April 12

Making With Less

I recently had the opportunity to present at a conference in Puerto Rico. The conference was focused on restructuring education in Puerto Rico to have a focus on Design Thinking and Project Based Learning. I was the elementary contingent of our team and I presented on MakerSpaces. This should have been very easy for me, having started the makerspace in my school and having presented on MakerSpaces at regional and national conferences.  Upon scrolling through some of my previous presentations, it became apparent that I’d have to make some changes. While I often talk a lot about the students projects ranging from hi-tech to lo-tech, I knew this presentation would have a singular focus on lo-tech to make the transition easier.

From my experience working with elementary students, I’ve learned that it’s not about the hi-tech gadgets at all. Large sums of money were spent on a 3D printer in the early days of our Makerspace. It was a shiny new toy, but didn’t have the lasting effect I had hoped for. The greatest creativity and innovation grows from working with familiar materials and having opportunities to work with readily accessible materials. Little kids can do great things with less.

In reviewing the top projects and interests in our makerspace over the past 5 years, my list of materials to start a Makerspace now looks like this:

  • Safety is first so kid sized goggles and work gloves. Our goggles were donated from Google Science.
  • Real tools: can be used and obtained through donations from parents & community-Hammers, screwdrivers of all sizes, pliers, wire cutters, nails, screws, hinges,  hand saws, and a drill.
  • Fabric and sewing needles
  • Wood: all kinds and all sizes  – think “Block of Wood Challenge: When Is a Block of Wood No Longer a Block of Wood?”
  • Sandpaper
  • Cardboard: lots of odd shapes, sturdy flat, cereal boxes, tubes of all sizes
  • Paint and brushes
  • Coin batteries and LED lights of all colors.
  • Copper tape for paper circuits
  • Chibitronics sticker LED lights
  • PVC pipe cut into various lengths with elbows, t-connectors and end caps for marshmallow shooters and building large structures
  • Duct tape of every color and pattern you can find
  • Batteries of all sizes 
  • Small motors
  • Insulated wire and wire strippers
  • Electrical Tape
  • A plethora of art supplies: paper, scissors, markers, felt, pipe cleaners, glue,
  • Rummage through old science supplies for magnets, magnifying glasses, beakers, interesting loose parts for game making, etc.

Things we’ve collected over time have also been popular for game making. Old board games, discarded electronic toys, random game pieces, cards, marbles, plastic bottle tops, etc. Electronics that are no longer being used are often donated and they are the best for UNMAKING. We use the Thinking Routine from Harvard’s Project Zero titled Parts, Purposes and Complexities.

Lego Robotics was worth the investment (and a few kits go a long way as kids can share them). The Robotics are great because once kids master the instruction booklet, they can hack the projects and start to create from their imaginations.

Edison Robots  are good for teaching our youngest students coding and are fairly inexpensive. Scratch is another way to teach coding and is web based and free.

Countless resources will also help your students find ways to make more with less: Design Squad Nation , The Exploratorium, Rube Goldberg Machines and Caine’s Arcade are our favorites.

It’s easy to get caught up with stocking the MakerSpace, but it’s important to always come back to the “why.” Why are we doing this? It’s for the children, so spend some time with them and ask them what they want to make. Provide inspiration and then be prepared to get out of their way.

Category: connections, design thinking, growth mindset, makerspace, passions, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 14

Four Reasons I Use Twitter in My Classroom

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Using Twitter in my classroom has certainly elevated my tech savvy status with parents as well as my instagramming 5th graders who have never known a world without digital devices. We live in a very social world, so why not use social media in the classroom? Social media is a part of daily life for millions of people on our planet and it’s not going away any time soon. Using it in my classroom allows me to model appropriate use and teaches my students necessary skills they will need for their lives beyond our classroom.
While there may be many extraneous reasons to use social media in my classroom (it makes my life easier because it’s organized as well as time and space efficient), it really comes down to four main reasons:

TWITTER CONNECTS ME WITH PARENTS

Using social media in a classroom gives parents a window into their child’s day. The learning becomes transparent as I tweet all content area charts (see below) made in class so they are available to all students at home, to be used as teaching tools/support for their homework and review. Homework assignments are also Tweeted after reviewing them in the classroom. We all benefit when there is ample time to discuss the assignments and less time spent copying the assignment.
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Tweeting charts lets the parents know what their children are doing in school and in addition, students often use them as reference tool for future assignments and homework as they are archived in our class Twitter account.

TWITTER EXPANDS THE WALLS OF MY CLASSROOM

Our class Twitter handle is @5Boyer and while I start the year orchestrating our tweets, my savvy students quickly start to ask, “Do we have to copy that or will you tweet it?” or “Can you take a picture and tweet it, I want everyone to see what we’ve done?” My students have many questions and it would ultimately be a shame if I was the only voice that answered them. We tweet to others to ask questions, why not go straight to the experts? Once my class Tweeted to the International Space Station asking, “How many sunsets do you see in a day?” AND The ISS Tweeted back! Imagine how exciting that was for 23 fifth graders (not to mention their teacher). Tweeting student work now becomes an instant celebration as it is shared with a much wider audience. As a teacher, I retweet relevant information and LOVE how that sparks a conversation in the classroom. Note in the tweet below, I was at home reaching out to my class as the spacewalk was starting before school hours. I added others to the tweet by inserting their twitter handles, check out their response.

