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Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact with Technology

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Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact with Technology Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Rachel Au, Tomotaro Godai, Liam Smith Published on: Dec 07, 2020 Updated on: Dec 06, 2020 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Maker Education Makerspaces build upon curiosity and ideas to cultivate independence and community relations. Many makers see this community as a movement, often because of the worldwide interconnected communities. Within education, makerspaces have begun to enter schools’ extracurricular activities. The spaces create products that range from keychains, 3D printed puzzles, to robotic limbs. This paper will explore the experiences of maker culture in education. What is Maker Education? Students Working in a Makerspace Makerspaces are simply a space with physical tools, digital technology, and resources for people to create. Tools can come in forms of engineering or woodworking equipment, workspaces, and even Legos. Students also have access to affordable miniaturized digital tools. The most valuable resource would be the community that forms, sharing skill sets and strategies. With the growing career path of technologists, digital literacy in education has become more of an interest in primary and secondary education. (Bevan, 2017) 2 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Example Walking Robot Project Using Affordable Technology In schools, children are usually introduced to makerspaces in libraries and museums outside of traditional classroom settings. Traditional education structure tends to reward students for getting the “right” answer and punishes “wrong” answers. (Bevan, 2017) This thought process can discourage students from experimenting or trying something new for the fear of failure. Makerspaces change this approach, Founder of Make:Magazine Dale Dougherty sees these spaces as an invitation to play, an opportunity to experiment, and a place to take risks and fail. (Dougherty, 2013) Having maker education outside of the right vs. wrong mindset is an advantage because of this chance to fail. Giving students a space to experiment and fail allows students to deepen their understanding of a subject matter without the stress of the traditional school system. (Bevan, 2017) History of Makerspaces A space for making and crafting has existed for a long time, however, the idea of a Makerspace and its potential has only started to catch people’s attention recently. (Blikstein, 2017) A hands-on activity that Makerspace advocates, had been viewed as, for a long time, less important work than those that are considered to be more scholastic work such as math, readings, and science. Fast forward to the present, it turns out that more businesses demand creative and innovative workers into their workforces, resulting in many businesses incentivizing and pushing the STEAM field (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) to students and the young generation. (Blikstein, 2017) 3 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology The development of Makerspace has had several stages and variations. Before it was called Makerspace, people called them; FabLab, Tech Shop, and Hackerspace. FabLab and Techshop are reserved names for a particular kind of makerspace in which they are both Illustration of a Hackerspace generally provided with relative kinds of maker equipment, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and other machineries for crafting. One is controlled by an association (Techshop) and the other is a foundation (Fab Establishment) and each have their case-specific principles and contracts to take after, but their core principles can be found in Makerspace as well. (Makerspace.com, 2017) Similarly, the idea of a hackerspace consists of community based places where computer engineers could meet, work, and share framework. They would "hack" innovation and attempt to cause it to accomplish something in which it was not originally intended to do. Though these terms "hacking" or "programmer" as we know it today have a negative connotation which are often associated with cybercrimes, and therefore the name makerspace is considered not-so suitable especially in the realm of education. (Makerspace.com, 2017) In January 2005, the launch of Make:Magazine, and its published information about maker-related projects, gave the maker movement its boost. The magazine began experimenting with ‘Maker fairs’, a series of events which encouraged creators to share and express themselves through crafting to stir up the surge of the maker movement. (Burke, 2014) It was then, the so-called maker movement took off and communities, makerspace, and venues started to appear across the globe. (Burke, 2014) Another significant happening in the course of recent years has been the dramatic decrease in the cost of a few innovations firmly associated with fabrication and making. (Blikstein, 2017) Blikstein claims that technologies like 3D printers could only be found in large corporations or institutions back in the 2000's. However, a rapid growth of technology and the abundance of production in the last decade successfully brought the cost down to even $300 for some entry models. (Blikstein, 2017) 4 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Big Ideas of Makerspaces in Primary Education Makerspace approaches can differ depending on age, skill level, size, and more. Here, we are focusing on two key aspects of makerspaces in primary education: leadership and social innovation. In primary school, maker projects are often done in group work. These groups can inspire students to be “motivating, support engagement and persistence, identity development, and the growth of resourcefulness” (Bevans, 2017). Through these, young students are exposed to a growth-orientated form of education, rather than test based. Below are two research studies that investigate the effect of leadership and social innovation in makerspaces. Children Collaboratively Making Leadership One study done in the University of Helsinki in Finland, looked into how leadership emerges within school-based makerspaces. Twenty primary students were given open ended STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) challenges both physical and digital. (Leskinen, et al., 2020) Student’s interactions were filmed, analyzed, and categorized. One category was coordinating joint work — example quote by one student “now we’ll test it. If it does not work we’ll adjust that more,” this occurred 42.4%. (Leskinen, et al., 2020) They found that creative tasks in makerspaces lays out a foundation in which students can showcase and develop their leadership skills. (Leskinen, et al., 2020) 5 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Social Innovation Skills Another study was done on developing social innovations skills for children and young people in different countries across Europe. In the Public Library of Amsterdam, children from 8-10 were given an open-ended problem where they had to identify an area to intervene, design a solution, prototype, and iterate using a laser cutter, 3D printer, LED and more. (Geser, et al., 2019) Amsterdam Makerspace Study Student’s Prototypes Although participating in the shared experience of maker activities offers an opportunity for social interaction, it is hard to tangibly measure. The study concluded that makerspaces are great as a social space, but do require more research and development, as well as promoting diversity such as incorporating female makers. (Geser, et al., 2019) Current Makerspaces in Education There are many ways that makerspaces have been incorporated into education. Due to the wide variety of disciplines that exist in makerspaces, each space can be different. We have two examples that show how these spaces can enhance learning in different cultures and methods. The first example in Vietnam, shows how a makerspace can be integrated into an orphanage, with a relatively low budget. The program introduces technology at a young age and encourages self-motivated learning. The second example in Finland, demonstrates a combination of playful activities with digital literacy, to make a meaningful connection. In addition, the makerspace enhances peer collaboration and encourages agency in the student’s creative work. 6 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology Vietnam Makerspace for Orphans: Kidspire Computer Class There are 153 state-run orphanages across the country and approximately 130,000 kids living in these facilities. (HunderEd, 2018) Maker Academy integrated a program called Orphan Impact, also known as Kidspire in Vietnam which gave children the opportunity to participate in maker activities. Their mission consists of: Teaching core computational skills Providing access to better education Broadening children’s worldview Advocating for self-confidence and creativity These orphanages typically lack resources and funding. To help support them, Orphan Impact successfully implemented and provided 18 teachers, in 25 orphanages with 1,500 kids, that taught coding, engineering,
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