Thing 23: Makerspaces
This is a challenge for me because I am just starting to learn about Makerspaces and how they fit into my library program. So it will be a step by step process for me. I am currently reading some articles to help me understand how my students can benefit from it. I am planning on emailing my faculty to find out who uses it in my buildings.
I attended a conference this past summer called “Engaging Students with Cognitive Purpose.” We read an article by Dinah Zike “Teaching with Foldables Science.” The article was about how to use foldables for science that helps students organize arrange and also display information. The purpose of using foldables was because our learners are not one dimensional. Many of them are tactile and kinesthetic as well as visual learners.
As a result of this conference our district has “Engagement Boxes” that faculty members can sign out for classroom use. I went to see if they had anything else that I could use for my space. Basically it was a plastic box with scissors, glue or markers, (I don’t remember) and sticky notes of different colors. So back to my library I went to see what else I could add to my Creativity Table. Teaching summer school, right after this conference, I decided to make a Creativity Table. I was working all the time with teachers doing research and hands on activities. That is when I decided to put paper, magazines, glue sticks, markers, and colored pencils on my Creativity Table. I left it there since summer school and kids just continue to use it, mostly for projects, but some just to have something to do.
I have the following link on my library web page that helps students to learn about what type of learner they are:
What’s your learning Style http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles.shtml
and Multiple Intelligences
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/
This helps students understand what their prominent learning style is. It helps me as a librarian to remember that one size doesn’t fit all.
So, I seem to be all over the place with this topic. Chaos is my learning style so jumping around on this topic works for me.
I read many of the articles on Makerspaces and found three that helped me understand the idea better
Makerspaces in the School library learning Commons and the uTEC Maker Model by
David v. Loertscher, Leslie Preddy, and Bill Derry helped me to understand that students are already makers of information. One thing that stood out to me in that article was these spaces allow the students,” to take command of their own learning.” Another part of that article was that student work and research needs to be displayed. Fortunately, I have great teachers that want to use my library to show off their student’s work, especially since the BOE meets there.
TinkerSpace: Library Learning Commons by Rachelle Doorley is an interview with Shannon Hyman of Kaechele Elementary School in Virginia. This article had lots of pictures of the use of her space. Even though it is an elementary school I learned about organization. I think I could use some of the old cafeteria trays from college to have on my table for organizational purposes. I like her idea of students having all the responsibility including clean up in order to have the privilege to continue to use the spaces.
Making inside the space and outside the box by Joyce Valenza I learned that it’s about the freedom to choose what the students learn. It puts learning back into the student’s hand where it belongs. One quote from the article I am going to use in my library is, “you have been given the tools to get started but where you go is up to you.”
So people from school don’t really have Makerspaces. Many have boxes of things they use for certain projects so I asked for some supplies and have been adding them to my space.
I don’t truly have a deep understanding of the space in my library but I am will to try to continue. As I walked by a couple of students I saw Maker Camp on their computers. I asked them if they knew anything about them. They did not but the best part of this is that their science teacher encouraged them to look at Google Science Fair. On that site was Maker Camp https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/participants/maker-camp. I was encouraged by what I saw. This link https://plus.google.com/communities/107377046073638428310 has awesome stuff about what has been done by students. I think everyone should check out that site.
Okay, so back to my library. We decided to name our tables “Make it Space” with a sign that says “Need something to do? Make It.” We have cloth old Game magazines and are getting more buttons, yarn and I am putting some old library things out there for students like borrow cards and book pockets. The other thing I am putting there is paper clips because who doesn’t love making paper clip necklaces. My students stand at our circulation desk and string together paper clips so it makes sense to add it to the Make It Space table.
It is a work in progress. Here are some pictures of our table. I did bribe some students to pose.
My future Maker
neednewname 