February 12, 2019 (in honor of Engineers Week), I’ll be the guest on a fun, informal webinar with the Makey Makey team! The Makey Makey is one of my favorite tools for physical computing. It’s versatile, easy to use, and you’ll never run out of ideas!
There is a reason that the Makey Makey is on the cover of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, both the first edition and the new second edition. There is just nothing else like it for facilitating creativity at the intersection of the digital and physical world.
Engineers Week is near and dear to my heart. I have an electrical engineering degree and worked for a decade in aerospace. While I don’t work as an engineer these days, I still see the world through that lens, where challenges are just invitations to invent the future! The E in STEAM is often overlooked, or worse, misunderstood as something that only “some kids” can do. We will be talking about how STEAM can happen for ALL students in real classrooms, makerspaces, and libraries!
Here’s a short interview I did with the EduTechGuys at FETC 2019 about new opportunities, tools, and resources in STEM and STEAM for K-12 schools. New fabrication devices, new micro controllers, bio-hacking, and more are making it ever more important to refresh STEM curriculum!
We had a great conversation about learning, tinkering, “real work,” and other topics. This podcast is part of a series of podcasts leading up to FETC in Orlando Florida in January 2019.
Gabriel is having a contest for his podcast listeners to win a copy of the brand new second edition of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. Listen and find out how!
I’ll be at FETC speaking about STEM, making, tinkering, a look ahead to what’s new in STEAM, and much more! (Join me with this discount code.)
We are excited to announce that a newly revised and expanded edition of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom has just been released.
It’s been five years since Gary Stager and I published the first edition of Invent to Learn. In that time, schools around the world have embraced making, makerspaces, and more authentic STEM/STEAM experiences for all children. It’s been fun to be a part of this worldwide phenomenon!
The brand new second edition includes a lot of new material reflecting how much has changed in a few short years. There are many new microcontrollers to choose from, and many more that are better for school use. The fabrication chapter has been updated to reflect how the design process has been streamlined by hardware and software progress. There is an entirely new section on laser cutters and CNC machines.
Programming options have expanded as well with software appropriate for students as young as four years old. Finally, there are some fantastic and accessible environments for programming microcontrollers. When we published the first edition, we were positive that a good block-based programming language for Arduino was just around the corner. Although new software environments emerged, they lacked the polish and stability required to make a difference in classrooms. Now things are different.
The additions and updates to the book go beyond mentions of new technology and fixing broken URLs. There are new examples from educators around the world who have embraced making in their classrooms. There is more context provided for the connections between project-based learning and making. We attempt to be clearer about the real reason that making matters—not to build a special room or purchase equipment, but to make schools a better place for ALL students and teachers to learn.
The second edition is now available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on the Amazon website and other online retailers. For volume sales, using a PO, or international sales, please contact sales@cmkpress.com.
Recently I was a plenary speaker at the Global HR Forum in Seoul, South Korea. This conference attracted a combination of educators from K-20, press, Human Resource managers, government and policy makers, students, and corporate types mostly from South Korea, but a few from around the world. It made for some interesting conversations about the changing nature of work, and how education is or isn’t changing to meet those needs.
Our plenary session was on “Maker Education for Tomorrow” and featured Sherry Lassiter, President & CEO, The Fab Foundation, San Ko, CEO of A-TEAM Ventures, and me, moderated by Inae Kang Professor, The Graduate School of Education, Kyung Hee University. We each got 20 minutes to make our case for how making can make and is making education more relevant and more closely connected to the jobs that really exist today, and will only increase in the future. Then we had the luxury to have a conversation and answer audience questions for another 30 minutes. All of this was being simultaneously translated into English and Korean as needed. It was quite extraordinary. I wish more conferences used a similar format, it gave us all a chance to build on the commonalities of what we were saying, plus expand on the points that the audience was most interested in.
Dr. Kang provided expert moderation, helped provide context, and brought some of her lovely graduate students who had some great comments as well! One of audience questions came from a middle school student who was representing a large group of young people who were also attending the conference. All stakeholder groups indeed!
I hope to have video to post soon! Stay tuned…
From Sylvia Martinez, co-author of the groundbreaking book Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, comes Making and Makerspaces in Education, a concise yet comprehensive quick-reference tool that draws on lessons from the Maker Movement to help educators create classrooms and schools that offer engaging hands-on, minds-on learning experiences for students in grades K-12.
This 6 page laminated guide helps educators get started with making, offering a framework for planning the logistics, student experience, and space design, with an eye toward building inclusive makerspaces. It provides practical guidance on planning a makerspace and makerspace program, with detailed recommendations for:
Projects and logistics;
Tools and materials;
Space design.
Other features of the guide include:
General considerations for materials to collect and technology to buy for makerspaces.
Specific recommendations for free, low-cost, and “worth spending money on” tools and technology for grades pre-K-4, upper elementary and middle school, and high schools.
FABLEARN 2019 – 8th Annual Conference on Maker Education – Columbia University, New York, March 2019
Call for Submissions – Deadline: December 4, 2018
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FabLearn 2019 – 8th Annual Conference on Maker Education, in cooperation with Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI), invites submissions for its 8th Annual Conference, to be held on March 9-10 at Teachers College, Columbia University. The conference theme in 2019 is: “What role does Maker Education play in a world with growing social and environmental challenges?”
