In November 2021, Navajo filmmaker and Sundance Film Fellow Keanu Jones and Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach project administrator Alison Earnhart visited a classroom in northeastern Arizona with a mission: to document authentic experiences of students engaged in creative, meaningful work in robotics and artificial intelligence. The resulting films (a 12 minute feature and a 3 minute “elevator pitch” distillation) showcase the culmination of 9 months of intensive collaboration between Earnhart and 5th and 6th grade classroom teacher Mr. Tom Tomas. Tomas’ school, the Little Singer Community School, is a flagship institution of learning in the Navajo Nation – a success story in embracing playful, hands-on learning through technology.
The particular robotics project featured here, SmartMotors, is a rising star in Tufts CEEO’s ever-growing collection of cutting edge educational technology. Spearheaded by Tufts CEEO doctoral student Milan Dahal, the SmartMotors project is being developed as a fun and creative way to experience and learn about topics in machine learning and artificial intelligence. An added benefit of SmartMotors is having students interact with and “teach” their robots directly via motors and sensors eliminates the need for connecting them to computers to code them. This feature may prove to be a key solution for implementing robotics projects in educational settings around the world where access to computers is limited or nonexistent.
Tom and Alison began working together in March 2021 as part of a Tufts CEEO project funded by the LEGO Foundation. This Tech and Play Initiative is empowering a team at Tufts CEEO to work with organizations and schools around the world on developing and implementing strategies of learning with technology that are playful, socially engaging, and personally meaningful to students. The collaboration between Tom and Alison was born out of a desire to explore methods of culturally responsive exchange. Instead of a provider/client model where educational content is produced and delivered in a one-way stream, Alison and Tom work together to actively learn from each other and co-create high quality robotics and engineering experiences that are tailored for his Navajo students.
As is evidenced in the students’ enthusiasm and joy on display in Jones’ videos, Alison and Tom are seeing the fruits of their ongoing efforts. For more on the collaborations between Tufts CEEO and the Little Singer Community School, click here.
