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)

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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)

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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.

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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, robotics, and more between 2009-2015. (HunderEd, 2018) At first, teaching young students computational skills seemed challenging. However, they found students ages 7 and 8 were self-motivated to learn the skills on their own, an objective of their first year program achieved in 6 months. (Tfish Fund, 2017)

Finnish multimodal approach: This approach embodied learning supported by the uses of multiple disciplinary activities, created by Finnish Core Curriculum of music. (FNAE 2014) This makerspace approach is done in a 7th grade’s

7 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology

music class. Students are tasked to create a music video to learn how to play music while developing technological literacy. The main focus of this study is the correlation between activities focused on using body movement combined with the use of technology (in this case a tablet device), to see the effect on students’ learning. The task consists of 15 music exercises (each 45 min per week).

Young Students Creating a Music Video By integrating different exercises, actions, and thinking in a meaningful way, the process of acquiring skills, knowledge, and understanding would become a part of them resulting that it could go on continuously because of the steps that they have already surpassed through the process of learning (Dalton, 2020). Although the tablet device can result in having less embodied learning, in this context of learning music, the result clearly shows that the technology combined with the program did enhance the students’ ability to learn with body/embodied processes and experiences instead of having it to be a burden of communication and interactions. (Dalton, 2020).

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Makerspaces v. Other Traditions The makerspace tradition makes use of undefined problems. It is different from other traditions as it puts community building and iterative solutions first. It differs from a tradition like open online learning, which takes the structure of a class, making it widely available and at the students’ own pace. Rather than following the traditional structure of a class, where the learning is usually isolated, most of the maker projects are done in groups with unpredictable outcomes. Maker education is also different from the situated learning tradition. This tradition enhances typical education subjects, by putting the students into the scenario that they are learning about. It gives the student the context to try different solutions, but not opportunity to use physical or digital tools to experiment.

Both traditions are similar to makerspaces. Open online learning shares the connection of allowing students to choose their subject matter. Situated learning is similar with the given context and how open-ended the solutions may be. Yet they don’t give affordance for multiple iteration of ideas and physical or digital prototyping.

General Lessons of Maker Education

Teaching complex concepts and ideas such as math, coding, and physics to children can be a daunting and intimidating undertaking by any person pursuing the role of a teacher, especially because you will have to tailor how you teach many of these concepts to each individual student. Makerspaces can help expedite this process, because it lets children come up with their own ideas because it doesn’t just teach them how to do specific things, it teaches them the skills and tools so that they can find the answer themselves through creating (Peppler et al. 2016). This gives the children a much higher sense of accomplishment and self-worth that getting a good grade on a test can never achieve (Peppler et al. 2016).

These lessons will have to be a gradual process, overwhelming and bombarding the children with too much information all at once will only serve to confuse the kids and have them lose interest in the subjects that are trying to be taught. The lessons will need to smart small and build up upon themselves in order to give the children a base knowledge so that they can draw upon it in order to make. The most important factor is to make these lessons fun, like most subjects and teaching methods if it is not fun the kids will not become invested in makerspaces. This will help to increase involvement and help the kids to learn new skills without it feeling like they are being forced into learning something.

9 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology

This is a paradigm shift from traditional learning where a child just sits and listens to the teacher, makerspaces get children involved and lets them take control of their learning. The lessons should be structured in a way that it doesn’t tell the children exactly what to do and how to do it, rather the lessons should focus on the basic building blocks that each technology needs to work and how to work them, as well as the skills necessary for the children to do their own research and find out solutions on their own. This will give the children a sense of autonomy and control over their learning that they don’t typically have allowing them to explore their own ideas, as Martinez and Stager “Making lets you take control of your life, be more active, and be responsible for your own learning” (Martinez et al. 2014). Thus, every student will be creating their own projects based on their own ideas, instead of everyone just being forced to do the same monotonous project as everyone else.

Classroom Makerspace Giving Students Access to Tools to Explore Ideas on Their Own Therefore, by design, projects and assignments for these types of places must be open ended and open minded to a plethora of ideas. It must also allow children to make mistakes without being reprimanded, because mistakes are a large part of this process and it should only matter how the child fixes their mistake, not the fact that they made one. The child should be taught how to fix their mistakes, so that the next time they are going down the wrong path they can figure out a solution to their problems on their own. This is due to the fact that the final project may not matter but can still teach the child thought process, vision, and ability to connect learning, that enhances a person’s thinking and helps in many fields (Burke 2014). By having lesson plans set up this way, it will help the children learn and grow in a much more impactful way than through normal educational means. This can lead them to have a sense of accomplishment, self-worth, and independence in knowing that they can do a lot more than they initially thought (Lynch 2018).

10 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology

Advantages/Disadvantages/Limitations/Concerns The advantage of maker education is the indefinite projects for students to experiment and tinker with. Taking away the fear of failure can lead to more creativity and the collaborative work can have many social benefits for the students. Despite this, there are still many disadvantages in implementing makerspaces into schools. Makerspaces are great for STEAM skills but could be hard to implement into a graded school system. It’s possible that the student could learn many skills but fail to produce a working project in the time given. If that’s the case, how would the teacher grade the student? On the project itself or the skills gained? These limitations are why makerspaces exist as an extracurricular activity rather than a core subject. Although the cost of technologies diminished compared to 5-10 years ago, there is still the concern of equipment fees, maintenance, and the large physical space it needs to occupy. In the nature of making and creative expression, they come along with a mess and a hazard over safety within the process as well. In addition, teachers would either be trained or hired on, incurring additional fees (Curiositycommons, 2015).

