Ethnocomputing

Abstract: Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSDT project: negotiating the representations of cultural knowledge during the design process with community members, negotiating pedagogical features with math teachers and their students, and reflecting on the software development itself as a cultural construction. The move from ethnomathematics to ethnocomputing results in an expressive computational medium that affords new opportunities to explore the relationships between youth identity and culture, the cultural construction of mathematics and computing, and the formation of cultural and technological hybridity.

Abstract: Successful innovation requires an integrated design process, i.e. integration in the design of the enterprise, the design of the product, as well as the design and implementation of new technologies. Such an integrated design effort requires good collaboration and management of the designs, and should be supported by efficient knowledge management techniques and tools. If innovation is to help a business grow and improve its competitiveness, it is also important to plan the innovation carefully. Though some ideas may just "fall from the sky" or "come out of the blue", an organisation should also have a strategic vision of how the business and the enterprise should develop. The Enterprise should not wait for the innovation to arrive arbitrarily, but rather proactively plan for innovation incorporating market trends, the competitive landscape, new technology availability, and changes in customer preferences and trends in order to create fruitful terroir conducive for innovative thinking. Such an enterprise will also pro-actively manage the knowledge supply chain that supports innovation. This paper presents a combined convergent and divergent approach for managing innovation within an innovation landscape that contextualise domains, role-players, decision points and knowledge network components . The Innovation management model specifically focuses on the use of roadmapping for planning and deploying innovation within a collaborative deployment environment. A case study illustrating the use of parts of the framework within the insurance industry is also presented.

Abstract: There have been many efforts to increase access and participation of indigenous communities in computer science education using ethnocomputing. In this paper, we extend culturally responsive computing by using electronic textiles that leverage traditional crafting and sewing practices to help students learn about engineering and computing as they also engage with local indigenous knowledges. Electronic textiles include sewable microcontrollers that can be connected to sensors and actuators by stitching circuits with conductive thread. We present findings from a junior high Native Arts class and an academically-oriented summer camp in which Native American youth ages 12-15 years created individual and collective e-textile designs using the LilyPad Arduino. In our discussion we address how a culturally responsive open design approach to ethnocomputing with e-textile activities can provide a productive but also challenging context for design agency and cultural connections for American Indian youth, and how these findings can inform the design of a broader range of introductory computational activities for all.