Creating an Authentic Maker Education Rubric
While many teachers are excited about the maker movement and may even be creating projects for their classrooms, assessment can be puzzling even to veteran classroom teachers. How can teachers prove that deep, rich learning is occurring through making? How do we justify a grade to students and parents alike, especially to the student who "just isn’t good at art"? By crafting a three-part rubric that assesses process, understanding, and product, teachers can rest assured that they are covering all the bases.
Kristin Fontichiaro's Blog About Learning, Teaching, Making Things, and Libraries
Building professional capacityTeacher-librarians are well positioned to impart data literacy to teens, but who’s giving instructors the resources and support that they need to do so?Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical associate professor at University of Michigan’s School of Information, and Jo Angela Oehrli, learning librarian at University of Michigan Library, were up for the task. As principal investigators of the two-year IMLS-funded project “Supporting Librarians in Adding Data Literacy Skills to Information Literacy Instruction,” they set out to design materials for high school librarians looking to foster data and statistical literacy skills in their students.“We were seeing on our own campus that data was becoming a powerful mode of expression and wasn’t working in ways that information literacy always works,” says Fontichiaro.
Launching a Makerspace: Lessons Learned From a Transformed School Library
Excitement about school makerspaces has been in the air, but many educators eager to create hands-on learning spaces in their schools still aren’t sure how to get started or why it’s worth the effort. New Canaan High School librarian Michelle Luhtala recently jumped headfirst into creating a makerspace in her library and documented what she learned, how her space changed and how it affected students along the way. Her experience was very different from elementary school librarian Andy Plemmons, whose makerspace started with a 3-D printer obtained through a grant and blossomed into a core teaching resource at his school. Luhtala is blessed with a big library, but for most of her career it has been dominated by large bookshelves.
I Created A Little Makerspace To-Go.....It Even Includes A Makerspace Mobile Too!
On Monday and Tuesday of next week I have the honor of presenting to a variety of educators including administrators, teacher librarians, technology coordinators, and classroom teachers at the TIES Conference in Minneapolis. My presentations focus around makerspaces and the importance of the make movement and these spaces in education. By definition makerspaces are creative, DIY spaces where people can gather to create, invent, and learn. In libraries they often have 3D printers, software, electronics, craft and hardware supplies and tools, and more.
A Librarian's Guide to Makerspaces: 16 Resources
"There were more than 135 million adult makers, more than half of the total adult population in America, in 2015." What is a makerspace? You’ve no doubt been hearing that word more than a few times over the past several years. Makerspaces, also called hackerspaces, hackspaces, and fablabs, are collaborative spaces where people gather to get creative with DIY projects, invent new ones, and share ideas. Since the first official makerspace convened six years ago in a library in upstate New York, libraries have remained an ideal setting for makerspace events across the country.
Coding with Ozobots
Calibrate Your Ozobot What does this mean? Ozobot’s “eyes” (the sensors) are very sensitive to the surrounding light. So much so that, if the paper changes or if you go closer to the window, it affects how Ozobot sees what’s underneath.
Makerspaces, Participatory Learning, and Libraries – The Unquiet Librarian
The concept of libraries as makerspaces first hit my radar last November when I read about the Fayetteville Free Library’s FabLab. As I began hearing more buzz about libraries and makerspaces the first few months of this year, I decided that learning more about this concept and exploring how I might apply the elements of makerspaces to my library program would be a personal learning project for the summer. So what is a makerspace? Makerspace defines it as: Modeled after hackerspaces, a makerspace is a place where young people have an opportunity to explore their own interests, learn to use tools and materials, and develop creative projects.
The Maker Space Difference: Amazing Inquiry, Shared Learning
Students work with the new 3-D printer. “Is it true? Do we have a 3-D printer?”
How to Start a Makerspace When You're Broke
Everyone’s Favorite Excuse I’ve had the honor and privilege of sharing with hundreds of librarians and educators about our makerspace. Unfortunately, I see many educators hold back on starting a makerspace because of funds. I’m always hearing excuses like: “I’d love to do (insert cool Maker activity) at my school, but we don’t have a budget for that.”“We can’t really afford a 3D printer right now.”
4-6 Design- Symbaloo Gallery
Related keywords: Coding , Game , Creation , Photography , Graphic , Arts , STEM , Inventing , Information , and , Help! , Knowledge
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. 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.
(Rethinking) Makerspaces
Kids have always made in my library. We encouraged digital and visual and dramatic and rhetorical creativity before, during, and after school. But for a while, I’ve questioned the value of using already heavily used real estate to randomly carve out space for a 3D printer, electronics stations and sewing machines. I had my doubts about the makerspace movement in school libraries. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to chat with Amos Blanton, project manager of the Scratch online community, and a member of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT Media Lab. On his profile Amos notes: I design and sustain creative learning environments for people with agency.
