takeaways

Community Driven Makerspaces and Persisting AFTER Failure- ISTE 2016 Takeaways

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ISTE 2016 was a whirlwind of crazy, awesome, edtech fun with amazing people! It was my first time at this international conference and I was excited to present on three different days! Thanks to Kristi Taylor for designing this awesome Scratch-inspired shirt based on my idea to have a coding shirt that would command a “program for life.” I’ll warn you now this post is tweet heavy because I’ve got to get back to writing book numero dos!

Getting Girls Involved in STEM

Diana Rendina, Bev Ball, and I did a super quick and information packed snapshot on getting girls involved in makerspaces and STEM on Monday. We feel that it is important to make space for girls and make sure they don’t get pushed out of our makerspaces by overly enthusiastic boys.

No offense guys- just think of it like ladies night- there is something empowering about getting a group of girls together. Without boys around, girls who normally experience “loss of voice” seem to gain confidence in finding their voice at school. At my own #GirlsinTech camp, most of the attendees were the perfect example of girls in high school who usually experience “loss of voice.” We identify these students as girls who get great grades, behave, and generally just sit quiet as a mouse in class. A lot of times, they get overlooked because they are so quiet.

One of the best things about holding a space for girls is that it is an awesome way to break some of them out of their shells and get them to stand out and shine! If you get 20 quiet girls together, you might think they’ll all be quiet…. but actually quite the opposite occurs! They find a solace in each other, an infectious energy will takeover the room, and pretty soon you’ll have a room of laughter, fun, and learning.

 

For our session, Diana, Bev, and I have very different methods for getting girls involved, so it was super cool to present with these awesome ladies. Diana and I are taking the conversation a little further by incorporating steps for getting girls involved in every chapter of our new book: Challenge Based Learning in the School Library Makerspace.

Takeaways from our Session:

  • Combine low tech and high tech
  • Incorporate free choice, craft, and experimentation
  • Set aside time for girls
  • Girls thrive on problem-solving combined with creativity
  • Create mentor partnerships so students can learn from mentors and students can become mentors!

Full slides of our presentation are available here.

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Maker Challenge

The AmazonEdu Maker Challenge hosted by Nicholas Provenzano (aka The Nerdy Teacher) was AMAZING! Talk about a community-driven maker focused session! It was such a whirlwind experience and definitely replicable in your own makerspace. Nicholas and I co-wrote about the experience and you can read it here on the Follett Community blog.

What I loved about the experience was that it almost exactly replicated what happens in my library makerspace. We were issued a challenge: “Hack a classroom activity or procedure” and then given two hours to come up with a solution. My partner and I talked and laughed and came up with  quite a silly solution. We got into the fever of making and before I knew it, I looked up and our time was over! And I was ready to share and then make something new!

Takeaways from the Maker Challenge:

  • Go read about how the whole challenge went down on the Follett Community blog
  • Making is Messy
  • Let your community drive your makerspace
  • Include student voice and choice in all maker activities
  • Work together! Even during a Challenge!

Knights of Make-A-Lot

First, I have to tell you that I never met Nathan face to face until five minutes before our session. And I think he is one AWESOME DUDE!

This session was unlike anything I’ve ever done! While it was somewhat like a traditional panel, Nathan brought his own brand of awesomeness. I loved listening to what he said and piggybacking his thoughts. He called this, “Cliffnotes for Nathan.”

Guillermo from Tinkercad actually broadcast half of our session live here.

Takeaways from this panel:

  • Cliff Notes for Nathan: “Embrace the mess”
  • Fail Forward aka learn from mistakes and perservere through failures.
  • The key to a successful makerspace is building a maker community. It is not about the STUFF, it is about the PEOPLE!

Sparkfun Tour

On Sunday, Jeff Branson picked up me and other awesome tech educators and drove us to Boulder for a tour of BLDG61 at Boulder Public Library and then to Niwot for a tour of Sparkfun! One of my favorite things about touring Sparkun (other than that it felt like I was going to float down the chocolate river like Augustus Gloop and get lost in a sea of awesomeness) was seeing all of the cool stuff from my favorite Sparkfun tutorials! Like the actual monstie stuffie from Sew Electric, and the giant Bare Conductive Wall. The work environment was a mashup of fun, college dormroom, and well- a ton of PERSONALITY.

