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Makerspace

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Swedish School Now Has A Mandatory Minecraft Class. Gamification and project-based learning have jumped into the 21st century at the Viktor Rydberg school in Stockholm, Sweden where all 13-year-old students must now take a manadatory course on Minecraft. For those not familiar, Minecraft is a video game that lets you use blocks to build up just about whatever you want in a virtual world. You can then show off, share, and learn from what others are building in a safe and virtual environment. ‘They learn about city planning, environmental issues, getting things done, and even how to plan for the future,’ Viktor Rydberg teacher Monica Ekman told English-language newspaper The Local.

‘It’s not any different from arts or woodcraft,’ she added.” It’s like getting students to become ‘makers’ (another popular buzzword these days) while leveraging a tried-and-true virtual game that’s popular around the world. 3 Key Qualities for a School Makerspace. Over the past year I had the privilege of leading a team to create makerspaces in 15 high schools around the Bay Area.

3 Key Qualities for a School Makerspace

Our goal was to learn how to help educators create makerspaces in schools and use making in the classroom. DARPA, which funded our program, eventually wanted to take what we learned and create makerspaces in 1,000 schools. While our DARPA funding ended in December, we believed so strongly in the benefits of these spaces that we continued to support our pilot schools until the end of the year. This was particularly rewarding work. Most of us have enjoyed watching someone’s eyes light up at Maker Faire, but listening to a high schooler describe his or her first open-ended project was very powerful. Every space in our program was different.

Process Making requires two sets of skills and the confidence to try something new. The second set of skills can be thought of as diagnostic and problem-solving skills. How Tinkering Can Help You Learn. Joshua Glenn: Unbored: The Power of 'Making' in the Classroom. The sixth graders at Marymount School -- an independent Catholic school for girls in Manhattan -- have a problem they need to solve.

Joshua Glenn: Unbored: The Power of 'Making' in the Classroom

The American Dental Association recommends that kids brush their teeth for two minutes, twice a day. But the students know that most kids fall well short of that goal. How -- their teachers ask -- can they find a solution to this challenge? The girls open their sketchbooks and doodle possible solutions. One toothbrush plays music. Joshua Glenn: Unbored: The Power of 'Making' in the Classroom. Dive into the Maker Movement. The Fab Lab at Marymount School, NYC Adam Provost, 2013 Maker Spaces, Fabrication Labs . . . it's been going on for some time now, but it's all the buzz in education these days.

Dive into the Maker Movement

And with good reason. I've been thinking about all this more and more since walking in on a session called "Digital Fabrication in K-12" at Educon this past January. The Maker Education Initiative. 3 Key Qualities for a School Makerspace. Want to Start a Makerspace at School? Tips to Get Started. As the Maker Movement starts to gain momentum, schools that are trying to find ways to foster the do-it-yourself environment can learn a few lessons from another nexus in the universe: public libraries.

Want to Start a Makerspace at School? Tips to Get Started

Dale Dougherty, founding editor and publisher of Make Magazine — and the de facto leader of the Maker Movement — has a vision to create a network of libraries, museums, and schools with what he calls “makerspaces” that draw on common resources and experts in each community. Libraries and museums, he said, are easier places to incorporate makerspaces than schools, because they have more space flexibility and they’re trying to attract teens with their programs. “Schools have already got the kids,” Dougherty noted wryly, at the recent American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. One day during the conference, dubbed Maker Monday, focused on the Maker Movement, which emphasizes learning by engaging in tech-related projects. Playbook. Designing a School Makerspace. Makerspaces, STEAM labs and fab labs are popping up in schools across the country.

Designing a School Makerspace

Makerspaces provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering. A makerspace is not solely a science lab, woodshop, computer lab or art room, but it may contain elements found in all of these familiar spaces. Therefore, it must be designed to accommodate a wide range of activities, tools and materials. Diversity and cross-pollination of activities are critical to the design, making and exploration process, and they are what set makerspaces and STEAM labs apart from single-use spaces. A possible range of activities might include: Cardboard construction Prototyping Woodworking Electronics Robotics Digital fabrication Building bicycles and kinetic machines Textiles and sewing Designing a space to accommodate such a wide range of activities is a challenging process.

Ask the Right Questions Going Forward. Designing a School Makerspace. Creating Makerspaces in Schools. Two weekends ago, I attended EdCamp NYC at The School at Columbia, an independent school on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Creating Makerspaces in Schools

One of the things I love about attending edcamps is that the day is always unpredictable because you don't know what will be discussed or who will be leading conversations until that morning. Attempts at using tech effectively in our classrooms. On October 1st I started on my efforts toward creating a set of Makerspaces in our school district.

attempts at using tech effectively in our classrooms

I immediately jumped into visiting the d.school at Stanford, collecting every book I could on the topic, and applied to attend the FabLearn conference. A Makerspace has been my goal since the first day I started as STEM Coordinator last year, so when I was recently given the flexibility and permission to move forward, I jumped on the opportunity immediately.