Giving New Meaning to Make & Take (Update: MakerSpace)

Makerspaces and Design at ISTE 2013

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Jessica Allen

OK, I admit it. I didn’t know what a makerspace was until I came to ISTE. Should I have? Probably. Am I glad I know now? Absolutely!

Makerspaces are a form of design and innovation in education that uses technology as a tool to empower students to get their ideas from thought to product. It’s a way of providing students with the space that they need to explore and extend their problem-solving skills through a tactile environment. It comes in many different forms but usually contains a physical space stocked with many different types of materials and provides coaching from teachers to guide students through the design cycle: investigate, design, test and create.

I first heard the term makerspace at the beginning of the ISTE conference during a Hack Education session. Diane Main (@dowbiggin), one of the leading contributors to the discussion, caught my attention with her enthusiasm for the topic. It was there that I was first introduced to Make Magazine as a valuable resource for makerspaces. Soon, I began hearing about makerspaces everywhere, including during a personal and inspiring conversation with Gregory Hill (@mrsenorhill), who is leading a ground-breaking project with his Disruption Department in St. Louis.

Most recently, I explored the essence of design and technology tools for innovation at the Imagine, Invent and Innovate session with Lucie De La Bruere. In this session, we explored tools like 123d Design, which is similar to Sketch Up and Hop Scotch, which is similar to Scratch. Using these tools, we explored how we can extend the use of iOS devices beyond consumption to robust creation experiences. Through these creations, students are able to communicate their ideas and designs for future makerspace products and speed down the road of innovation toward entrepreneurship.

As we watched the inspirational video Imagine It about the innovation project sponsored by Stanford, I realized that this is yet another example of the main theme that is circulating throughout the various presentations, speeches and conversations at ISTE 2013: Students must be involved, inspired, and emotionally invested in their learning to develop the 21st century skills that they need for the future. Whether it’s through gaming, programming, presenting or creating, it’s our responsibility to help facilitate student engagement with the curriculum and connect students with the technological tools they need to succeed.