In all the craziness of last year, I forgot to blog about one of the grants we received. Almost every year that I’ve been a media specialist, I’ve applied for a grant from the Hillsborough Education Foundation. In previous years, I’ve applied for more graphic novels, books geared towards reluctant readers, and audiobooks. This year, … Read more
A few days ago, I tweeted out this image of our future Makerspace that I created in Skitch on my iPad. I was inspired by The Nerdy Teacher’s post on rethinking his classroom setup, and I wanted to create a visual that could show what our space will be like when it all comes together. … Read more
A little slow on getting this one together – after ISTE wrapped up, I needed a little decompression time. This is my last of the daily recaps of ISTE – soon I’ll be posting my takeaways/action plans, etc. The last day of ISTE started out with the SIGLIB keynote and breakfast. Jennifer LaGarde delivered … Read more
A few days ago, I posted a review of the book Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. But just a simple review does not give you the full story. While reading through this book, I was constantly jotting down notes and ideas for things I wanted to try in my library. … Read more
As the school year has been drawing to a close, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on the library Makerspace we’ve been creating at my school. We started out back in January with a couple of bins of K’nex that our science department no longer used. We just left them out on the … Read more
While most educators I talk to seem to be completely enamored with the idea of Makerspaces, I know that there are also naysayers out there who wonder what it’s all about. I’ve had curious people ask me why I have all these “toys” in my library. “Aren’t the students supposed to be here to learn?” … Read more
A few weeks ago, we held our very first Mini MakerFaire at my school. Our Makerspace is still in it’s infancy (it’s really just a bunch of tables set up in the middle of the library) but I wanted to have an event that would raise awareness of what we are doing among students and … Read more
Learning mess: n., a mess that is created as a result of the learning process; also a mess that encourages further learning My library doesn’t have a dedicated area yet for making. At the moment, our Makerspace is a collection of tables with bins of K’nex, LEGOs and Snap Circuits out on top of them. … Read more
Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom is an amazing book. I’ve read tons of articles on Makerspaces, and several books as well, but this is certainly one of the best when it comes to focusing specifically on how making can be used in the classroom, and on starting up a school Makerspace. … Read more
This past weekend I attend the GulfCoast MakerCon, which is a Tampa based mini-MakerFaire. This was my first time ever going to such an event, and it was a great experience. I got to network with a lot of local makers, learn about Makerspaces in the Tampa area, and even found out that we … Read more