Boulder Public Library is one of the most beautiful and relaxing libraries I’ve ever seen! Wowza! Finding the makerspace was a bit of a scavenger hunt, but man, what a cool place! I’m so glad Janet invited us to visit! Upon arrival I found a group of people fixing a chandelier, a retired gentleman firing up the laser cutter to put his design on wooden cups he’d crafted, and was surrounded by cool stuff that the Creative Technologist had made to personalize the space. In short- it was PERFECT! BPL, converted an old workshop into a makerspace which I think is a pretty perfect way to add creativity and self-reliance to library programming.

F2FOMG

After 4 days of meeting people I knew from social media face to face, Diana and I ran into  Carrie Baughcum (aka rad sketchnoter Heck Awesome) and we all decided that we needed a word or hashtag to describe meeting your social media friends. Because there is a very interesting moment that happens when you meet someone after a session, then read their nametag and realize they are one of your favorite Twitter/Instagram/etc peeps. Read Carrie’s post about how #F2FOMG was born because it perfectly describes this energetic experience and the best thing about going to an edtech conference….. people!

And I met so many amazing people at ISTE that I have been friends with for the last year! It’s so great to finally meet and hang out in person with educators: Diana Rendina, David Saunders, Kristina Holzweiss, Nicholas Provenzano, Elissa Malespina, Sherry Gick, Kathy Schmidt, and Donna Macdonald. Super cool to meet makers: Andrew Miller from Makerspaces.com; Jie Qi and Patricia from Chibitronics; and the whole gang from littleBits– Ayah, Nick, Ted, and Christina! Plus, it’s always awesome to see Coloradans: Jeff Branson, Bev Ball, Shannon Miller, and Ashley Kazyaka!

I was so excited to meet Ayah Bdeir the founder of littleBits! She thanked me for writing the Librarian’s Guide to littleBits and everything I’ve done to promote hands-on learning and the maker movement. (That was pretty dang cool. 🙂

Other Session Highlights

I went to some amazing workshops and sessions- here are just a few highlights to entice you to go to ISTE 2017 in San Antonio!

Processing workshop and Art-Duino with Sparkfun

What a most excellent way to download a new skill- a workshop with Sparkfun educators Derek Runberg and Jeff Branson!  I loved having the time set aside to learn with these experts! One of the most important things I learned during this workshop was to comment back to myself when writing code because it helps DEBUG when you run into problems! Thank you, Jeff! This has already helped me in a few projects since I got back from ISTE!

The Art-duino workshop with Brian Huang was pretty rad too. I was able to hack the blink code for a fading effect, but I still wanna tinker with this code and make even cooler art projects with Arduino.

Pernille Rip

If you ever get the chance to hear this awesome reading educator in person…. GO GO GO! I loved every single thing she said! I can’t stress the importance enough of listening to students about reading choices, independent reading, and giving them TIME IN YOUR CLASSROOM to read, reflect, and write.

Two Guys with an Ipad

These two guys tried to make me cry a lot with the videos they showed, but they just did a phenomenal job of talking about the importance of being an educator and putting children first.  Plus, they hit on one of the themes I’m noticing pop-up over and over in sessions, conferences, and education panels. We do not want to encourage our students to fail, but rather, we have to teach them that the key to success is persisting through failure. When you fall, get up and try again!

ISTE 2017?

ISTE is in my home state next year! San Antonio! I hope you’ll come, you’ll present, you’ll learn from other awesome educators, and most importantly, you’ll say “howdy” and make some awesome life-long connections.

Hands-on Learning and Boosting Creative Confidence

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I can

Leander Conference

What a week! I started the week by leading “Hands-on Makerspace Learning” for teachers and librarians in LeanderISD. I enjoyed sharing ideas with them, and then watching them gain creative confidence as they tinkered with materials to make paper circuits, simple robots, and even got silly programming bananas to play their laughter with Makey Makey. The teachers enjoyed tinkering with the new “Temperature sensor” littleBit and taught me a few things about how it works!

One of my favorite a-ha moments this week was seeing the natural collaboration that occurs when educators (or students) are making stuff. When students have to figure out how things work together, they gain the confidence to teach others the basic concepts, and they gain the confidence to persevere through problems. As a teacher, my favorite aspect of this, is hearing all the thinking my students go through as they try to solve a problem. Plus, it’s amazing to be able to hear the natural questions that arrive from those think- aloud sessions.

And even better than that? The smiling and giggles and laughter when they reach success! These Leander teachers realized they could even record their laughter in the Scratch program and then “play” the Play-doh to ignite the recording of their laugh!