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In most of my tweets I add the hashtag #heathcotepride as our amazing tech guru has created a living bulletin board for all school related tweets and to his credit almost all of our staff is tweeting!

TWITTER CONNECTS ME WITH OTHERS 

WHO SHARE THE SAME PASSIONS

Professionally, I have built a network of teachers, learners, and experts whom I can learn from every day. There are incredible things happening in the world of education and I have a front row seat with an international view. Only social media can deliver that. I can connect with others who will be attending the same conference, see what’s going on in classrooms around the world or simply be inspired by other amazing teachers. Additionally, Twitter chats make it possible for me to participate in professional conversations in my pajamas. Twitter chats are when a group of twitter users come together at a predetermined time to discuss a certain topic using a specific hashtag with each tweet. Chats serve as a networking opportunity in addition to an awesome learning environment!  #edtechchat is one favorite and @iChrisLehman hosts many thought provoking chats focused on reading and writing.

TWITTER HELPS ME CONDUCT RESEARCH

Twitter offers direct access to the experts and the information is current. Many museums are on social media and post highlights on museum exhibits, special events and relevant articles. Scientists, journalists, athletes, engineers, bankers…millions of professionals are on social media. When my students are given a choice within their research projects, they often choose topics/people that are trendy and not easily researchable in books, (and if there is a book, it’s not in language a fifth grader can easily understand). Recent research topics have included: How Has Social Media Impacted Our Daily Lives? What are Football Combines?, When Will Time Travel Be Possible? and Astronaut Scott Kelly and Life in Space. Students learn how to use social media as a primary source when making connections with the experts in the field that they are studying. Available literature may not be accessible, but people rarely deny a student the opportunity to conduct an interview once the initial contact has been made.
In the process of writing this post I became curious as to what my students might say so I asked them, “What do you all think of social media in the classroom?”, here’s what they said;
  • “My grandma lives in Florida and Twitter helps her see what I’m doing in school, she likes that”
  • “Twitter can help others learn from what we’re doing”
  • “It saves on paper – we have all the charts without making 24 copies of it”
  • “It helps us to document our work”
  • “Tweets of pictures, charts and homework help us to review our work from home easily”
  • “We can share work with our parents”
  • “It takes too long to get to School Wires, Twitter is really fast and easy”
  • “If I’m sick or on vacation early, I can keep up on the work on Twitter”
  • “Twitter is a good thing – when my mom asks what I did in school, I usually say I don’t know, but now we can check on Twitter”
  • “Twitter is a good way to communicate with people who we can’t interact with directly. Like astronaut Scott Kelly who tweeted to us”
  • “I use Twitter to see what’s going on in school. I use Instagram to follow friends who have moved and see what’s going on.”
  • “Vine and Twitter are good for following my interests, like a sports team, a car company. I can see how they’re doing.”
Time is precious and twitter lets me complete a multitude of tasks in a short amount of time. It’s a tool that I have come to depend on for communicating daily with parents, colleagues, and astronauts. Wall Street and CNN have their tickers that deliver up-to-the-minute relevant information – that is what twitter has become for me and my students.
 Originally published February 1, 2016  Daily Genius
Category: connections, experts, passions, social media | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 7

Columbia University’s Makerspace


This summer I was fortunate to be invited to tour the makerspace/design labs of Teacher’s College Columbia University with a colleague.  Our host was Richard Jochum, professor of art and art education as well as the visionary who wrote the curriculum for their new program in Creative Technologies.  What I learned that day was both inspirational and affirming.


VALIDATION
The first room we toured was their original digital photography lab.  Walls were lined with computers, scanners and printers.  Shelves housed 3D printers and several storage carts caught my eye: Makey Makey kits, alligator clips, wire, batteries – basically the exact same supplies that were in my makerspace!  Here I was in a prestigious university and the students there are using the same exact materials that my students are using!  Validation of the highest form!  The second room we toured was more sophisticated in it’s tools and technologies but very similar to what our high school is planning for their design lab. Again, validation!  The walls were adorned with examples of student work; a small gallery celebrating student learning, a final project highlighting the integration of making and writing, a work in progress waiting for it’s owner to return.  In all, it was a beautiful sight knowing that audience is a vital part of student motivation and planning for new ways to celebrate learning in our makerspace.


COMMON DENOMINATORS
Beyond the materials and machines lay a glorious commonality within the maker world no matter the age of the student; educators want to promote a community of risk takers and problem solvers. Professor Jochum sat with my colleague and I for over an hour talking about the future of makerspaces, the importance of vertical curriculum and how we play a part in creating such students.  Change is happening in education on all levels, it’s slow but it is happening.  Changing the space, we have all come to learn, is the easy part.  It’s the culture change within individual school buildings that is more challenging. However, after this day, thinking about the parallels between my students and the students at Columbia University, I was inspired to start a new school year and “make” it amazing!

 

Category: connections, design thinking, documenting learning, experts, growth mindset, makerspace, passions | LEAVE A COMMENT