iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

John Spencer, coauthor of two different best-selling books, Launch and Empower, talks about the creativity (and test score) boosts his classes experienced when he began Maker Mondays.

Towards the end of the 2017 school year, I introduced a design challenge to my afterschool Maker’s Club that was one of our best ones ever.  We began the Furniture Challenge in collaboration with Custom Educational Furnishings (CEF).  The challenge was this:

Design a piece of furniture that could help another school to start or enhance their makerspace.  The only rule is that it has to be something that could actually be feasible to manufacture (sorry – no storage carts with flamethrowers)

The students came up with all sorts of amazing ideas and presented them to representatives from CEF.  Those representatives then looked at all the submissions to select one that they began manufacturing.

STEM Challenge - Can You Make Corn Dance?
November 20, 2017
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Maker Maven

Need a last minute STEM challenge? Make corn dance with our fun, new challenge!
 
You only need a few items and you are ready to have some fun. 

There is a point of view that kits are not good for Makers/Makerspaces. Their is a belief that kits take away from the purity of exploration of a Makerspaces and trying new things and failing. One big question from these people is,

Are you truly Making if you are just following directions?

My answer to that is yes. A big, fat yes for that matter.

A video prompt you can do as a hands-on activity or in Minecraft. Transcript: You are leading a team of elite engineers and innovative architects that wil

2017 was my fourth year of holding a Maker Fair at Stewart Middle Magnet School (see 2016, 2015 and 2014 for the previous ones).  This year, my students had to put together everything for our Maker Fair in an extra short period of time, since the school year ended early.  They rose to the challenge with some amazing, interactive projects and activities.

I had some visitors in my library makerspace last week that were wanting to add an aspect of maker education into their own libraries.

As they walked around our space, visited with my collaborating English teacher, and witnessed students prototyping for our invention literacy project, they said something surprising.

“We noticed you have traditional wooden library chairs and tables, so it isn’t about the furniture, is it? Maker Education? It’s about the mindset?”

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:

The maker movement has expanded greatly in recent years and much of the attention has focused on cities with high population density and large well-funded school districts. In rural districts, teachers are also developing maker projects to help students gain the benefits that come from hands-on experiences, while better understanding the needs of their communities.

If you're intimidated by the idea of using a 3D design program to create an object for a 3D printer, don't be. In this quick article and tutorial video, you'll see how skills you have with PowerPoint (and other graphic programs) can translate easily to 3D design.

As the maker movement in culture moves from MacGyver jokes and what Noah did when Allie left him in The Notebook to something with a bit more academic and cognitive credibility, it has also begun to creep in to the education space.

As with any niche, there is specialized language–jargon–that may keep things murky for you. The 38 terms below by no means represent an exhaustive collection. (There are dozens of gadgets, circuit boards, and digital, robotic, and electrical wizardry we left on the cutting room flow.) But for most teachers in most circumstances, it should serve as a nice starting points.

Dan Ryder is an improviser, design thinker, and Twitter chatter at #dtk12chat and #EdCorps. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator for 2017 and co-author of Intention: CriticalCreativity, which can be purchased here.

Dan can be found on Twitter @WickedDecent and on the web at danryder207.com. Here is a great article by Dan for design thinking in the ELA classroom.

According to this Los Angeles Times article from 1986, “The national education reform movement of the 1980s added a host of academic courses to graduation requirements, leaving little room for students to take electives. Because shop classes are usually electives, even students who want the classes have discovered they do not have the time.”

I checked out my old high school’s course catalog, which offered shop classes when I graduated in 2002, and found shop classes are gone there, too. But, the rumor around town is that they plan to open a Makerspace soon!

If you are unfamiliar with the Makerspace in schools, the most common type of Makerspace aims to both better expose students to STEM related fields and revive the lost art of making with one’s hands. Basically, it is Shop class 2.0. And like Shop class, the Makerspace is doomed. The Makerspace has five years left, ten if it’s lucky. Why? Two main reasons:

School libraries are starting makerspaces all over the world. It’s an exciting time in education as we rediscover the power of creativity. But many schools rush to start makerspaces so quickly that they neglect building the maker culture. Developing a maker culture is a lot like developing a love of reading, it takes time and persistence and it’s totally worth it. Here’s a few ways that you can work to cultivate a love of making and creativity in your students.