Free e-book! Best of EML 2014

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Free e-book

I’m honored to have an article included in Educating Modern Learner’s compilation of their Best of 2014 articles. Even better, it’s available for free as a lovely e-book!

Educating Modern Learners is a new website created to help every school leader become better informed to make better, more relevant decisions for the children they serve in this new, modern world of learning.

My article, What a Girl Wants, is included in this e-book, along with 13 other terrific essays and analysis of current education practice and policy.

Click on the image to go to the EML download page, and while you are there, consider signing up for a subscription!

 

How tos: New Making in Education posts from the FabLearn Fellows

Several recent FabLearn Fellow blog posts have created a lot of room for discussion around the topics of fabrication, making, and design in museums and classrooms. Please comment and add your voice!

A brief overview of recent posts:

In 18th Century Buildings, Vector Drawing, History, and Math, Heather Pang explores how a project designed to be a simple skill-builder evolved into something more.

Christa Flores tackles Making for Making Sake? or STEAM for 21st Century Job Skills? weaving in educational philosophy, economic policy, and reaching out to FabLearn 2014 Netherlands attendees to create a global conversation.

Avoiding Cookie Cutters by Keith Ostfeld muses on redesigning an Inventor’s Workshop in a museum setting to help partcipants create more diverse, but still successful projects and includes a terrific video showcasing some young creators in action.

Addressing another perceived roadblock to projects in the classroom – that one teacher simply can’t support students all doing different projects, Christa Flores documents students as co-teachers in The Role of Co-Teachers in a Maker Classroom.

And Heather Pang considers “… the question of how much guidance, how many constraints, how much help to give students…” in Where is the line?

These posts all explore some of the most-asked questions hands-on authentic learning: How do students build skills? How does a teacher assess project work? How does a teacher reflect and iterate on lesson planning and design? Doesn’t this take more time than traditional instruction?

But most of all, these posts all help answer the question, “Can authentic learning be done in real schools and learning spaces?” Obviously the answer is YES!

Podcast: The Maker Movement – The Promise and Pitfalls

Click here to listen to the podcast

At ISTE 2014, Ginger Lewman and I recorded a podcast hosted by Don Wettrick called InnovatED – Tomorrow’s Education Innovations Today, on the BAM Radio Network.

We talked about the connection between project-based learning and the Maker Movement, best practices, and potential pitfalls. Plus had a ton of fun! Take a listen 😉


The Maker Movement:The Promise and Pitfalls
Sylvia Martinez is co-author of Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering the Classroom, a book that has been called the “bible of the maker movement for classrooms”. She speaks and writes around the world to advocate for authentic learning using real world design principles, modern technology, and hands-on experiences. Ginger Lewman, @GingerLewman, works at ESSDACK, a nonprofit educational service center. She is a Keynoter & Consultant; Google Certified Teacher; Silo Killer; Co-Creator Life Practice PBL and a teacher of Project Based Learning.

Click here to listen to the podcast

 

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Be a part of FabLearn 2014!

Screen Shot 2014-06-06 at 11.44.58 AMIf you are an educator incorporating “making” in your classroom, or just thinking about it, consider attending FabLearn 2014 this Fall. Held on the beautiful Stanford campus, it’s an opportunity to see the FabLab in action, and meet other like-minded educators from around the world.

I’m the “social media” co-chair of FabLearn 2014 and that means you’ll be hearing a lot more from me about this conference!

Conference website

But don’t just come and listen – share your ideas, projects, and talent with everyone! The deadline has been extended for contributions – all ideas welcome!

Submissions website (new deadline: June 14, 2014)

FabLearn 2014 invites submissions for its fourth annual conference, to be held on October 25-26, 2014 at Stanford University. FabLearn is a venue for educators, policy-makers, students, designers, researchers, and makers to present, discuss, and learn about digital fabrication in education, the “makers” culture, and hands-on, constructionist learning. We are seeking submissions for contributors to our Workshops, Student Showcase Panel, Educator Panel, Research Panel (Full paper), Poster Session (Short paper), and Demo Session.

I have been to this conference for two years in a row now, and it’s really a place to learn new things and have the kinds of conversations with amazing people who are doing amazing things around the world!

What if… those helpful instructions aren’t so helpful

My last post linked to a video showing Dr. Paulo Blikstein of Stanford University showcasing the research going on in his department regarding how making becomes learning.

The next question is what to do when faced with early research? Do we just wait until the research is done? Or maybe even validated with other studies?

I don’t believe this.

I want to know, “What if these early findings are true? Would it change my practice? What would it look like in my classroom or school?”

Let’s just take one of the research questions being asked – Do detailed instructions help or hinder student understanding? What is the difference between a learner who is given step-by-step instructions vs. being given time to explore a new technology? It is often assumed that the way to learn something new is to follow explicit directions for a couple of tries, and then eventually do it on your own.

The early research is showing, however, that students who are given explicit instructions do NOT move to not needing those instructions. They stay “stuck” in a habit of depending on  instructions.