FabLearn is a venue for educators, policy-makers, students, designers, researchers, students, and makers to present, discuss, and learn about digital fabrication in education, the maker culture, and hands-on, constructionist learning. We are seeking submissions for:
– Research Papers (full and short papers) – Demos (projects, curricula, software, or hardware) – Workshops (demonstrating fabrication tools, skills, and techniques to conference attendees) – Student Showcase (for elementary to high-school students to show their projects or share rich learning experiences) – Educator Submissions (for educators to share best practices, curricula, experiences, and visions)
All submissions will be due by December 4, 2018, by 11:59 pm (Eastern Standard Time). Decisions will be sent in the beginning of January.
In a new study from Drexel University, researchers found that makerspaces help students learning English to feel more confident using their new language skills.
“In our research, we observed the potential of makerspaces to improve engagement with English language learners (ELL) and students facing disciplinary issues. First-generation English learners expressed greater agency and self-confidence from their experience in makerspaces. These students felt empowered to work on new language skills in the open and collaborative environment through conversations with their peers. Student interviewees suggested that working on creative problem-solving projects reduced the fear of making mistakes when speaking out loud, fostering greater fluency and retention:
ELL students referenced reduced anxiety with language around school activities based on collaboration in makerspaces.
ELL students referenced using technical manuals as part of their literacy development.
ELL students referenced using technical manuals as part of their literacy development.
ELL students expressed being more comfortable using their native language to problem solve or complete assignments in the makerspace than in other STEM settings.
Teachers also frequently referenced specific changes in behavior in their ELL students from makerspace participation, leading them to believe that engagement had improved.”
Making Culture is the first in-depth examination of K-12 education makerspaces nationwide and was created as part of the ExCITe Center’s Learning Innovation initiative. This report reveals the significance of cultural aspects of making (student interests, real world relevance, and community collaboration) that enable learning. The research highlights how makerspaces foster a range of positive student learning outcomes, but also reflect some of the gaps in inclusion common in the STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math) fields. The report was co-authored by Drexel School of Education researchers Dr. Kareem Edouard, Katelyn Alderfer, Professor Brian Smith and ExCITe Center Director Youngmoo Kim.
In a new study from Drexel University, researchers found that makerspace facilitators betray gender bias when talking about their students.
Never. They NEVER referred to the male students as boys. Why? It’s an easy slip to make, reflecting the norm that “boys” are the expected gender, the way things are supposed to be, and girls have to be pointed out.
The problem is, even when it’s unintentional (and the researchers in this study felt it was) it still has impact. If girls feel they are being singled out, even subtly, it can trigger feelings of not belonging, stereotype threat, and other well-documented consequences.
So next time you start to call out, “OK guys…” take a beat and see if there’s something else to say.
If you are thinking, Wow, get off my back, thought police… think about this. You wouldn’t say “Hey gals…” to a mixed gender group, would you? And you definitely wouldn’t say it to a group of all boys. The boys would think that’s an insult, right? Why is being called a girl the ultimate insult for boys, but girls are just supposed to live with being called guys all day every day.
OK folks…. OK class…. OK y’all… it’s not impossible. And it matters.
“The sheer number of identity references based entirely upon gender (“girls”) is deeply unsettling. Also note that the use of “boys” in referring to makerspace students did not occur at all in these interviews. This gender imbalance shaped attitudes and activities within the makerspaces:
Boys were twice as likely to hold leadership positions in group makerspace activities;
Boys were more likely to steer major project topics (robotics challenge, Lego, solar car design);
We also observed a gender disparity in expressed design agency (ability to design or guide project activities) in formal vs. informal learning makerspaces. Boys expressed greater agency in formal spaces whereas girls expressed greater agency in informal spaces.
This evidence suggests a persistent, but possibly unintentional, culture of bias reinforced by makerspace leadership. Research into boys and girls engaging in STEM learning reveals that girls and boys have equal potential to become proficient in STEM subjects (evidenced in our study through nearly equal makerspace participation in grades K-8).
While most leaders believe that makerspaces have the potential to function as a safe space where girls and young women can engage in an open collaborative learning environment while dismantling gender stereotypes, our research also indicates that more must be done to achieve an inclusive culture of gender equity.”
So there is another interesting tidbit. The boys “expressed greater agency” in formal spaces, whereas the girls reversed that role in informal spaces. Why? Perhaps because when it counts, boys are more aggressive in taking control? Or is it that instructors are tipping this balance?
All good research tends to create as many questions as it answers!
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Making Culture is the first in-depth examination of K-12 education makerspaces nationwide and was created as part of the ExCITe Center’s Learning Innovation initiative. This report reveals the significance of cultural aspects of making (student interests, real world relevance, and community collaboration) that enable learning. The research highlights how makerspaces foster a range of positive student learning outcomes, but also reflect some of the gaps in inclusion common in the STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math) fields. The report was co-authored by Drexel School of Education researchers Dr. Kareem Edouard, Katelyn Alderfer, Professor Brian Smith and ExCITe Center Director Youngmoo Kim.