PROJECTS
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The Learning to Transform Technologies (LiTT) Lab is a social-design based experiment aiming to spawn learning ecologies that support participants in developing robust and equity-driven models of learning. Our collective believes that dreaming about new possible futures is a frequent everyday activity. We seek to harness this collective imagination, helping us learn how to confront the social pressures in our lives and manifesting new worlds where these dilemmas do not exist. For us in the LiTT Lab, we believe these practices to be the necessary ingredients for worldmaking. Our goal is to create conditions that support young people and adults in imagining and manifesting the worlds to come. Through our video gaming practices, our collaborative of young people, educators, community practitioners, and researchers create new virtual spaces. These are prototypes for new worlds that replace harmful institutions and practices with our hopes and desires for just and equitable communities. Dr. Cortez is the Principal Investigator.
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Xóchitl Justice Press creates diverse and educationally sound, non-fiction children’s books to support the intellectual, affective, aesthetic, and social development of the whole child. Our press promotes a just and equitable society through publishing, community partnerships, education, and research. As part of a university-community links project, pre-service teachers at the University of San Francisco partner with local youth to co-write children's books that center the lived experiences of young people and their communities. This project was co-founded and co-designed between Dr. Cortez and Dr. Nicola McClung.
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The Critical Pedagogies of Technoscapes (CPT) Collective emerged at the height of the pandemic to engage with critical perspectives, including those of seasoned educators, on the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. Along with Co-PI, Dr. José Ramón Lizárraga, we have spent our time examining the affordances and constraints of using instruments such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), online collaborative applications, virtual reality tools, and everyday gaming software in the design of robust learning environments for young learners. As part of the project, educators have studied the everyday digital practices of young people and their families with the aim of designing for culturally sustaining pedagogies in their classrooms. Dr. Cortez is the Principal Investigator.
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SpecFabLab
The Speculative Fabulation Lab is a hybrid (in-person and online) making and tinkering club that brings together adults and youth to design and prototype together. There are several projects and partnerships that are currently in the works. Recently, the SpecFabLab designed curriculum that supported families in using making and tinkering kits at home during the pandemic. Dr. José Lizárraga is the Principal Investigator. |
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Dragging Everyday Technologies Towards Equitable Realities (DETER) is a set of workshops for adults and youth to explore everyday AI technologies. We look at how these technologies work and how to hack them in order to combat bias that may be programmed into them! More specifically, adults and educators have explored the art of drag can be used to resist these technologies, with a particular emphasis on everyday make up technologies. Dr. José Lizárraga is the Principal Investigator.
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