iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

These are unprecedented and unpredictable times in education right now. Educators and librarians are having to quickly innovate and adapt to find ways to continue supporting our students while maintaining health and safety. While makerspaces thrive on in-person collaboration and sharing, it is still possible to continue supporting maker learning in a socially distanced or virtual scenario. But it does take a little more planning and some ingenuity to make it work. Below are some guidelines and advice for supporting maker learning during the 2020 pandemic.

What is a makerspace? What projects and materials do you recommend for a makerspace? Why are makerspaces becoming so popular in schools and libraries? These are just some of the questions we hear often. In order to help, we decided to put together a collection of our favorite makerspace resources and websites.

In this post, you will find over 101+ links to makerspace related articles, guides, checklists and more that will help you get started with hands-on maker education.

Explore Heather Lister's board "Low-Tech, No-Tech Makerspaces", followed by 545 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about Crafts, Experiments kids and Classroom.

Books play an essential role in all makerspaces, whether they are in the library or not.  Instructional books can support students in learning complex skills and tools. Project books can give ideas and inspiration for what to make next.  Art books can provide visual inspiration.   Professional development books can help teachers who aren’t quite sure how to incorporate making into their classrooms and curriculum. For all these reasons and more, every makerspace should have some sort of resource shelf or section that students and teachers can access.

You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to start a Makerspace area. You don't have to have a designated room or rip out bookcases. You can even have a Makerspace on a cart! When we have testing in our Library, I put all our Makerspace stuff on an AV cart and roll it into our server room.  This post evolved from a previous post called Makerspace Starter Kit Updated where I had some of these idea, but I felt that it deserved it's own expanded post.

You can take baby steps into the Maker Movement.  I've been saying that for 7 years or so....long before I blogged about it, I tried it out. Yeah, sometimes I try things on the sly to see if they are blogworthy for you! Now....having said that ..."

Design challenges have the power to encourage creativity in your students – by providing limitations and guidelines, students can actually become more creative. Learn strategies for creating design prompts, running challenges and incorporating the design process into projects with your students. We’ll discuss how to create open-ended challenges and material-specific challenges in a way that will maximize your students’ creativity, as well as how to create passive design challenges that require minimal supervision. We’ll talk about some of the problems that educators face when running challenges, how to help your students focus, and balancing guided projects, design challenges and open-ended exploration. Whether you’ve had a makerspace up and running for years or are just getting started with the Maker Movement, you will leave this session feeling equipped to lead your students through design challenges that will spark their creative genius.

An amazing collection of makerspace resources in this padlet by Mandi Figlioli  aka MissMakey !!

Discussions of maker education often dazzle with stories of fanciful robots, exotic materials, and whimsical ideas for cross-disciplinary projects. These impressive examples showcase the amazing things creative people can do, but when I wanted to build making into my freshman biology course, I felt stymied. When I reframed making as integral rather than optional, I found a way to let students create.

I recently launched a new blog series, Makerspaces A to Z.  You can read all about the letter A here, B here and C here. Thank you to all those who shared their thoughts about those posts using the #MakerspacesAtoZ hashtag.  Thank you also to those who shared their thoughts about letter D words there, as well.  Design was definitely the most talked about Letter D word, but there seemed to be endless options, and they all were great ones!

Letter D for me, represents Disobedient.

You wouldn’t just randomly choose a tool from your toolbox and feel confident it was the right one to cut a board or attach a hinge. Same goes for school makerspaces.

Like everything in ed tech, it’s not enough to have a bunch of shiny gadgets in your makerspace. You need to have the right materials to meet your goals.

Vinnie Vrotny, director of technology at The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas, understands how tempting it is to fill a space with the latest devices. But before you do, here are eight questions you should ask to determine if you’re choosing wisely.  

I am beyond elated – our PreK-6 elementary school received monies, through our district’s Computer Science Resolution 2025, to create a STEAM (science, technology, arts, math) makerspace. I never thought our Title 1 school would get the opportunity to create such a space. I never thought I would get the opportunity to help create a fully equipped makerspace. A few of use spent the past few weeks rearranging our library so that one side contains our books and the other our STEAM materials.

Does STEM scare you?

It scared me for a long time. I was that guy who put IKEA furniture together… backwards. When the oil light came on in the old Pontiac 6000 I used to drive, I thought it meant the car needed more gas.

I recently found myself at the helm of a Montessori Elementary schools’ new STEM program. Needless to say, I felt like a fish out of water. But as is the case with any new project I take on, I have realized, success is about 0.5% due to me and 99.5% the result of the team I put in place around me. Fortunately, I have two brilliant team members – one, a hippie science whiz who would give Bill Nye a run for his money and another, an easygoing, affable Canadian who could probably figure out how to reassemble a computer having never seen the inside of a CPU.

Together, we have slowly introduced STEM to elementary students within our brand new MakerSpace. And while it’s been slow going and we have made TONS of mistakes along the way, I believe we are starting to gain traction.

