The institution is the only institution, in Portugal, to appear in a list of 200 that brings together the best Maker Schools of higher education, a result of a partnership of the magazine with Make, an expert in Make publications. It was the first time that the international magazine, brought together the institutions that it believes make a difference in the so-called maker movement, with the aim of highlighting those that develop innovative programs, demonstrate talent and community engagement, characteristics that are already part of the higher education adn.
The choice of the Lisbon Polytechnic results from the work developed by the Higher School of Education (ESELx), considered relevant to Newsweek, Notably participation in the Creative Europe Platform Distributed Design Platform, Initiatives Fabschools, Creative Residencies and the Maker Faire Lisbon, held at the IPL's Benfica Campus, in 2019.
The ESELx President enaltece, too, " the way in which the Fablab Benfica organizes itself as a working group of lecturers and students and establishes itself as a community, either in its local implementation or through presence in networks international. "
Thus, talk of ESELx's maker initiatives is to speak of the ongoing action of Fablab Benfica. This "digital fabrication" space was founded by a group of teachers moved by the need to access and give access to students, to a set of digital fabrication tools and to collaborative and community-contact practices, characteristics of spaces such as Fablabs and Makerspaces.
André Rocha, lecturer of the Lisbon Higher School of Education and co-founder of Fablab Benfica, defines this, as " a space of innovation, collaboration and contact with the community, which it allows, in addition to this, the integration of ESELx, into an international network peque opens doors to a collaborative work, which goes beyond the academic community ".
In addition to the work developed at the FabLab Benfica, for the choice of the IPL/ESELx as a school maker, it has contributed ESELx's bet on international initiatives, which have remained active, even, during the pandemic.
To associate with all these factors, is the recent postgraduate in Interactive Products Design for Education, too, one of the factors that defines ESELx as an international cariz school.
For André Rocha, coordinator of the new formative offering, " the graduate school in Design of Interactive Products for Education comes up with the aim of strengthening the action of the design at the service of education. In parallel, the fact of betting on an open and distributed design logic and in the integration of maker practices will enable a dynamic course with a strong practical component. In our understanding, it is these the ingredients that best translate the idea of Maker school. "
Text of CSS/GCI IPL
Source: ESELx