Gerald did a great job connecting his school's vision to why the schools would benefit from a makerspace. This was a great idea and really made a compelling argument that could be taken to administrators. He also talked about starting the makerspace with what the school already had. Then other things could be added based on student interest. This way money and time would not be wasted getting and learning about materials students could care less about. The video he shared was very powerful in that is showed some of the materials that I have just purchased to play around with. I just got a makey makey and a little bits kit, both of which were in the video. The more and more I read and watch about makerspaces the more on board I get to turn my classroom into one. I have had such great success with donorschoose that I imagine I could get a lot of stuff from there. Especially since one of their vendors is amazon. Genevieve used the advice from Invent to Learn about how to phase things to make a makerspace seem that much more important. Even if it is the same thing I would have thought to say, the way it was put in the book made it feel that much more convincing. So much of what I read seemed intuitive. When I read the statements they made sense, but the problem was there wasn't proof. For someone in the classroom you may not need proof, but thinking to those on they outside they may not agree with statements that have no evidence. Genevieve started out with one really good piece of evidence: "creativity and STEM-based making are top priorities for today’s young people, according to business leaders, politicians, and futurists (Martinez, et.al, loc. 4191)." My suggestion to her was that she either find studies that show the importance of PBL (there are a lot of studies on this) or find quotes or videos with anecdotal evidence that support a makerspace. In my opinion, this would help outsiders see a clearer picture of the importance of a makerspace. Hopefully this would be enough to convince them to support it. Teresa shared an amazing article on brain research that had a video (below). It literally blew my mind. Our brain is not that big and for scientists to have discovered 97 new regions seems crazy to me. Our brain is so complex, and I feel like I know nothing about it. Maybe some of this research could be used to help give evidence for making? This week I was also able to post a video about my experimentation with Lego Mindstorms. This is such a great resource my school already has, as I borrowed the kit from the school. I also experimented a little bit with the LittleBits Arduino Coding Kit. I have not done much but really appreciate this kit because it allows you to get into the coding while not having to mess with the wires. The wiring is already in magnetic blocks that you just connect. This makes the "circuit" building part easy. Hopefully this week I will get into this kit more.
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