So much fun learning/sharing #makeymakey w #LISDCIC Ts & @leanderisd_libraries today! #makered

A photo posted by colleengraves.org (@makerteacherlibrarian) on

Makey Makey Session

At TCEA on Wednesday, the #superlibrarianhubs and I led an hour and half workshop on utilizing Makey Makey in the classroom. We talked to teachers about how to get started with Makey Makey, how important it is to teach invention literacy, and to never ever ever eat the gummy worms from our Makey Makey workshop! HA!

One of the best things about this session was showing educators that teaching with Makey Makey is accessible! We gave them the confidence to go #beyondthebanana. As we walked the room helping session attendees create Scratch games for their celery, gummies, and bananas, we stumbled upon some great brainstorming sessions between educators!

I really love this sketch note from our session by Vanessa Perez. (What a great way to showcase her learning, but also share her learning with others! Teachers, I will be bugging you to use sketchnotes in your classes! For those of you that are new to sketch notes, it is not an app, it is an idea- it’s simply sketching your notes in a visual and non-linguistic way. As a learner, it’s a great way to focus on what is important and help retain ideas from a session or class!)

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Awesome Sketch Note by Vanessa Perez @vperezy

All of the lessons we shared are over on the Makey Makey page, but here is a copy of our presentation with pictures and others links if you are interested. Some of my favorite lessons are the Classify and Sort Lesson (because it makes students draw geometric shapes and then program them,) the Dual Language Lesson, and utilizing Makey Makey Hot Wheels switches for Distance, Rate, and Time.

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Tackk for Makey Makey Session

Plus, you should take a look at the smiles and FRUIT from our Makey Makey session:

Makerspace for TCEA Library Academy

Thursday was a busy, busy day! We ran focused workshops every hour, but librarians were free to play with anything in the room. Some librarians stayed with us for a good 3 hours learning and making. Then they walked around the room and shared their new knowledge with other participants that were new to our pop-up makerspace.  Aaron, my ITS Leslie, and I were always nearby in case makers got frustrated and needed assistance. Having small, focused groups, helped librarians feel comfortable enough to sit down and explore. Sometimes, our educators just need time set aside for learning, I heard many people say things like, “Oh, I’ve seen littleBits/MakeyMakey before, but I don’t know what I would do with them.” Then they sat down, made things, and realized the power behind these cool inventions!

It was amazing to be able to offer new maker librarians a safe space to do some hands-on makerspace learning!

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One of my favorite moments was when a librarian asked, “If I put a fan on this temperature sensor, will it change the read out?”

To which I replied, “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

Another librarian commented on how she liked the way I did that. I didn’t give a direct answer, I made her want to figure it out. I do it so often in my library makerspace that it’s second nature. If a student asks me if we have a book, I say the same thing, “I don’t know, let’s check the catalog together and find out. My goal as an educator is to empower students to find answers on their own. I’m nearby to assist when needed, but I always explain how the library system works because I want them to feel like they can walk in anytime and find what they need.

When teaching others about facilitating a makerspace, it is important to share that as maker librarians we should NOT give our makers “the” answer. We are here to build the path for them to explore and find an answer on their own. That personal road to discovery should also teach makers that there is more than one answer to a question and that there are many, many ways to solve a problem. In a makerspace, there is more than one solution to a problem.

In a makerspace, there is more than one solution to a problem.

Plus, if we don’t know, we can find out together. (Which reminds me of my last post, it is pertinent that we learn alongside our students.)  So, we set up a second set of bits with fans, and checked our temperature sensor to see the effect.

"Will the fan decrease the temperature?" #tcea16 @littlebits Let's find out! #library #makerspace

A photo posted by colleengraves.org (@makerteacherlibrarian) on

Take-aways from Leading the Learning This Week

Key phrases heard over and over this week by teachers and librarians at all sessions:

  • “I can do this!”
  • “Thank you for making this accessible.”
  • “I feel like I can try this!”
  • “I was scared of trying to incorporate a makerspace, but now I feel like I can do this.”
  • “Thank you for the time and space to explore!”
  • “I can’t wait to share this with my students!”
  • “My students are going to love this!”
  • “I can’t wait to see what my students do with this!”

So what does this mean for you, dear readers? Maker librarians, if you are wanting your teachers to collaborate with you on makerspace activities, you may need to set aside some time for your teachers to explore so they can make curriculum connections. If you are an administrator that wants this type of learning in your school, you need to give your teachers and librarians some hands on learning experiences. New to making educators? It’s okay (in fact, it is IDEAL) to learn alongside your students!