iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

To some, the traditional “shush” space of the library may seem like an odd setting for the hands-on, creative messiness of a makerspace. Yet many schools are embracing maker learning within their libraries and redefining our notion of “literacy” in the process. So, why have so many school libraries become home to the maker movement in education and how did they get a makerspace off the ground?

As community makerspaces begin to take root in Ontario’s elementary schools, students are behaving better. They are also getting higher grades.

What are makerspaces? They’re creative spaces where students can gather to explore, tinker, discover and create, and they’re making students more enthusiastic about school.

In these spaces students are learning how to tinker collaboratively with a problem and keep trying until they find a solution. They are learning to be thinkers, innovators and problem-solvers rather than mere consumers of information. And these are just some of the benefits teachers are reporting.

Makerspaces, Maker Education, STEM, and STEAM are gaining lots of traction in Kindergarten though college level education. Articles, resources on social media, and conference presentations on these topics are proliferating at a rate that most educators are now familiar with maker education.

Makerspaces like vocational shops and science labs are great additions to schools. They often contain the tools, machinery, and technologies associated with making – 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl cutters, high tech robotics, vocational tech machinery. These are great for educational institutions and learners that can afford them.

Learning about basic electronics and creating your own projects is a lot easier than you may think.  In this tutorial, we’re going to give you a brief overview of common electronic components and explain what their functions are.  You will then learn about schematic diagrams and how they are used to design and build circuits.  And finally, you will put this information to use by creating your first basic circuit.

In Nick Provenzano’s book, Your Starter Guide to Makerspaces, he makes the case that a maker space can start a movement inside your school. I agree wholeheartedly.

There are many folks who have been saying to “stop” using the word Makerspace, and it shouldn’t only be one space. But sometimes this space is the seed that plants a maker movement into a maker culture.

At Centennial School District (where I’m the Director of Tech and Innovation) we’ve been slowly beginning to build a maker culture out of maker spaces. It is a process and one that doesn’t happen overnight. Here is a few things/ideas we’ve done that have jumpstarted the movement towards a culture:

Looking for MakerEd ideas for your makerspace? Below is an EPIC bucket list of 100 awesome activities, inspirational ideas and gigantic goals for making, along with links to instructions, tutorials and related MakerEd resources. This is my personal list that I’m currently working through. I use it for focus and inspiration. I hope that it will inspire you.

Inside a makerspace at Indian Trace Elementary School in Broward County, Florida, some kids are sitting, working by themselves. A group of others stand together staring intently at something, talking, and moving their arms energetically. Students are doing without adult direction. There’s an overall sense of purpose that is visceral. The energy feels more like that of a trendy dot-com startup than an elementary school media center.

This environment is part of a larger maker movement that acknowledges 21st Century natives need to learn in settings that are very different than the musty libraries or classroom rows of their parents. Makerspaces are areas where students come to explore, build, create, and tinker. Students are learning without turning to the front of the room for directions or receiving steps from the teacher at the center. They are the ones directing the action. They use a variety of materials from paper and cardboard to Legos to high-tech robots. It’s a mixed bag of art supplies, erector sets, paper mache, 3-D printers, green screens, drones, and more. Each space has its own unique set-up and feel based on the needs, interests, resources and goals of the community.

For the past three years, Aaron and I have been co-facilitating a two-day workshop called Designing Making Experiences where our goal is to introduce educators to making and maker-centric learning through designing curriculum and prototyping projects that they can take back and use in their classrooms. We teach skills and tools as it becomes appropriate to each educator’s projects but we emphasize that this is not a workshop where they should expect to “get taught” how to use a 3D printer, Arduinos, etc.

While we love the DME workshop model and plan to continue running it, in our own classroom practices, we have been feeling a desire to explore the specific reasons behind why we want students to engage in making projects. The questions we keep returning to in our own practices are:

“How do we design making projects that are purposeful?”
“To what end are students engaging in making?”
“Are the making projects impacting students’ lives in a positive way?”
“If we can’t figure out why we want students to engage in a making project, is the project worth doing?”

Last summer my good friend, colleague and our elementary principal, Dr. Terri Harpster, and I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Pittsburgh FabLab hosted by Dr. Todd Keruskin and the Elizabeth Forward School District. This four day event exposed us to the super popular maker movement sweeping our country and more importantly, inspired us to reinvent learning for the students in our district.

Upon our return from this experience, we developed a blueprint to transform some of our existing spaces into modern-day learning areas that encourage students to become makers, inventors, coders and responsible digital citizens. And then we actually worked with a number of individuals—the B-A School Board, administration, the BASD Foundation, community members, teachers and students—to make the vision become a reality!

This is our story…

So what is the “right way” when it comes to using makerspaces? And now that they have been established in schools all across the globe, how can we measure the impact that makerspaces have on student learning and achievement?

The boundaries of technology-supported learning in a makerspace will no longer be confined to the makerspace.  These agile makerspaces are ones that leverage technology to provide making experiences that are not confined to the physical makerspace alone. Mobility is essential to give students anywhere and any time access to learning resources, allowing them to work at a time and place that best suits them.

This year the Global Day of Design will take place on 5/2/17. We will be sharing students designing, building, making, and tinkering on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtag #GDD17!