“How can we begin to move schools to become places of more relevant, connected, creative learning?”
- Will Richardson, “Why School?”
This is not an easy question to answer. It’s certainly not one where there is a quick solution. A big key idea floating in my head during this course has been how do we change up the way we do things in school, how do we create engaging atmospheres and how do we connect to students? Bringing in my passion was key here. I’ve always been a hands-on, science-is-fun kind of person. So naturally, I ended up doing something in that vein for my final project.
My Project:
A Digital Makerspace
This wasn’t an easy endeavor. My plans to create borrowable bins that correspond to a website, which then also need to include all the lessons and the corresponding books was a challenge.
Having been an ADST teacher I had enough background and a handful of tried-and-true lessons that I could start with something in my back pocket. My biggest challenge was going to be building a website from scratch and trying to also develop the logistics of how it would all work.
The Process:
Having worked in my district as an ADST teacher, and seeing what resources were available and what wasn’t, I knew that with this being new to many teachers that most teachers felt that it was a back-burner type of subject. I wanted to see how others felt currently, and what feedback they would have if my idea would come to fruition.
I created a survey (with a site called SurveyMonkey) with 10 questions, asking teachers about what they would like support in, in connection with the ADST curriculum:
How do you currently feel about the ADST curriculum?
Would you be interested in any of the following as an educator? (Borrowable kits, digital lesson space, place to upload lessons, support from teacher librarian)
If there was a program to borrow a box of lesson specific materials with digitally accessible content, how likely are you to use it?
How likely would you recommend this program to a friend?
What grade do you teach?
What about the ADST curriculum do you wish you had support in? (creating lessons, obtaining materials, ways to show evidence of learning, the content/curriculum)
What would you like to see be in this type of program?
What excites you about this program?
How do you find the support level in your school/district for lessons/materials?
How likely are you to use this program if it were in your school versus orderable program?
You can click the photos above to see the actual responses I received!
I received 7 responses from fellow educators and the overall feeling I got was very positive from them. They were eager to hear about a program like this being developed.
“Being able to easily access items is a huge time saver which makes me extremely excited!!”
“-Online database for lesson, with videos and step by step instruction -Kits that are in schools and ready to be used right away. I understand that material is always going to be an issue, so I do think that lessons around inexpensive material would be a big buy in for teachers. Having a database organized by maybe easy to hard lessons/activities. -Workshops put on that actually show you the lessons or how to do the items with limited spaces or materials -Database where teachers could post lessons as well.”
Building the website itself had some issues once I got started. I originally had started using a website builder and a few hours into building it realized that I would not be able to create products that are borrowable, and allowed file sharing, it would be purely be for information. Moving onto Wix, I found I was able to create both of those. Once I had a basic template of a website set up, I had to create the “Creative Crates”, and theme them based on the grade range’s curricular competency.
Once I had a themed crate, I had to create the lessons, and materials. For lesson materials to be downloadable and editable I had to use Google Docs, and upload them into a Google Drive, which then got displayed as a widget on my website. This meant for each lesson it had to be uploaded into google drive and then put into corresponding folders.
As this is just a start to my project, I focused on the Play.Discover.Learn. K-3 crates and cobbled together some lessons and resources needed for each theme.
Once I had a few lessons and resources uploaded and ready to go, I made the stories creative kit materials. Ideally, in future, these materials would be reusable items that I wouldn’t have to replenish with every “take out”.
I had been following a few Teacher Librarian blogs on Digital Makerspaces, surfing Pinterest and looking at purchasable kits from educational retailers to gain an idea of what was needed for these kits to work. This combined with my knowledge of creating ADST lessons, while working in a limited space, allowed me to create a pretty cool little project.
A big aspect of my website was to be able to network with other teachers. I created a “Share Space” where teachers can share lessons, photos, and other pieces of knowledge. I felt this fit in well with the theme of continuing to develop our PLN’s that we discussed both in this course and in my blog. My hope is to eventually develop a space within that where teachers and classes can create challenges and present them to other classes and post results. This can create some pretty cool connections with classes around BC.
The Future:
My future steps are to hopefully keep plugging away at the lessons and resources, which I will hope to merge with the Library Website if this project gets taken up by a school. The idea will be to share this website and the concept of borrowable kits with my administrators and Teacher Librarian to test run a year of running the program out of the library or a resource room.
So take a peek at my website, and click on lessons, on links and learn something new!
Click me!
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References
"Our Virtual Makerspace (Elementary Master)". Google Docs, 2020, https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSHipyygeVpJD0uFpRqFjMC5QMS3uI09TZVOiD9tWADKVygmFZkYIEUOuNjgritnKO4zylPMI9UcGd2/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.gac23188f2a_2_0.
"Wix". Wix.Com, 2020, https://www.wix.com/.
"Youtube". Youtube, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/.
Miller, Shannon. "Our Virtual Makerspace Is Open!". Vanmeterlibraryvoice.Blogspot.Com, https://vanmeterlibraryvoice.blogspot.com/2020/07/our-virtual-makerspace-is-open.html.
"Pinterest". Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/.
Richardson, Will (2012). Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information are Everywhere [eBook edition]. Ted Conferences.
"Surveymonkey: The World’s Most Popular Free Online Survey Tool". Surveymonkey, 2020, https://www.surveymonkey.com/.
"Virtual Makerspace - FRC Learning Commons Virtual Library". Sites.Google.Com, https://sites.google.com/site/frclearningcommons/home/virtual-makerspace.
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