Making Community: Following in the footsteps of the Thai King

Abstract

The goal of this short paper is to take an initial step in exploring a design framework that emphasizes making connections to students' community and creating relevant cultural connections to their constructionist learning experience. We present and illustrate our design framework using a case study of 4th graders at a low-income school in Bangkok, Thailand designing and building social innovations to solve problems in their community. Inspired by the late Thai King Bhumibol, who was the country's unifying figure and widely admired as "The Developer King," students made things that were personally and socially meaningful to their community. Students in this case were creative and innovative in their design effort and reflective of how their achievements doing things that are useful for others aligned with the spirit of King Bhumibol.