{"id":12342,"name":"designerlyways","url":"","description":"Paula MacDowell, PhD is a media and technology specialist with a passion for sharing her love and knowledge of design. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Sessional Instructor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy (Media & Technology Studies Education) at the University of British Columbia. \r\n\r\nIn her doctoral research, Empowering Girls as Change Makers in Maker Culture: Stories from a Summer Camp for Girls in Design, Media & Technology, Dr. MacDowell studied the ways in which girls develop new skills and confidence in design, media, and technology. She collaborated with a team of youth researchers to create the 101 Technology Fun makerspace and design community. Her findings contribute to the Tween Empowerment & Advocacy Methodology (TEAM approach), which empowers girls as leaders, innovators, and change makers in technology culture.\r\n\r\nDr. MacDowell\u2019s current research program focuses on extending the boundaries of knowledge in Media & Technology Studies and Design-Based Research. Her research agenda intensifies along three lines: 1) toward interrelations among children, design, learning, and technology (e.g., her current project in development Alongside Youth: Makerspaces for Civic Technologies & Child Advocacy); 2) toward developing socially relevant technologies that enable children and other minority voices to find their voice and make it heard around the world (as counter-narratives to hegemonic media messages); and 3) toward ethnographies and longitudinal measures of the design, development, and feasibility of technology-enabled learning environments for youth in challenging contexts (e.g., urban slum areas, remote villages, aboriginal reserves, and socially or economically disadvantaged locations). Each of these lines offers powerful challenges and opportunities for opening new avenues of research into children\u2019s experiences, education, and wellbeing. Dr. MacDowell is also pursuing scholarly engagement with digital games-based learning, youth-driven game design, and research into the development of mobile, physical, and virtual makerspaces for girls.","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec\/author\/designerlyways\/","slug":"designerlyways","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c0c8c18f6520c11dedc1ecb6614ae6855ef81417b84e316db8a5e5ad79341db4?s=24&d=mm&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c0c8c18f6520c11dedc1ecb6614ae6855ef81417b84e316db8a5e5ad79341db4?s=48&d=mm&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c0c8c18f6520c11dedc1ecb6614ae6855ef81417b84e316db8a5e5ad79341db4?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users"}]}}