Textile Messages focuses on the emerging field of electronic textiles, or e-textiles - computers that can be soft, colorful, approachable, and beautiful. E-textiles are articles of clothing, home furnishings, or architectures that include embedded computational and electronic elements. This book introduces a collection of tools that enable novices - including educators, hobbyists, and youth designers - to create and learn with e-textiles. It then examines how these tools are reshaping technology education - and DIY practices - across the K-16 spectrum, presenting examples of the ways educators, researchers, designers, and young people are employing them to build new technology, new curricula, and new creative communities.

There is no shortage of innovations on offer for schools. Hardly a week passes without someone marching out the latest device, app, service, curricular add-on, or instructional technique that, we are told, is sure to cure the perennial woes of systemic education. This book is an investigation of this enchantment with "innovation" and its implications for not only everyday teaching and learning, but also the future of public education. Based on a study of The Innovation School—a public high school organized around makerspaces, design thinking, and personalized technology—the author challenges conventional wisdom about how educational transformation unfolds and argues that the popular understanding of innovation exacerbates inequality and undermines teacher and student autonomy. Building the Innovation School demonstrates how attending to the infrastructures of innovation leads to educational change that is driven by the interests and values of educators. Repair rather than disruption is the focus—a commitment to schools that allow all students to flourish.Book Features: Shows how specific innovations actually work over time in the everyday life of the classroom. Challenges the conventional wisdom about innovation, offering resources for breaking through the hype of current (and future) innovations-of-the-day. Offers a framework for "innovating from below," tailoring local innovations to the needs, values, and priorities of students, educators, and the community. Includes an appendix of resources for teachers and administrators interested in applying the frameworks from the book in their schools and classrooms.

There is no shortage of innovations on offer for schools. Hardly a week passes without someone marching out the latest device, app, service, curricular add-on, or instructional technique that, we are told, is sure to cure the perennial woes of systemic education. This book is an investigation of this enchantment with "innovation" and its implications for not only everyday teaching and learning, but also the future of public education. Based on a study of The Innovation School-a public high school organized around makerspaces, design thinking, and personalized technology-the author challenges conventional wisdom about how educational transformation unfolds and argues that the popular understanding of innovation exacerbates inequality and undermines teacher and student autonomy. Building the Innovation School demonstrates how attending to the infrastructures of innovation leads to educational change that is driven by the interests and values of educators. Repair rather than disruption is the focus-a commitment to schools that allow all students to flourish.Book Features: Shows how specific innovations actually work over time in the everyday life of the classroom. Challenges the conventional wisdom about innovation, offering resources for breaking through the hype of current (and future) innovations-of-the-day. Offers a framework for "innovating from below," tailoring local innovations to the needs, values, and priorities of students, educators, and the community. Includes an appendix of resources for teachers and administrators interested in applying the frameworks from the book in their schools and classrooms.