“The best attribute of a well-run makerspace is the sharing of skills and knowledge. It starts with formal instruction, but the best learning takes place while one person is building or designing and someone else with just a little (or sometimes a ton) more experience lends a helping hand and the project gets upgraded in the process. The sharing philosophy gives a makerspace its magic. People show off their creations knowing criticism was left at…
When I was in the classroom, I began each school year by conducting an interest inventory. I asked my students to tell me about their favorite books and television programs. I wanted to know what sports and instruments they played. What were their favorite foods? What type of music did they listen to? Did they play video games? Which ones? How often? I asked these questions to help them generate potential ideas, and I considered…
“When a large and diverse set of tools is provided, a large and diverse group of makers comes out to live, work, and play.” Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers You will never have enough tools. Even if you have enough cash to purchase them in abundance and enough space to store them efficiently, you will never have enough of them. Thankfully, the…
“Being creative, the act of creating and making, is actually what it means to be human. Secular philosophers like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Carl Jung, and Abraham Maslow all came to the conclusion that creative acts are fundamental. Physical making is more personally fulfilling than virtual making. I think this has to do with its tangibility; you can touch it and sometimes smell and taste it. A great sentence or well-written blog is creative and…
In my work with teachers, and in our fellowship programs at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio, I become closely acquainted with kids who absolutely hate writing. What’s worse is that they believe they aren’t capable of it. Why? Well, mostly because they are unable to sit silently before a screen or page and push words out of the end of their fingers in a coherent fashion until every inch of white space is covered in…
Many children and adults will tell you that writing is quite literally out of their grasp. They can’t wrap their hands around it, and since this is how they learn best, writing remains beyond their reach. Many writers need to move, and they need their writing to move as well. They need to write out of their seats and on their feet, spreading their ideas across whiteboards and tables, lifting pieces of them up with…