Tuesday KeyNote Address

A Maker is a modern-day tinkerer and hands-on doer and fashioner of stuff. Makers exhibit the qualities of practical ingenuity andcreativity in their projects, and exhibit a penchant for self-directed and lifelong learning — all desirable qualities for our future engineers. The growing Maker Movement has empowered technologists and creatives of all ages share their (sometimes absurd) creations at Maker Faires around the world to entertain, educate, or simply show off. Their mindset of additive innovation is a hallmark of the open community of sharing and learning that is the Maker Community.

In this talk, I will share insights from 4 years of qualitative research focused on understanding characteristics of the Maker Community and pathways of Makers. I will also discuss how Making and engineering might intersect, and how we might instill a Maker mindset into our students. The presentation will be followed by Q&A and a table discussion on Making and engineering.

SHAWN JORDAN, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of engineering and a Fulton Exemplar Faculty member in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches context-centered electrical engineering and embedded systems design courses, and studies the use of context in both K-12 and undergraduate engineering design education. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Education (2010) and M.S./B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University. Dr. Jordan is PI on several NSF-funded projects related to design, including an NSF Early CAREER Award entitled "CAREER: Engineering Design Across Navajo Culture, Community, and Society" and “Might Young Makers be the Engineers of the Future?," and is a Co-PI on an NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments grant entitled “Additive Innovation: An Educational Ecosystem of Making and Risk Taking." He has also been part of the teaching team for NSF's Innovation Corps for Learning, and was named one of ASEE PRISM’s "20 Faculty Under 40" in 2014.

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