8 Tips in Taking on School-Wide Makerspace Leadership. I’m now a little over a month into my new role as the coordinator of our brand-new makerspace in my PS-8th grade school here in Seattle, and I’m honestly loving it every bit as much as I expected!
Over the course of this month, 450 students made prototype boats for their stuffies (PK), built “doodle bots” (K and 1), “hacked” their notebooks with surface-mount LEDs (2), made dioramas powered by Hummingbird Robotics kits (3 and 4), designed and laser cut labels for their new classroom spaces (5), made postcards using the greenscreen of themselves visiting exotic locales (5 French), built casino games for math class (6), and built symbolic representations of their personal core values (8). 7th grade will be building turbine-driven generators next week!
And, that’s not even a comprehensive list… 1. Your planner must be permanently affixed to your person. 2. There have been days when there were literally only 30 minutes in the whole school day when there were no classes in our makerspace. 3. There's a Maker Faire in That iPad! 10 Ways to Create Student Makers With Apps - Getting Smart by Alison Anderson - edapps, iPad, maker, maker fair, makerchat, makered. Too often the word on the street is “my school or class has new iPads but we don’t know what to do with them.”
The best part about these devices is that they get the learning into the actual hands of students- make learning “hands-on.” That is NOT a new concept. Dewey, Montessori, David Kolb knew this long before the digital age- constructivism is one of the most effective ways to learn anything. These days, the word “maker” can be interchanged for “constructivist” and the Maker Movement is really starting to sweep the country. The White House announced last week they would host their first Maker Faire this spring (follow the hashtag, #IMadeThis). These are all exciting events but all students should have easy access to becoming a maker. 1. DIY.org (app and webbased) has it all! 2. Play-i Bots: coming soon – these little bots will take the code written on the ipad and make it come to life in the real world. 3. 4. 5. 6. Foldify: Don’t have the cash to get a 3D printer? 7. 8. 9.
Libraries & makerspaces: A revolution? One of TASCHA’s recent research projects is focusing on innovation spaces (including makerspaces), and what the implications and opportunities are for libraries.
We are working on crystallizing some aspects of this research and where we see it heading. We’re lucky to have maker movement maven Lauren Britton here with us in Seattle for a week to help us flesh out our ideas and contribute her expertise in the area. Lauren was one of (if not THE only) groundbreaking leaders of the makerspace movement within libraries. School Libraries and Makerspaces: Can They Coexist? More and more schools are coming to value maker education and exploring ways to create makerspaces in their schools.
Many schools are discussing how they might utilize their library to facilitate this. As my school has increased our commitment to constructionist learning and maker education over the last few years, we have done so in close collaboration with our school library. In exploring the relationship between the school library and school makerspace, it's not difficult to see why conversations about the growth of makerspaces are often tied to the conversation about the future of libraries. Both makerspaces and libraries are constructivist learning spaces that share a number of common goals, while approaching them in different ways and through very different material resources. Similar Yet Distinct. Our Makerspace Journey. The Stewart Middle Magnet School Library Makerspace Journey I first started my makerspace journey at Stewart Middle Magnet School in January 2014 with a few bins of K’nex spread out on some library tables.
It then grew and expanded into a thriving program and a vital part of the library and school. Take a look back at our journey and see what we learned along the way. The Makerspace changed, grew and evolved since it was first conceived and started in January 2014. Follow along with the first two years of the story here. (Note: I left Stewart in May 2017, but the makerspace there continues to grow. 27 Makerspace Materials & Supplies - Makerspaces.com. Free Supply List (PDF) – 100+ Makerspace Materials and Supplies What makerspace materials and supplies should you buy or stock for your hands-on learning lab?
There are a lot of options out there to choose from and it can be confusing when you’re first starting out as a maker educator. Instead of just spending money randomly on items you think you will need, it’s always a great idea to work backwards first. You need to make a list of your goals for your makerspace and then define some of the projects you want to do in your makerspace. Once you have defined the projects, you will have a better idea of the materials you need to buy. Here are some of the top makerspace materials and supplies a classroom or library should consider adding to their space. UPDATE – Check out our latest post that highlights over 100+ Makerspace Materials and Products (FREE Supply List) Legos: Lego education has curriculum ranging from preschool to high school.