Predictions and Suggestions for the future: As it stands the future of makerspaces are in limbo, there is a huge potential for them to explode in popularity and spread to be a common place in many people’s lives or to cease to exist, or only exist in small niche communities. This is especially prevalent in such unprecedented times we find ourselves in. In the midst of a global pandemic, community spaces and resources are increasingly difficult to maintain, both in a way that is safe to all patrons as well as continuing to cultivate a space that, intrinsically, relies on interaction between its members. This is going to be one of the biggest challenges to makerspaces thus far, since makerspaces are inherently collaborative and rely on skills of different people working together for a common goal, which goes against the way in which we are fighting this virus. However, this is exactly the reason why makerspaces should be considered an essential service as they have the power of bringing like-minded people together so that they can create solutions to these complex and difficult problems.

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However, these problems will need to be tackled in a new way that limits contact between people, so will therefore have to move into the online space. The pandemic could potentially be beneficial for makerspaces in the long run, with more people being stuck at home, bored and looking for something new to do and learn. There is the potential for makerspaces to reach a previously untouched market of new members who would have Example of a Current Makerspace Layout Which Doesn’t Limit Physical Contact never been interested before. These people may never have had the time to try makerspaces before and the extra free time that this pandemic has given everyone could help get more people into makerspaces. This is especially prevalent for parents and children of elementary school age, since most after school activities are cancelled children have more free time and energy with nothing to spend that energy on. This is a perfect time for makerspaces to start new after school programs or to reach out to elementary schools to help provide them with the knowledge and tools that will help makerspaces become a normal part of these children's lives.

Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of makerspaces will be in schools, many schools already provide some type of makerspace i.e.: and wood or metal shop, these places would just need to be expanded to include newer technologies. By getting more children interested in the types of skills and topics that makerspaces provide, it will produce a whole generation of inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Leading to new advancements in technology that have not even been dreamed of as well as creating a sense of wonder and excitement in technology in these children leading to a life of learning.

References

Bevan, B. (2017): The promise and the promises of Making in science education, Studies in Science Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057267.2016.1275380

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Blikstein, P. (2017). Maker Movement in Education: History and Prospects. In Handbook of Technology Education (pp. 419–437). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44687-5_33

Burke, J. J. (2014). Makerspaces: a practical guide for librarians (Vol. 8). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Curiositycommons. (2015, December 12). Makerspaces: The Challenges.Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://curiositycommons.wordpress.com/makerspaces-the-challenges/

Dalton, B. (2020). Bringing Together Multimodal Composition and Maker Education in K–8 Classrooms. Language Arts, 97(3), 159–171.

Dougherty, Dale. (2013). “The Makers Mindset” In [n/a].

Geser, G., Hollauf, E., Hornung-Prähauser, V., Schön, S., & Vloet, F. (2019). Makerspaces as Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Learning Environments: The DOIT Learning Program, Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education, 10(2), 60-71. doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2019-0018

HunderEd. (2018, March 14). Maker Academy - Kidspire Vietnam. Retrieved December 01, 2020, from https://hundred.org/en/innovations/maker-academy-kidspire-vietnam

Leskinen, J., Kumpulainen, K., Kajamaa, A. et al. The emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based makerspace. Eur J Psychol Educ (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212- 020-00509-x

Lynch, M. (2018, May 27). What Happens When Kids Develop Their Own Makerspaces. Retrieved December 06, 2020, from https://www.thetechedvocate.org/what-happens-when-kids-develop-their- own-makerspaces/

Makerspaces.com. (2017, March 15). What is a Makerspace? Is it a Hackerspace or a Makerspace? Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace/

Martin, L. (2015). The Promise of the Maker Movement for Education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1099

13 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology

Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Torrance, CA: Constructing modern knowledge press

Peppler, K., Halverson, E., & Kafai, Y. B. (2016). Chapter 7: Taking Making to School. In Makeology Makerspaces as Learning Environments (Volume 1). Abingdon: Taylor and Francis.

Tfish Fund. (2017). Orphan Impact. Retrieved December 02, 2020, from http://www.tfishfund.org/orphan-impact.html

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[Example Walking Robot Project Using Affordable Technology]. (n.d.). Arduino. https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/06/21/building-an-arduino-based-bipedal-bot/

[Illustration of a Hackerspace]. (n.d.). Hackaday.com. https://hackaday.com/2015/08/31/want-to-create- a-fablab-in-your-garage-start-by-joining-your-hackerspace/

[Make Magazine Cover Vol 61]. (2018, February). Makezine. https://makezine.com/

[Children collaboratively making]. (n.d.). Makerspaces. https://www.makerspaces.com/makerspace- guide-school-and-library/

[Amsterdam Makerspace Study Student’s Prototypes]. (2019). Makerspaces as Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Learning Environments: The DOIT Learning Program, Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education, 10(2), 60-71. doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2019-0018

[Kidspire Computer Class]. (n.d.). Kidspire Vietnam. https://kidspirevietnam.org/

[Young Students Creating a Music Video]. (n.d.). BG Falcon Media. https://www.bgfalconmedia.com/gallery/news/sibs-n-kids---make-your-own-music- video/collection_ac20a9ba-c38a-11e3-863c-001a4bcf887a.html

14 Foundations of Educational Technology Maker Education: How Makerspaces Can Change How Students Interact With Technology

[Classroom Makerspace Giving Students Access to Tools to Explore Ideas on Their Own]. (n.d.). Copernicused. https://www.copernicused.com/stem-steam-makerspaces

[Example of a Current Makerspace Layout Which Doesn’t Limit Physical Contact]. (n.d.). Maker Space for Education. http://www.makerspaceforeducation.com/why-makerspace.html

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