Uh oh. As someone who works with teachers learning new technology, what should I do? Should I hide my handouts? Make them less explicit? I don’t know, but I’m sure thinking about it.

Maybe you are thinking about this with your students. Why not do a little experiment? If you give students detailed instructions “just to get them started” on early project work – why not see what happens if you skip the tutorials and hide the handouts? After some early confusion (where you will have to refrain from jumping in with the rescue) you may see new patterns emerging.

I know I’m not waiting around for the perfect research to happen. I want to find out the “what if…” sooner rather than later.

Making Thinking Visible

One of the advantages of using “maker” techniques in the classroom is that when children make things, it helps make their thinking visible to a mindful observer. This is true authentic assessment.

But some teachers may wonder exactly what they can do to make this happen. An initiative called “Visible Thinking”, from Project Zero offers guidelines to help teachers create the culture and climate in classrooms so that visible thinking is a normal part of the learning process.

An article in Educational Leadership, Making Thinking Visible: Teaching Children to Think is a good introduction to these techniques.

Six key principles anchor Visible Thinking:

  • Learning is a consequence of thinking.
  • Good thinking is not only a matter of skills, but also a matter of dispositions.
  • The development of thinking is a social endeavor.
  • Fostering thinking requires making thinking visible.
  • Classroom culture sets the tone for learning and shapes what is learned.
  • Schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.

This short article contains ideas and suggestions for teachers who wonder about what to do to make sure that “making” in the classroom results in real learning for students. For more in depth resources, including routines and structures for different types of learning situations, check the Visible Thinking website.

Should we teach all kids to code?

This is a comment I put on the blog post: We’re Not Ready To Teach Kids To Code: Think Kids Should Learn To Code? Teach The Teachers First. It said, “We need a paradigm shift in education before we even dream of making coding part of the curriculum.”

My response:

I don’t think we can wait. My answer to this is yes, you are right… but we have to do it anyway. We have to teach kids to code as a necessary part of that paradigm shift. Changes as big as this need to come both bottom up and top down, and we all have parts to play in making that happen.

We have to teach teachers to code so they know what it feels like to think that way. We have to change our institutions and curriculum to match our ideals. All of this sounds impossible, and yet, must be done.

I refuse to say it can’t be done and give anyone an excuse not to try. Are we completely, perfectly, ready? No. Must we do it anyway? Yes.

There will come a time when kids insist that the education they get at school at least meets the expectations they have developed for education outside of school, and parents like your mom will be there to make that case.

I’m not waiting – and from what I’ve read about The Estuary, you aren’t waiting either. So why say we aren’t ready?

In my new book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering the Classroom, we make the case for programming as a necessary skill for students to understand the world around them, and tackle how teachers can learn to teach in this brave new world.

Sylvia

Q&A: How Students Can Help Teachers Use Technology for Learning

From Common Sense Media

A thirty-year veteran educator, technology trainer Lisa Hogan teaches students and faculty in Topsham, Maine to better use new digital media tools to transform learning as part of Maine’s innovative 1:1 laptop program. We talked with her about how technology is changing learning and her school’s student-led iTeam.

Common Sense Media: Tell me about your school’s iTeam. Who’s on the team and what do they do?

Lisa Hogan: They are a group of high school students that help me support teachers. They help with the deployment and collection of 900 laptops, which means they must come to school as early as 5:30 a.m. for deployment. They also attend professional development days and help me help teachers with projects they want to develop.

They’ve also created a video for faculty and students about caring for laptops, and have presented their work to international visitors from Sweden, Denmark, and Singapore. The kids actually give up their lunchtime to work on the iTeam. The iTeam includes everyone from athletes to musicians, and they aren’t even exactly what I would call tech-savvy kids, but they’re willing to learn. They keep me informed about what’s going on with the school network such as slow downs or blocked websites. They’re a good voice to have within the school.

Read more of the interview on Common Sense Media

Sylvia

Learn how to be a constructivist teacher in a digital world


Constructing Modern Knowledge
 is back for a 5th year, July 9-12, 2012 in Manchester, NH.

This year’s CMK 2012 promises to be bigger and better than ever before!

Guest speakers include award-winning filmmaker Casey Neistat; MIT Media Lab professor and Lilypad Arudino inventor, Dr. Leah BeuchleyMark Frauenfelder, Editor-in-Chief of Make Magazine, Founder of BoingBoing.net and author of Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway WorldExpert educator and advocate for “the project approach,” Dr. Lilian Katz and Web phenom, Super Awesome Sylvia.

The Big Night Out in Boston will begin with a reception at the world-famous MIT Media Lab, hosted by Dr. Leah Buechley.

Register today! Space is extremely limited!

This will be my fifth year on the faculty of this amazing summer institute for teachers and I hope you will join us!
Sylvia

PS I am NOT super-awesome Sylvia. But I can’t wait to meet her!