Makerspaces, libraries and education

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has teamed up with MakerBot to install the first MakerBot Innovation Center at a university library.

Eager to try out a 3D printer in your classroom? Here are 10 ideas to help you use them to promote real learning.

The time has come to move your student experiments from the classroom into outer space. With the advent of inexpensive electronics that can monitor everything from ambient temperature to magnetic fields, it is possible to conduct real science outside the confines of earth’s atmosphere. The most practical method to reach the ‘outer limits’ is to use a weather balloon that lofts the experimental payload into the stratospshere. Doing this in an advanced level course is an excellent STEM project that can take the entire year to complete. It involves students in everything from obtaining permits from the FAA to release the balloon to calculating trajectories, forecasting weather and using telemetry. This is a project in and of itself, and creating the on board science experiments is another layer of challenges to complete.

Educational initiatives that emphasize making, design, engineering, and tinkering are gaining traction in schools and organizations across the country. While making-centered learning is not a new concept, recent and emerging trends suggest a new kind of hands-on pedagogy— a pedagogy that encourages community and collaboration (a do-it-together mentality), distributed teaching, boundary crossing, and a responsive and flexible pedagogy.

Supported by the Abundance Foundation, Agency by Design (AbD) is a multiyear research initiative at Project Zero investigating the promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning experiences. Our work is guided by three questions:

1) How do maker educators and leaders in the field think about the benefits and outcomes of maker learning experiences?

2) What are some of the key characteristics of environments in which maker-centered learning thrives?

3) What kinds of educational interventions can we develop that support thoughtful reflection around maker-centered learning and the made dimension of our world?

The MAKE Lab is a collaborative space facilitated by Dr. Shaunna Smith in the Educational Technology program area of the Department in Curriculum & Instruction at Texas State University. Designed as an educational makerspace, The MAKE Lab focuses on exploring the instructional issues of integrating inexpensive technologies to facilitate brainstorming, tinkering, playing, learning, and art creation that supports multidisciplinary learning. Honoring the notion of both the strategic and serendipitous design that takes place as people engage in hands-on making that is personally meaningful and expressive, The MAKE Lab asks makers of all ages “what do you want to MAKE today?”

The Maker Workshop will explore how students and teachers can create innovative and unique products in their K12 classroom using a mix of readily available technology tools combined with other materials such as cardboard, fabric etc.

The Maker Movement is a technological and creative learning revolution taking place around the globe in K12 education and beyond. It is being driven by new tools and technologies – such as 3D printing, robotics, wearable computing, e-textiles, ‘smart’ materials etc – which are now affordable and easily accessible to educators.

The Educational Maker Movement is about utilising these inventions to create an innovative, interdisciplinary, collaborative classroom environment – a classroom in which “making” is happening is one where students are learning through building things.

Makeshift is a field guide to hidden creativity. From homemade aircraft in Nigeria to drug smugglers in Mexico, Chinese hackers pushed up against the Great Firewall to Haitian communities pushing back against marginalization, we believe ingenuity can be found everywhere if you know where to look. Let us tag along on your creative pursuit.

Makeshift is part of a new breed of magazines passionate about their content, form, and community. We don’t rehash the news; we share stories that test the limits of our far-flung contributors. Makeshift is a proud member of the Little Magazine Coalition and the Indie Publisher Club.

Few scientific 3D-printable models are available online, and the expertise required to generate and validate such models remains a barrier. The NIH 3D Print Exchange eliminates this gap with an open, comprehensive, and interactive website for searching, browsing, downloading, and sharing biomedical 3D print files, modeling tutorials, and educational material.

The NIH 3D Print Exchange is a collaborative effort led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in collaboration with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development and the National Library of Medicine.