communities of practices can encourage an education oriented to meeting societal chal lenges. The paper also warns that these kinds of interventions face significant organisa tional challenges in HEIs that demand significant institutional recognition and support to overcome this organisational resistance.Item A tale of two innovation cultures: Bridging the gap between makers and manufacturers: Bridging the gap between makers and manufacturers(2020-11) Tabarés, Raúl; Kuittinen, Hanna; Tecnalia Research & Innovation; BIGDATA; Policies for Innovation and TechnologyMaker communities have been widely popularized during the last decade throughout the development of numerous shared spaces in the form of makerspaces, fab labs and hackerspaces across the globe. This phenomenon has drawn the attention of many stakeholders interested in establishing bridges with them for exploring their innovation potential. However, synergies between producer innovation and free innovation paradigms remain quite uncertain. To meet this gap, the authors provide an analysis of the 22 collaborative innovations between makers and manufacturers funded by the OPENMAKER project as well as relevant empirical evidence gathered throughout 126 semi-structured interviews. The findings of this contribution stress the misalignment of makers and manufacturers in society as well as their different values and motivations around innovation, and the lack of shared spaces. At the same time, the paper highlights the benefits that the interaction between these two communities could have for meeting societal challenges, increasing social welfare and speeding up innovation processes if proper incentives and conditions are orchestrated. In this sense, we propose a set of considerations and implications based on the empirical material gathered, for providing future directions for innovation policies and research agendas.