Projects and Events

BEST: Blended Education for STEM Teaching

Best is a project funded by the British Council and aims at

STEM education is vital for economic and social progress. However, in countries like Malaysia, students often lose interest in STEM subjects as they move beyond primary school.

To address this challenge, Project BEST introduces micro:bit and MicroCode, an innovative, low-cost learning tool that allows students to use BBC micro:bit devices without needing expensive PCs an obstacle in many low-income schools. Unlike traditional ‘unplugged’ methods, MicroCode offers direct interaction with technology, enhancing problem-solving skills and engagement.

Validated in UK schools, MicroCode will now be adapted for Malaysia, building on existing unplugged activities and creating a seamless transition to more advanced STEM learning in secondary school. Through collaboration with educators and regional stakeholders, the project aims to establish a sustainable community of practice and resource-sharing network.

Ultimately, Project BEST seeks to improve STEM engagement and problem-solving skills among students in low-income communities, paving the way for a more equitable and technologically empowered future.

The first study started in Malaysia with the TICTAC team (Joe, Lorraine and Elisa) going there, and we are collecting very interesting data from children and teachers in schools.

 

CARE-Kids a new project funded by ERSRC INCLUDE+ network.

CARE-Kids tackles this challenge by empowering children (8 to 12) to think critically about AI-generated content, educating them to recognise stereotypes in these images, and helping them to become aware of their beliefs about themselves and others. CARE-Kids aims to deconstruct stereotypes perpetuated by biased AI algorithms (and society) by fostering children’s active engagement to mitigate its impact on their lives. We will develop a web app to enhance children’s critical thinking and awareness of gender biases enabling children to interact with AI-generated content and understand gender biases. This project has been funded by the INCLUDE+ network.
Check the website CARE-Kids for more info.

 

Here are some publications more to come 🙂

  • Gail Collyer-Hoar, Elisa Rubegni, Bernard Tomczyk, Alexander Baines, and Lidia Gruia. 2025. “Suits as Masculine and Flowers as Feminine”: Investigating Gender Expression in AI-Generated Imagery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735749
  • Gail Collyer-Hoar, Aurora Castellani, Lala Guluzade, Ben Tomczyk, Hania Bilal, and Elisa Rubegni. 2025. Experts Unite, Kids Delight: Co-Designing an Inclusive AI Literacy Educational Tool for Children. Proceedings of the 24th Interaction Design and Children. https://doi.org/10.1145/3713043.3731495
  • Alexander Baines, Lidia Gruia, Gail Collyer-Hoar, and Elisa Rubegni. 2024. Playgrounds and Prejudices: Exploring Biases in Generative AI For Children. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 839–843. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.3659404

Past.

The REJOICE Workshop, Joyful Identity Expression & Exploration as an Act of Resistance and a Digital Good, 10 July 2024

This workshop builds on the work of the Queer Joy as a Digital Good project, funded by ESRC’s Digital Good Network. The workshop is intended to bring together those with research interests in, and personal experiences of, the use of digital platforms as a tool for joyfully expressing and exploring aspects of one’s identity that exist outside and beyond normative structures of – inter alia – race and ethnicity, gender and sex, sexuality, and/or ability. 

In this workshop, we want to explore digital expressions of joy as a practice of resistance against real-world struggles for social and legal recognition, of the expression of identity and life unencumbered by normative standards of propriety and palatability, and of harnessing joy as an essential component of future technologies in a `good’ digital society.

https://sites.google.com/view/joy-bcs-2024/

Workshop on Gender, culture, identity, and well-being in the digital age workshop, Lancaster University, 2 – 3 May 2024

The 2-day workshop on Gender, culture, identity, and well-being in the digital age aims to provide an informal discussion forum to explore issues around children’s exposure to gender stereotypes, with a focus on digital materials. Through this, and other work, we are seeking to be build a cross-disciplinary (Education, Psychology, Design, and Computing) research network to address key issues in this area.  Each day will comprise a series of talks exploring themes, findings, critical questions in each participant’s subject area.

  • Elisa Rubegni, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University, UK
  • Kate Cain, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK
  • Carolyn Jackson, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK
  • Lucie Escasain, Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
  • Netta Livari, INTERACT research group, University of Oulu, Finland
  • Joseph Lindley, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts,   University, UK
  • Alex Baines, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University, UK
  • Robin Gruia, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University, UK

 

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close