The computing repair cafe: a concept for repair cafes in computing edcuation

Abstract

Repair cafés are quite common. They are usually focusing on repairing technical gadgets, e.g. bicycles, electronic devices and so on. In this article we describe a transfer of the idea to computing education. In doing so, we developed two innovations to the original concept: a) reflection as integrated part, and b) software repairing as focus (instead of repairing hardware). We present the concept in context of repairing smartphones, and report lessons learned from first experiences. An interesting lesson learned is that a computing repair café can a) foster established learning goals in computing, that we often address, but probably don't often realise; and b) it can help to sharpen the understanding and definition of these goals (like e.g. becoming producers instead of only consumers).