After a fun, tiring first week of school, I had the privilege to attend a conference on Makerspaces hosted by ICE Indiana. This conference was well worth the drive to see a makerspace being developed by Creativity Labs at Indiana University and to connect with other educators who wanted to bring this experience into their classrooms or learning spaces. I was inspired and want to make this a reality for our students, in our building!
What is a Makerspace?
"A makerspace is not solely a science lab, woodshop, computer lab or art room, but it may contain elements found in all of these familiar spaces. Therefore, it must be designed to accommodate a wide range of activities, tools and materials." Edutopia www.edutopia.org/.../designing-a-school-makerspace-jennifer-coo...
I Want That!!! How can I participate?
As a classroom teacher, your room is already a makerspace. You come together to learn and build a community with common resources.
To build on what we already do, we should enable our students to be creative by giving them materials, time, and space to tinker with their hands and create something great. To get started in your own classroom, check out Renovated Learning; I enjoy reading about her journey with a makerspace.
Ways to Foster a Maker Community in Your Classroom
Below are a few ideas that I walked away with that can easily be added to enrich the classroom curriculum. The materials needed are common and fairly easy to get your hands on for the students.
- Toy Remixing: Collect old toy figures and the students take them apart. The students will then use the toy pieces to mix and match to create a new figure. The students can then use this figure as inspiration for a creative writing piece.
- Lego Builds: Students use legos to retell a story. The students use Lego Movie Maker to take pictures of the figures to complete a movie of the story they just read.
- Paper Roller Coasters: Students use only paper and tape (a lot of it!) to design and construct a roller coaster. This project and be used to teach the design process or simple machines.
After this conference I was inspired to build the idea of a maker community both in the Adventure Center with high tech and low tech tools but also in the classrooms. This is an opportunity that would be great for our students. They can use their ideas, passions, and interests to invent to learn during Genius Hour and take their learning and finished product with them when they leave to do great things.
Further Resources:
Renovated Learning
Designing a Makerspace
ISTE Create a School Makerspace
On Twitter:
#makered
#makermovement
#makerspace
#inventtolearn
If you are intrigued by makerspace or are doing it in your classroom/school, I would LOVE to hear from you!
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