Calling All Makers, Educators and Parents,
Brilliant Labs is pleased to announce our next two virtual speaker series events that will introduce biowerable technologies, socio-emotional learning and outdoor learning. We are thrilled to welcome Professor Alissa N. Antle and Clayton Maitland and can’t wait to hear what they have to share.
About the Speaker:
Alissa N. Antle is a professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. As an innovator and scholar, her research investigates how new forms of interactive technologies can support, change and augment the ways that children learn, develop and connect. Her interactive systems have been deployed to facilitate collaborative learning about aboriginal heritage, sustainability and social justice; improve learning outcomes for dyslexic children; and teach self-regulation to disadvantaged children. Alissa was recently inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, acknowledging her as one of Canada’s intellectual leaders.
Is teaching children to self-regulate their anxiety and attention effectively more important than teaching them to read and write? When children use a bio-wearable technology to learn, how does it change their sense of identity and agency?
We are pleased to announce our next speaker series session with professor Alissa N. Antle. Alissa will speak about her encounter with ethical questions that arose when she led the Mind-Full scientific research project. Mind-Full is a mental health intervention that uses a bio-wearable technology to teach children about the relationship between their body and brains. Biowearables are computers worn on the body that sense biological processes – like a smartwatch that tracks stress level or an iPhone in a backpack that tracks step count. Mind-full was deployed to support young children living in poverty in Nepal and children with severe anxiety and attention challenges in Vancouver to learn to self-regulate.
After running two field research studies evaluating the Mind-Full intervention and finding that the intervention helped children learn better, Alissa turned her attention to understanding some of the ethical issues that arise when creating bio-wearables to support children’s learning.
In this session, Alissa will share an overview of the Mind-Full project, describe some of the ethical issues that arose during the project and introduce a new bio-wearable “maker” workshop for children in which children can learn more about designing and thinking ethically about bio-wearables.
Please join us on Thursday, January 14th, at 1:30 pm ADT.
Register Individually or as a Group
Grade Level:
Grade 7 and up.
About the Speaker:
Natural Maker Speaker – Clayton Maitland, founder and the first principal of the only 100% outdoor PUBLIC school in Canada and is an educator in ‘place-conscious’ and ecological practices. Clayton Maitland has been an active outdoorsman his whole life. He believes that a person has to participate in activities and fully experience them to understand them, and to understand nature, one has to be immersed in nature.
In 1982, he finished an Outdoor Recreation Management Diploma from Capilano College. At Simon Fraser University, he obtained a Bachelor of Education in 1992, a Graduate Diploma in 2004, and his Masters of Educational Leadership in 2007.
In 2008, he began to challenge the education system so that it would allow students to learn in different ways, with indigenous pedagogies, and from real lived experiences in the natural world. He is actively involved with indigenous communities. Presently, he has moved from Principal and Coordinator of the Maple Ridge Environmental School to adult educator and consultant for professional development, certificate programs, and university courses, and speaker at conferences.
You want to know more about place-conscious and ecological pedagogy? Take time to watch this brilliant documentary prior to the event: Found in the Forest
Please join us on Tuesday, January 26, at 8 pm ADT to ask your questions to the man that made outdoor learning a reality for kindergarten to high school students in the BC public school system.