If you are new to STEM or are trying to figure out how to maximize the use of your new MakerSpace, here are five things to consider:

The IDEAlab &  Makerspace is my school’s space for creative exploration in our library.  But not too long ago, the room was the librarian’s office and a storage space (it’s still my office too).  Before I was hired in the summer of 2017, plans were in place to transform the room into a virtual reality laboratory.  Cabinets were removed, desks were installed and computers with VR headsets were setup, as well as a 3D printer. A whiteboard and interactive projector were mounted on the wall, allowing airplay from Apple devices (the school is 1:1 iPad) or projection of students individual computer screens, making it easier for more students to observe VR.  The name IDEAlab (Innovate Design Explore Apply) was chosen. So on my first day, the IDEAlab already existed. But the makerspace was yet to come.

6 years after creating our first makerspace, it only makes sense to publish a post that focuses on 6 steps for creating a makerspace.

We pulled up to a building, which looked like a storefront from the outside. As we entered, anxiety set in—at least for me. The inside had a factory aesthetic, with old furniture strewn about and folding tables arranged in the center of the room. One of our mantras is “anywhere can be a makerspace,” so I started repeating those words in my mind but it didn’t help, I was distressed. Then I looked around the room and realized that my students had a different view. They saw endless possibilities.

“This shelf can be where we keep the bolts of fabric,” one called. “Here are some outlets for the hot glue guns,” another shouted. “Sphero soccer can be in the middle of the room—but how can we build walls so the Spheros don’t go all over the place?” another asked his peers about the game he had designed specifically for the event, complete with a bracket.

Immediately, my students bolted into action and the redesign began. In under an hour, nine students transformed a dilapidated room into a functioning makerspace with stations that would support the children living in Pillars Community Health-Constance Morris House (CMH), a domestic-violence shelter located in the Chicagoland area.

Valid question… Right?! I often get asked this when gushing about Miss Makey and the Magic Bin, or sharing my passion for making as an instructional strategy. I could respond to this question both literally and figuratively. Literally, the students are making just about anything out of absolutely everything.

They could be tackling a design challenge, 3D printing, coding a robot, or repurposing used materials in an innovative way. Figuratively, I am making experiences. These experiences empower students to explore their interests and talents, as well as think divergently and gain fluency with diverse materials. I design learning spaces and projects that are conducive to creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.

What is a makerspace? What projects and materials do you recommend for a makerspace? Why are makerspaces becoming so popular in schools and libraries? These are just some of the questions we hear often. In order to help, we decided to put together a collection of our favorite makerspace resources and websites.

In this post, you will find over 101+ links to makerspace related articles, guides, checklists and more that will help you get started with hands-on maker education.

"In a corner of the media center at Burnsville's Nicollet Middle School one recent day, a student guided a small robot through a maze, her hands gripping a tablet like a video-game controller.

A few feet away, a small drone buzzed over the heads of two of her classmates, who giggled and ducked as a third student yelled that he wasn't trying to crash. At a nearby table, three girls twisted long strands of colorful thread into bracelets. Elsewhere, kids clustered in small groups dug through electronics kits, clicking pieces together as they tried to power a circuit.

This is not the hushed, orderly school library of the past. It's also not the kind of classroom where students are expected to sit quietly and wait for direction from a teacher. It is a "makerspace" — a place for creativity and hands-on learning that's increasingly becoming a part of school buildings, classrooms and courses in districts across Minnesota."

In a previous post, I highlighted 6 GREAT makerspace practices that captured my attention.  Here is another group of 6 that recently caught my eye.

When I first started my makerspace at Stewart, I had no idea what I was doing.  I just had three bins of K’nex and a vision for what our makerspace could be.  Shortly after we got our supplies, we began 6th grade clubs that met during school.  I started the K’nex club.  The next year we created during school clubs for all grades, so I started STEAM clubs for each grade, which was basically open exploration time in our makerspace.  The next year I helped co-found our afterschool club program, where my Makers Club took off.

Now at Tampa Prep, I’ve started a Maker Mondays club where we have different themed projects each week after school for an hour.  Since we already had a VR lab when I got there, I started an 8th Grade VR club this year during middle school lunch.

At both of my schools, variations of Makers Clubs have been a huge catalyst in my makerspace programs.

One thing I’ve been very interested in with our makerspace is “making with a cause”. I see so many posts on social media where someone has done something amazing for someone else by using skills and materials often found in makerspaces. From 3D-printed shells for turtles to scarves for the homeless shelter, there are so many ways we can give back to our community through making.



I love that my friend, Gina Seymour, has created a whole book on “making with a cause” and I look forward to my copy arriving in the mail.  Her book, Makers with a Cause: Creative Service Projects For Library Youth, has a whole section on getting started and another section with examples of projects from animal welfare to health/wellness to community service.

MAKERSPACE: a place where we gather tools and materials to create, invent, tinker, design, fabricate or otherwise enable individuals, a community or group to make something.

It is NOT defined by one certain shape, size or even having a specific tool like a 3D printer or laser cutter. This is a common misconception…no fancy power tools are needed! Essentially, it reminds me of what well studied early childhood educators have always laid out for their pre-k children in their Early Learning programs. In some classrooms or Family Child Care Homes/Centers, it may have been called the, “Tinkering Area”, the “Sewing Center ” or a “Pop-up Play Area”, filled with cardboard boxes and tape."