Education and Dissemination: Lab-to-Market-to-Classroom
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Education and Dissemination: Lab-to-Market-to-Classroom E. M. Campo Laboratory for Matter Dynamics, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 1UT Department of Physics&Astronomy, University of Texas San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249 ABSTRACT In this paper, we present a work plan for the dissemination of refreshable, photoactuatable tactile displays to the visually impaired, serving both Lab-to-Market and Lab-toClassroom initiatives. The work plan is designed in accordance with the logic model, which identifies an overlap amongst classroom, market, and laboratory. This overlap seems to nucleate when a technology in developmental phase is deployed in a classroom with high affinity to such technology. In this scheme, students are stakeholders whom help decide both content and applications to be included in the developing curriculum, and provide technology feedback, effectively leading to increased consumer acceptance. The identified Lab-to-Market-toClassroom continuum could be the missing link where to nurture sustainable scientific, technological, and curricular development. INTRODUCTION Interventions on graduate curricula to integrate novel scientific concepts are common practice. The fast-evolving character of graduate curricula, however, does not translate down the education structure. Indeed, scientific curricula in undergraduate and specially, in K-12 education have through decades been the subject of discussion [1], often debating between placing emphasis on science content knowledge or on the applications derived from it. The notion of adding content and the absence of provisions to reduce, or even suppress, previous content has been pervasive, leading to impasse. In this paper, we explore a novel educative scenario, where technology still in developmental phases is brought to a classroom environment, providing students with early exposure to still-to-be-elucidated scientific phenomena. This approach is inclusive of both content and applications, and is designed around a specific application (tactile technology), based on innovative science (photoactuation) to be deployed in a very specific scenario (a visually impaired classroom- VI). In this scenario, overall benefits to students, beyond question, outperform any concerns related to curricular content, yielding flexibility in such curriculum. The development of refreshable tactile displays as inclusive technology for the visually impaired is a cornerstone of smart material systems [2]. Indeed, thermal, electrical, and optical-based tablets have been proposed in the last decade and some prototypes are in existence [3-4]. However, little effort has been done to disseminate these findings within the end-user community. Those efforts are key towards later consumer acceptance and ease of adoption.
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