MakerSpaces with Impact - TCEA Learning Academy: ISTE 2017

The TCEA session at ISTE 2017, run by Peggy Reimers (@preimers), was a great introduction to an organisational model for MakerSpaces.  Their Makers website was a great inspiration for a structure to arrange our MakerSpace.

• Build it! - Keva Planks, LEGO, Makey Makey and Zoobs
• Coding - Apps, Scratch and Scratch Junior
• Flexible Making - Origami, etc
• Robots - BeeBots, Dot&Dash, Ozobots, Ollie, Sphero and LEGO Robotics
• Repurpose - Cardboard, etc
• Bead it!
• Hyperduino
• Textiles
• Circuitry - Littlebits, LCDs. etc
• 3D Printing
• Drones 
• Even more making
• Design

Peggy talked about being a Maker from way back, tinkering on her parents farm, crochet and her love of arts and crafts and I could see the parallels for me - My craft room literally has floor to ceiling supplies for a huge range of maker activities - paper making, card making, scrapbooking, crochet, knitting, patchwork, painting, multimedia canvases, baking,  etc, etc. I am already a Maker!
With this love of craft also comes a love for technology and inspiring Making in others.
 


 
The 2016 ISTE standards are a good place to start for justifying the need to have Making in schools:

 Making is a perfect process for instilling the 4 Cs of the 21st Century - Creator - Collaborator - Communicator and Critical Thinker.

During the session we had the opportunity to participate in 5 Maker stations - my choices are highlighted above.  I tried to choose stations that I was unfamiliar with, but would be fun :o)

Some of my/our projects:

 Paper Shape Challenge

 3D Doodling

 Looming

 Building

Getting started:
Peggy suggested a format for getting started starting with taking inventory!

What space do you have, what is your storage like, what do you already have that can go into your space?

Start small, build your capacity and find your current experts.

Make sure students have a voice in the process and start with the passions of your staff

Celebrate your achievements with a showcase