Can the Maker Movement Infiltrate Mainstream Classrooms? New York Hall of Science/Maker Faire At the White House Maker Faire recently, where President Obama invited “makers” of all ages to display their creations, the President investigated a robotic giraffe, a red weather balloon and shot a marshmallow cannon made by a student.
With so much fanfare and media attention on the event, some educators are hopeful that the idea of tinkering as a way of learning might finally have made it back to the mainstream. But will the same philosophy of discovery and hands-on learning make it into classrooms? “Most of the people that I know who got into science and technology benefited from a set of informal experiences before they had much formal training,” said Dale Dougherty, editor of Make Magazine and founder of Maker Faire on KQED’s Forum program.
“And I mean, like building rockets in the backyard, tinkering, playing with things. After School Club - JHHS Digital Fabrication Lab. Who says elementary students can't use Arduino??
We sure can! Sparkfun.com came out with a very handy arduino beginners kit. The code is downloadable from sparkfun and the kit contains everything you need to know to get started with some basic programming and uses for arduino.
Space design. Maker Movement and Culture. Public and Higher Ed. Library Makerspaces. High School Makerspaces. Maker Fairs. 3D Printing. Articles (Google Drive folder)