personal fabrication may be 3D design software. Once too complex for most users, now software like cloud-based TinkerCAD and SketchUp put 3D design within students’ reach. Among other things, this will allow us to concretize mathematics instruction: Instead of having to memorize an abstract formula to calculate the volume of a pyramid, for example, you’ll be able to learn it while creating a pyramid that you can hold in your hand.
Physical computing. The ability to embed interactivity or intelligence into everyday objects is another aspect of the maker trend. Robotics may be the best-known form of this. Robotics kits, like those made by Lego and Vex, hide all the messy electronics and limit you to already set projects and materials. But microcontrollers like the Arduino make circuitry more transparent, increasing students’ understanding of electronics.
They also expand the range of possible projects because you can combine them with items from your environment, such as broken toys, craft materials or appliance parts, to construct inventions that interact with their surroundings. The community is continually inventing new shields, which are small boards that piggyback on the Arduino to add new functionality, such as wireless connectivity or radio control. If you are a kid armed with downloadable plans, sufficient motivation and a number of broken refrigerators, you can even build your own Arduino.
Microcontrollers are also surprisingly affordable. They continually increase in power and functionality while the cost remains low — about $25 for the most popular Arduino standard board. The web is also full of free “sketches,” short programs you can use as is or modify to control your projects.
To be able to assist students, teachers will need to have a good conceptual understanding of how microcontrollers work, because they’re always changing. For instance, the blue board you bought last month could now be red and have the pins in a slightly different location. Luckily, student leaders can learn these new technologies, increasing your school’s pool of expertise while building their own skill sets and confidence.
expertise while building their own skill sets and confidence.
Another exciting development is new ways to create electronic circuitry. We have taken electronics for granted for so long that most kids know little about this phenomenon that shapes our lives. Now they can learn the basics while making their own interactive greeting cards and hand-drawn or light-up pop-up books with conductive pens, Circuit Stickers and metallic tape. They can whip up homemade squishy circuit dough to make electrified sculptures. They can create wearable projects by sewing the machine-washable Lilypad Arduino into fabric. And with the MaKey MaKey, they can turn Play-Doh into a keyboard and mouse, create a drum set out of bananas or a piano out of the school’s stairs, and control a PowerPoint presentation with a croissant.
Computer programming. Every child needs experience programming computers, and not just for their future careers. This important skill plays a major role in many other disciplines, and it can give students control over their increasingly technological world. Computer programming even prepares students to be better citizens in an age dominated by debates over privacy, intellectual property, polling and investment in the computer-based modeling that’s central to scientific inquiry.
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The maker movement: A learning revolution
...every classroom needs to be a place where, as Piaget taught, “knowledge is a consequence of experience.”