BeLearning uses new technologies combining meeting, working and researching involving virtual spaces, digital tools and online platforms in a rich mix of interactions with traditional media: presentations, workshops, classes. Please see the 44 page pdf for the BeLearning Methodology, which starts with exploration, goes to divergence and ends in convergence.
"The impulse to create is one of the most basic human drives. As far back as the Stone Age, we were using materials in our environment to fashion tools for solving the problems we encountered. And in the millions of years since then, we have never stopped creating. In fact, the rise of civilization is largely defined by the progress of technology of one kind or another.
Today, the availability of affordable constructive technology and the ability to share online has fueled the latest evolutionary spurt in this facet of human development. New tools that enable hands-on learning - 3D printers, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computers, e-textiles, "smart" materials and new programming languages - are giving individuals the power to invent. We're not just talking about adults. Children of all ages can use these tools to move from passive receivers of knowledge to real-world makers. This has the potential to completely revolutionize education as we know it. And the movement has already begu"
Start by picking a project that aligns with your curricular goals and allow students to create artifacts that demonstrate their knowledge. The learning, and the off-the-charts engagement, comes from building or creating something to show what they’ve learned.
“A makerspace can be more extravagant, of course. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a 3D-printed item emerge out of nothing,” Vrotny says. “But you can start simply and inexpensively.”
"As is often the case with innovations in learning and teaching, getting started with that first lesson or project is the biggest hurdle. So it is with making, a learning approach that allows students to learn by doing and solve problems with tinkering and trial and error.
Despite what you may have heard, maker projects and makerspaces don't require expensive equipment like 3D printers or laser cutters.
Check out the small-scale maker projects that attendees were doing in the Maker Playground at ISTE 2015:"
Empowerment is a key goal of maker-centered learning — helping young people feel that they can build and shape their worlds. That sense of “maker empowerment” arises when students learn to notice and engage with their physical and conceptual environments, the report states. To encourage that heightened sensitivity, educators should provide opportunities for students to:
look closely and reflect on the design of objects and systems;
explore the complexity of design;
and understand themselves as designers of their worlds.
But as a new report from Project Zero’s Agency by Design concludes, the real value of maker education has more to do with building character than with building the next industrial revolution.
In a white paper [PDF] marking the end of its second year, Agency by Design (AbD) finds that among the benefits that may accrue along the maker ed path, the most striking is the sense of inspiration that students take away — a budding understanding of themselves as actors in their community, empowered “to engage with and shape the designed dimensions of their worlds.”
"What are the real benefits of a maker-centered approach to learning? It's often described as a way to incubate STEM skills or drive technical innovation - and it is probably both of these. But as a new report from Project Zero's Agency by Design concludes, the real value of maker education has more to do with building character than with building the next industrial revolution. "
"If you want to be a maker, you have to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Allowing students to play, collaborate, build and make freely gives them powerful learning opportunities. So how can you support students through making and spark a maker movement at your school? Here are three tips from ISTE 2015 maker movement session presenters:"
"Welcome to our first edition of Math + Code, an online magazine that connects math to coding and coding to math. We are thrilled to be launching this online resource for teachers, students and parents."
"As 3D printers increasingly find roles in schools, libraries and even homes, it is vital that educators provide challenging and meaningful projects. School administrators, trustees, superintendents and parents will not be impressed by an iPhone case downloaded from the internet to roll off the expensive new 3D printer. Instead, educators should encourage students to use these printers to create original designs that are more than just tchotchkes.
Projects that allow students to create something "bigger" than the design itself are the most appealing. The 3D printer then becomes a tool that enables students to craft works they would otherwise be incapable of producing."
"Experience the sensation of being a modern day Columbus as you travel across the vast spaces of the land of the free and home of the brave. From the hot deserts of the south to the great forests of the north, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
50 states of challenging locations awaits you!"
one hears that important changes can be effected in education but it will cost money for a new lab of computers, for wireless access and faster routers, for iPads and other new devices. However, as readers explore “Why ___ Matters!”, you will be amazed that the suggested changes and ideas are more about “humanware” than hardware.
e difference between quick skimming and scanning on the Web, which lodges in the brain's short-term memory and is quickly lost, and the long-term memories that a more thoughtful kind of slow reading provides. "I share Nicholas Carr's feeling that my brain has been rewired," he says.
"It's indisputable that the Internet has made us smarter.... The range of things you can explore in a day is just fantastic compared to 20 years ago," says David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "There's no question that we feel the Internet has made us better researchers, better thinkers, better writers."
Books "are not the shape of knowledge," he says. "They're a limitation on knowledge." The idea of a single author presenting her ideas "was born of the limitations of paper publishing. It's not necessarily the only way or the best way to think and to write."
"e difference between quick skimming and scanning on the Web, which lodges in the brain's short-term memory and is quickly lost, and the long-term memories that a more thoughtful kind of slow reading provides. "I share Nicholas Carr's feeling that my brain has been rewired," he says."