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The Case for a Campus Makerspace - 0 views

hackeducation.com/...e-case-for-a-campus-makerspace

H817 future flexible makerspace

shared by Paula Shaw on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached

And so I ask, what would it look like to have "making across the curriculum"? The opportunities for hands-on learning are so few in modern-day education. Few and getting fewer. Our education system has forgotten -- or ignored, perhaps is a better word -- John Dewey and his argument that we "learn by doing." At the K-12 level, woodshop, metal shop, sewing, cooking, art, heck even science labs -- they're going away to save money and to make more time in the school year for "college prep" and for standardized testing.
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Learn by doing. Learn by making. Not learn by clicking. Makerspaces give students -- all students -- an opportunity for hands-on experimentation, prototyping. problem-solving, and design-thinking.
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By letting students make -- whether they're digital artifacts or physical artifacts -- we can support them in gaining these critical skills. By making a pinball machine for a physics class, for example. Making paper or binding a book for a literature class. Building an app for a political science class. 3D modeling for an archeology class. 3D printing for a nursing class. Blacksmithing for history class. The possibilities for projects are endless. And the costs for creating makerspaces needn't be that high.
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Making projects can be -- horrors! -- relevant and relevant. It can be experimental. And it can be technological -- or it can have used tech tools in its construction.
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Makerspaces expose students to cutting edge technologies that could in turn lead to employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. And because of makerspaces' connection to open source hardware and software, students aren't learning just how to use proprietary tools. They aren't just learning a specific piece of software. Instead, they learn how to find resources and -- this is key -- they learn how to learn. 
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The ed-tech that fuels makerspaces does something different. It recognizes that learning is messy. It recognizes that small and local still matters. And unlike the adaptive learning software tool, this isn't "personalized" learning as a marketing message. This is personal learning.
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And most importantly here, these technologies are in the hands of the learner. Makerspaces mean that students are not the objects of technology, they're the subjects. They have agency in a makerspace. They are not the consumers of technology, they are creators. They are makers and builders and thinkers.
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