Cardboard challenges have been a core part of my makerspace programming for the past eight years. I continue to be amazed year after year at the amazing ideas students come up with when given a design challenge and simple, everyday materials. In Part 1 of this post series, I looked at some of my favorite … Read more
The Cardboard Challenge remains one of my all-time favorite makerspace activities. I love how accessible it is to students. How enthusiastic and creative they can be with such simple materials. I’ll never forget one of my favorite makerspace moments – my students at Stewart were Skyping with another school that was looking to start a … Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed down many schools. Some are fully in virtual learning mode. Others have a hybrid approach of in-person and online learning (as my school does). And others have gone 100% back to in-person, but are still following guidelines for safe social distancing and cleaning. It’s a pretty crazy time right now. … Read more
These last few months, I’ve been focusing on improving my sketchnote skills. Part of that work was reading several books on the tis topic for educators (see my review of My Pencil Made Me Do It). Many general books on sketchnoting focus on the basics of how to sketchnote, which is awesome. I love using … Read more
I’ve followed Carrie Baughcum’s work on Twitter and Instagram for awhile. We briefly met F2F back at ISTE 2016 in Denver. I’ve loved the positive, upbeat and fun loving tone that she shares in her posts. So when I heard that she was publishing a book about sketchnoting this past fall, I quickly preordered a … Read more
I’ve been using sketchnotes a lot lately as a way to help me focus and retain information with virtual PD. Here’s a mini-post in case you’d like to know what tools I use for sketchnoting (or were thinking about getting some for yourself.) A quick “note”: I prefer physical sketchnoting. I know that there’s great … Read more
In Open Exploration in a Makerspace: What it is and Why We Need it, I explored why having open exploration time in your makerspace in an important part of the learning ecosystem. In this post, I dig more into the practical stuff – how to actually make this work in your space. Open Exploration in … Read more
Writing a post like this isn’t easy. I feel like I know in my heart what my philosophy on makerspaces is, but putting it into tangible statements seems harder. So I started thinking about this more as a manifesto – if I was to make a grand statement about what I feel the value of … Read more
I’ve been a fan of Austin Kleon’s work for several years now. Steal Like an Artist had a huge impact on me as an educator and I frequently quote it in my conference presentations. Show Your Work helped me to better understand the importance of sharing what I’m doing (like right here on this blog). … Read more
Frank Lloyd Wright, Blocks and Play (Post contains affiliate links.) On a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home in Oak Park, Illinois, we enter a large room – a sort of study combined with library and a tall ceiling. This was a room for entertaining guests, the children, relaxing in the evening. There’s several built … Read more