It’s been a week since I attended FabLearn 2019: The 8th Annual Conference on Maker Education held at NYC at the Teachers College, Columbia University last March 9 & 10, 2019. The theme for this years conference was “What role does Maker Education play in a world with growing social and environmental challenges?”.

While I have heard of makerspaces for quite a while now, I don't think I ever fully understood what a makerspace is meant for until after I attended FabLearn. Perhaps like most people when we talk about makerspaces, 3D printing is what comes to mind first, but apparently, there's more to it than just that.

At the conference, I was able to see and hear from people who work in the maker education. Educators and students shared their ideas and goals that grounds the purpose of providing makerspaces for students. Here are some highlights:

Community Makerspaces

Edna Tan, Ph.D. from the University of Carolina presented their research on the makerspace movement focusing on the community makerspaces in particular a makerspace stationed at a refugee camp.

Edna Tan pointed out how “making” provided access to a class of children who spoke different languages. It became a way for them to communicate with one another. While the children were all wearing donated designer clothes, Edna shared that there was a lack of toys donated due to health restrictions at the refugee center and so children started “making” their own toys and teens started making purses that they would want to wear when they go out.

Edna reminded everyone to practice making with equity and consequentiality in mind.

Maker education matters if we let children make use of making in relation to social injustices”.- Angela Calabrese Barton, P.h.D.

A call to make Maker Education accessible to all children was a challenged imposed at the educators' panel --- the consistent equity challenge in the field of STEM. Angela Calabrese Barton, Ph.D., a professor at Michigan State University emphasized the importance of making makerspaces culturally relevant to the students and the issues happening around them.

Host, Nathan Holbert posed a question during the panel discussion: What role does maker education play in the age of social unrest? Angela Calabrese Barton, Ph.D.’s response was spot on. She said, “Maker education matters if we let children make use of making in relation to social injustices”.

Check out their voice feature at Vialogues

Quotes from speakers at FabLearn 2019

Once we searched google and now google searches us. We are part of a big great Truman Show. The challenge as a second decade: we will have to be much more aware than we were in the 1990s. It isn’t an accident that the world is in the most political and economic mess. - Richard Noss, Director of the London Knowledge Lab and the Technology Enhanced Learning Research Programme

As an educator, we have to make sure that we keep the door open and that we hear all the voices. - Yasmin B. Kafai, Ph.D., Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

Learners situated as designers: You can’t define the problem without defining the solution and you can’t define the solution without identifying the problem. That tension in between is where designers belong. - Jonan Donaldson, Designerly Ways of Learning

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Structured vs exploration

the power of tinkering and exploration is something valuable but without instruction things get muddled.
Finding that structure through design thinking process allowed to give structure without overruling the tinkering and exploration. - Fabio Campos and Tatiana Soster, “Sorry I was in Teacher Mode Today”

Student Projects

Living Leather Project

One of my favorites is the Living Leather project. Sparked by their curiosity, these kids made leather out of Kombucha!! How cool is that?!!

Check out the Living Leather Project on their website: giybiobuddies.weebly.com/

Wind Turbine Prototype

Students built a wind turbine that will allow them to create their own green energy. It took them a lot of iterations to get to this prototype that they showcased at FabLearn 2019. Students in this group learned that in building their prototype they needed a lot of planning, trial and error, iterations and great motivation to get to where they are at now.

Pathfinder V.1: A ‘Seeing’ Cane for visually impaired patients

Here’s a seeing cane developed by students in conjunction with the Thai Association of the Blind (TAB) to help visually impaired patients navigate their surroundings.

Workshop

There were several workshops at the FabLearn 2019 but participants can only attend one each day. I really wish there were more opportunities to attend more workshops. Although, the workshops I’ve attended provided hands-on experience with the different tech and tools and some project ideas used in makerspaces such as:

Ozobots

Project Idea: Trace kids body and have ozobots move inside the body as if its food

SCRATCH

Codeprojectclub - game projects
PROS: Can work offline, no need internet

MAKEY MAKEY

Can start introducing to students as early as 4th grade
Introduced students to electric pull background
Project Idea: Make arcade games
- During an Arcade Expo, kids can get funny money and trade money for different things
Can use it with scratch

MINI SPHERO

Unit Idea:
- Arctic fox den — Why sphero is better to check the fox den than human? Students can measure the maze and how long will it take to go through the den.
- Mars Rover Prototype
- For NYC students: Cab ride test -- which route is more efficient ( x amount per miles)
Pointers:
- Use paint tape for maze or wipeboard for the maze or street guide
- Make activities relevant to kids

During the workshop, our group tried to create a food plate game that addresses one of the Sustainable Development Goals established in Canada using Scratch and Makey Makey.

“In the world of makerspaces, ethics come from empathy and it all starts from thinking you can do something to make the world a better place.” — Sylvia Martinez

After seeing the students projects, experiencing the tools at the workshops and hearing educators ideas, hope and dreams to move Maker Education even further, things finally made sense.

Sylvia Martinez, the co-author of Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering Classrooms, gave an incredible and inspiring keynote that opened the conference. She provided a remarkable perspective on the true meaning and purpose of maker education. She shared with everyone a learning manifesto that points out that active construction is one of the best ways for students to share what’s in their heads.

In addition, Sylvia emphasized that in the world of makerspaces, ethics come from empathy and it all starts from thinking you can do something to make the world a better place.

“By providing makerspaces for our children, we are helping children make sense of the world so they can take charge of the world.” - Sylvia Martinez

The efforts of educators who believe in the power of Maker Education help students in becoming active citizens of their communities through empathy. By helping students realize what is around them and what is needed to make their communities better, students begin to practice purposeful thinking and making.

As Sylvia Martinez pointed out, by providing makerspaces for our children, we are helping children make sense of the world so they can take charge of the world and this in itself the true essence of Maker Education.

Only time will tell where the maker industry will lead us. As Paulo Bliekstein said “ MAKE is not a pedagogy or a mindset — it is a BRAND.” How we as educators utilize this era of ‘making’ in our classrooms is all up to us.