Thanks for the kind words, Shelly! It has been exciting to see the widespread interest among public libraries - they're motivated to provide more hands-on STEM experiences for the youth in their communities, and they've provided wonderful input on children's books that they think would work well with the project. And we've seen that the 'Making for good' aspect of this project is an effective way to attract a wide range of participants to this project. Having a tangible goal that students can connect with makes a difference!

Thanks so much, Bridget, for your response. I just downloaded the papers (sorry - I didn't notice them yesterday when I posted my question!).  We've done work with visually impaired youth, but have not positioned youth as designers in this way. I agree that the design process is a great way to foster perspective-taking.  

I wonder (and this might be a step too far for your research...), but do you anticipate that the insights gained by the designers might carry over into other aspects of their lives?  (increased volunteerism with different communities, increased interest/curiosity in how people with sensory impairments live...)?  

Debra, thanks for raising this question, it is so important to consider the  longer term impacts of these kinds of projects.  For the most part, we haven't been following up with participants in the workshops and classes to gain their perspectives on how their Build a Better Book experience has continued to influence them.  I just interviewed some undergraduates in engineering and education who had worked on a Build a Better Book project this year, and they were clear in their beliefs that what they had learned would positively contribute to their future careers as engineers and computer scientists  engaged in user-centered design or as teachers who will design for diversity in their future classrooms.  I would love to know more about the long term impacts of these experiences (and especially for the tweens and adolescents we work with)

HI Ashley, I just viewed your tech tales video and love the work that you are doing!  For our project, we are trying multiple models -- sometimes we lead workshops (some are for librarians and educators, and some are for children and adolescents), sometimes we co-lead with librarians and teachers.  We have teen mentors who help facilitate workshops, as well as university students.  We're also working to build a community of interested folks, and are sharing projects on workbench.  We'd be very interested in learning from you and your team about how you are engaging families over time in storytelling and STEM!

Likewise! I shared your video with some colleagues here at the library and they were also inspired by your project. I enjoy hearing about communities of practice like yours where people from a variety of disciplines and ages come together for a common purpose. I'm excited to follow your progress and learn from you all, as well.

Hi Ashley, I just wanted to chime in here as well. As Bridget mentioned, we provide support for teen participants to continue working with the program as Teen Mentors. This has been a nice opportunity to keep some of the participants engaged with the program over a longer term, although we do run into a number of scheduling conflicts, particularly during the school year (high school students are so busy!). I'm hoping that we can work out some of those issues in the coming year, so that they can stay more involved.

In terms of librarian training, we have done both short (~2-hr) workshops for librarians, as well as a more in-depth (2-day) training workshop for a cohort of librarians a few months ago. We were very happy with how the extended workshop went; librarians had a good amount of time to immerse themselves in the overall goal of the project, as well as time to work with the different technologies most commonly used. It was also exciting to hear their ideas for how they might connect the tools in their Makerspace to the project (e.g., AR, sewing machines/textiles, puppetry, etc.). Libraries that participated in the extended training each received a kit of materials to help support them in their implementation at their sites. We're looking forward to seeing what they do with the program this summer!

Like Bridget, I also viewed (and loved!) your TechTales video. What a wonderful way to engage families at libraries! I've shared your video with one of my colleagues here at CU (Ricarose Roque) who is also doing family tech workshops here in Colorado. It'd be fun for us all to connect sometime, as I think we could all learn a lot from each other.

Thanks for your interest in our project and for reaching out!

Hi Kelsey, I think one of our challenges has been balancing what seems to work best for the project with what seems to work best in libraries. Participants seem to get a lot more out of the project when they have a chance to work with the project over multiple sessions (allowing them to iterate upon their designs), whether that is in the form of a multi-day summer camp or once a week over multiple weeks/months. However, the majority of libraries that we've worked with prefer to offer one-time workshops that don't require an extended commitment. We've addressed this in a few ways, offering multi-day summer programs (that have worked very well) and offering single workshops in series, so that participants can opt to participate over multiple weeks, but extended participation is not required. This has also worked well, and seems to fit well with what the libraries are looking for. 

One other challenge: we've had a lot of interest in the project and numerous sites have requested support; this of course is a great problem to have and we're so excited to see the interest in the project, but we're trying balance encouraging their participation while not taking on more than we can handle.

Great question Andee- Our first target audience were students with visual impairment but the project has expanded greatly. Not only has our audience expanded but so has our products, we started looking at picture books, but we have had workshops focused on games and STEM graphics as well. In addition, we encourage partners to look for local populations that could benefit from experiencing information in unique ways. We have found that having an authentic end user and co-creating with that end user has had a tremendous impact on the value of the programming.

HI Erica, thanks for your feedback!  For these tactile design workshops, we've focused on building designers' awareness of the importance of inclusive design, and specifically, designing for children with visual impairments. We engage them in some sensory experiences to heighten their awareness of tactile interpretation and expression before they begin to design their own books, games, etc.  We also share videos that position individuals who are blind as agentive and accomplished (including a young child fluently reading Braille and interpreting the tactile story illustration).   We also build on a universal design for learning perspective, designing tactile books benefit many children, those who are sighted and those who are visually impaired.   Some of the librarians we're working with are eager to try this with children with other disabilities, and we  hope to learn from their experience!

With regard to impact, we are collecting various kinds of data (surveys, observations, interviews, work samples).