Textile Messages - Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education

Leah Buechley is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she directs the High-Low Tech research group, exploring the integration of high and low technology from cultural, material, and practical perspectives. She is a well-known expert in the field of electronic textiles (e-textiles), and her work in this area includes developing the LilyPad Arduino toolkit. Her research was the recipient of a 2011 NSF CAREER award and has been featured in numerous articles in publications including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Popular Science, and the Taipei Times.
She received PhD and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BA in physics from Skidmore College. Kylie Peppler is an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. An artist by training, Peppler engages in research that focuses on interest-driven arts learning at the intersection of the arts, computation, and new media. Peppler completed her PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), studying the media arts practices of urban youth at a Computer Clubhouse in South Los Angeles.
During this time, Peppler was involved in the early study and development of Scratch (scratch.mit.edu), a media-rich programming environment, which resulted in numerous journal articles as well as a co-edited book titled, The Computer Clubhouse : Constructionism and Creativity in Youth Communities (Teachers College Press, 2009). The National Science Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the U.S.
Department of Education, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative have supported Peppler's research. Most recently, Peppler has been developing and studying educational applications of e-textiles across formal and informal learning environments. Michael Eisenberg and his wife Ann Eisenberg co-direct the Craft Technology Laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU).
The focus of the lab's research is in blending novel technologies with educational craft activities for children. Mike Eisenberg is a President's Teaching Scholar at CU, and in 2010 received the University's prestigious Thomas Jefferson Award. He holds MS and PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Find out more at http ://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/ctg/Craft_Tech.html. Yasmin Kafai is Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
Her research focuses on the design and study of new learning and gaming technologies in schools, community centers, and virtual worlds. Book publications include Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat : New Perspective on Gender and Gaming (MIT Press) and The Computer Clubhouse : Constructionism and Creativity in Youth Communities (Teachers College Press). Recent collaborations with MIT researchers have resulted in the development of Scratch, a media-rich programming environment for designers of all ages, to create and share games, art, and stories.
Current projects examine creativity in the design of computational textiles with urban youth. Kafai earned a doctorate from Harvard University while working at the MIT Media Lab.