Techno-Vernacular Creativity and STEAM https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2015/12/Gaskins <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/06/sigal> *with Dr. Nettrice Gaskins, STEAM Lab Director at Boston Arts Academy* Today, 6.00 pm Webcast live: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast http://nexa.polito.it/berkman-webcast-live Dr. Gaskins discusses her model for ‘techno-vernacular’ creative production as an area of practice that investigates the characteristics of this production and its application in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) learning. Her research consists of a study involving workshops conducted between 2013 and 2014 that sought to examine the impact of the following combined methods a) culturally situated design, which connects vernacular art and crafts with standards-based STEM principles and allows users to simulate and develop their own creations; b) art-based learning, which is effective in stimulating the development of 21st century skills such as creativity, learning, and innovation; and c) educational applications of new technologies on underrepresented ethnic groups' learning in STEAM. She has applied this research in her work as STEAM Lab Director at Boston Arts Academy. About Nettrice Nettrice Gaskins was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She majored in Visual Art at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, KY. She earned a BFA in Computer Graphics with Honors from Pratt Institute in 1992 and a MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994. She worked for several years in K-12 and post-secondary education, community media and technology before enrolling at Georgia Tech where she received a doctorate in Digital Media in 2014. Her model for ‘techno-vernacular creativity’ is an area of practice that investigates the characteristics of this production and its application in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics). When she is not advancing interdisciplinary education, Ms. Gaskins blogs for Art21, the producer of the Peabody award-winning PBS series, Art in the Twenty-First Century and publishes articles and essays about topics such as Afrofuturism and Ghost Nature. Her essay was included in Meet Me at the Fair: A World's Fair Reader published by ETC Press. In the past Nettrice has supported the use of digital technologies by students and faculty in all art/media disciplines; worked as a teaching artist for the Boston 100K Artscience Innovation Prize; and was a youth media/technology trainer for Adobe Youth Voices. I was board president of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and on the board of the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet). Nettrice presented Black Futurism at We Are City 2014 in Indianapolis, Cybism and Decoding the Letter at ISEA2011 in Istanbul and co-facilitated Augmented Reality in Open Spaces (AROS) at ISEA2012 in Albuquerque, NM. She moderated Enlightenment, Strange Mathematics & Rhythmic Equations at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2014). She was a Digital STEAM research intern at the Smithsonian Institution (2013) and received funding from the National Science Foundation for Advancing STEM Through Culturally Situated Arts-Based Learning (2014). For Art21 Nettrice authored several blog posts and Polyculturalist Visions, New Frameworks of Representation: Multiculturalism and the American Culture Wars. She wrote Afro-Futurism: Countering Mass Culture’s Reductional Breakdown Through Creative Forms of Representation for Nictoglobe Magazine, and Urban Metaphysics: Creating Game Layers on Top of the World for UCLA's Mediascape.
