Our colleague, Sylvia Todd, age 12, has done as much as anyone to inspire girls to engage in engineering projects through her popular website, Super Awesome Sylvia’s Super Awesome Maker Show. Millions of viewers have learned about the joy and power of making from her since she produced her first video at age 8. Scratch users have also shared more than 4 million projects online — a testament to the creativity of kids.
Much of what is presented as school technology is concerned with doing work more efficiently. But when educators embrace a more expansive view of computing, provide access to a variety of high- and low-tech construction materials, and encourage choice in project selection, a larger population of children will enjoy rewarding computing experiences. These experiences may not result in more professional computer programmers, but they will produce more adults who are capable of understanding and mastering their increasingly technological world. If you care about equity or closing the digital divide, you will advocate for all children to have rich computer programming experiences with a competent teacher.
Time for change
Schools usually do not consider the worldview of their new kindergartners. Before they start school, many children have already used Skype or FaceTime to communicate with others over great distances. They already know that when they have a question, an answer is just a click away.
A kid who has had the ability to Google anything since she was a toddler has a different sense of herself as a learner. Unfortunately, this image of learning as an active personal process may be in stark opposition to what she will experience in a “standards-based” school, where the teacher and textbook are the limits of allowed expertise. When a child can 3D print and program her toys at home, school as it currently exists will feel like an episode of “Land of the Lost.”
The maker movement treats children as if they were competent. Too many schools do not. Making builds on each child’s passion by connecting their whole being with constructive materials in a flow that results in fantastic artifacts that almost always exceed our expectations. We want our kids so engaged in projects that they lose track of time or wake up in the middle of the night counting the minutes until they get to return to school. Never before have there been more exciting materials and technology for children to use as intellectual laboratories or vehicles for self-expression. You can empower your students while preparing them to solve problems their teachers never anticipated by embracing the tools, passion and projects of the maker movement.
Here are a few ways that making meets the ISTE Standards.
ISTE Standards for Students
• Standard 2: Communication and Collaboration. Tinkering and making support collaborative, iterative design methodology, where student-centered projects prepare students for real-world challenges in careers and college.
• Standard 4: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making. Problem solving and critical thinking are necessary when there are no answers in the back of the book and teachers and students are both co-learners and co-teachers. Giving students the chance to be not just objects of change, but agents of change, creates a classroom that is dynamic and student centered.
• Standard 6: Technology Concepts and Operations. Making in the classroom gives students a chance to go beyond using technology in predictable ways and ride on the cutting edge of a global revolution in technology. Topics that were once too complex, such as 3D design, electronics, feedback, data analysis and computer-controlled graphics, are now accessible to students before college.
ISTE Standards for Teachers
Teachers can find new challenges and learning opportunities with maker technology and pedagogy that embraces the enthusiasm and attitude of the maker movement.
ISTE Standards for Administrators
Administrators who want to be digital age leaders can emulate the “get it done” mindset of the maker movement to encourage a learning environment of digital age challenge, excellence and collaboration.
ISTE Standards for Technology Coaches
By learning more about the maker movement, technology coaches can add more tools to their toolkit for preparing other teachers to meet the challenges of digital age learning and teaching. Perhaps the best educational outcome of the maker movement is the new ways that project-based learning can come to life, especially in STEM subjects.
ISTE Standards for Computer Science Educators
Teachers must be passionate learners themselves in the fast-paced world of computer science. Teachers can model lifelong learning and passion for the myriad opportunities that come from exploring microcontrollers, sensors, robotics and other technologies that connect the digital world to the analog world, creating even more authentic opportunities for computer science.
Sylvia Libow Martinez is a writer, speaker, maker, mom, video game designer, and electrical engineer. She co-authored the recently released book, Invent to Learn — Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom.
Gary S. Stager is a veteran teacher-educator and keynote speaker. He co-authored Invent to Learn — Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom and is a host of constructingmodernknowledge.com. He has taught making in the classroom, from kindergarten to graduate school, for more than 30 years.
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The maker movement: A learning revolution
If you care about equity or closing the digital divide, you will advocate for all children to have rich computer programming experiences with a competent teacher.
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