I love all forms of making. Coding robots, building circuits, soldering things to make stuff light up. Knitting, sewing, crafting, tinkering, taking what looks like a pile of junk and turning it into something amazing. But sadly, many in education see a distinction between these two types of making. In Defense of Craft, Play and … Read more
The Four C’s are big in education right now: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Communication. We talk constantly about how we need to be teaching our students these skills. I’m not always a big fan of buzzwords – even though I’ve only been in education for less than a decade, I realize that they come … Read more
I’ve written lots of posts about the various Maker Fairs (also called Maker Fests) that I did at Stewart over the years I was there, going all the way back to our first one in 2014. But somehow, I never got around to writing a post about the logistics, the details of how we went … Read more
One thing my new school didn’t have when I started was a makerspace. We did have a newly created Virtual Reality Lab (with a 3D printer) in the library, but there had not been any maker culture in the library before. It’s been a traditional study hall environment, so I knew it would take some … Read more
It can be so easy to get caught up in the rat race of life and find ourselves constantly busy. Especially for educators. Even more so for school librarians who have a billion-and-one things on our plates on any given day. The end of the year is rough. More than likely you’re dealing with standardized testing, … Read more
(Post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using them, I get a small commission that helps support running this blog) Just create something. Everyday. I love to read books about creativity and the artist’s process. It’s fascinating to learn the stories of authors, artists and other creatives and learn about their how they create … Read more
I believe that everyone has a Maker Story. A tale of how they came to be a maker. Maybe it was drawing classes in elementary school. Or a blinky soldering kit in middle school. Maybe you don’t consider yourself a maker, but there are those memories from when you were a kid of making things … Read more
Many educators falsely believe that you can’t start a makerspace without a huge budget. But some of the best makerspace supplies are free! As part of our new Maker Mondays program, I recently tried out a new activity with my students that went off great. I only spent around $50 on supplies, most of which … Read more
While I’ve never worked in an elementary school before, I’m always on the lookout for awesome maker picture books. Picture books are a great way to introduce a lesson or activity in makerspaces. We even have a whole chart on maker picture book connections in Challenge Based Learning (check out the resources page to see … Read more
Note: This post is a brief summary/intro of an article I wrote that appeared in the Septemeber 2017 School Library Journal. To read the full article, click here. The Furniture Challenge Towards the end of the 2017 school year, I introduced a design challenge to my afterschool Maker’s Club that was one of our best ones … Read more