PLAY MAKE LEARN CONFERENCE, DAY 1

 

Here are some highlights from day one of the 2022 Play Make Learn conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Making Making Happen:

 

The Peoria Playhouse is a children’s museum in Illinois that includes a makerspace for teaching tool literacy. The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium is in Dubuque, Iowa with a makerspace open to visitors all museum hours.

Makerspace tips:

·         Have a great advisory board

·         Ask for help!

·         Passive activities are great- encourage patrons to self-explore with open-ended questions

·         Cast a wide net when looking for staff- skills, not degrees

·         To help patrons be creators and explorers, staff need to see themselves as creators and explorers - give staff a chance to learn & work on projects

·         Makers in the Library has a good toolkit

·         Maker Ed offers professional development for makerspace staff

 

Building with the Bauhaus:

 

The Bauhaus was an art school in Germany in the early 20^th Century. Its principles are much like the makerspace movement today.

Bauhaus principles:

·         Materials should be chosen for their function- form follows function

·         Union of art and craft

·         Students and teachers learn from each other

·         Peer to peer learning and problem solving

·         Learn how materials behave before creating, then create your own thing--everyone doesn’t have to have the same outcome

 

Sarah Nagle used these principles when creating the makerspace at Miami University in Ohio.

 

Maker-centered learning:

·         Shift from consumer to creator--students think about how things are designed--how they can make things better

·         Empowerment and civic-mindedness --e.g global makerspace community creating COVID protection, 3D printed prosthetics

·         Intro maker activities for students who don’t know what to make in the makerspace--introduces them to materials

·         Bauhaus-inspired exercises

 

Transformed Reality: Using VR to create empathetic soft skill training:

 

DePaul University created trauma-informed virtual-reality training for members of law enforcement interviewing sexual assault victims.

 

Advantages of VR training:

·         Cost effective

·         Can be accessed remotely

·         Easy to customize

·         Can’t be distracted by emails when wearing a headset

·         More emotional connection

·         Users were more confident applying lessons

·         Low-stakes environment --can say what you think without being judged

·         Victims aren’t re-traumatized by going through their experiences

·         Can create a wide variety of scenarios

 

VR training tips:

·         Many narrative choices make the experience more real – mind mapping tools like Mind Meister

·         At least 3 paths: best, mixed, bad--write the good path first

·         Have a table read

·         CoPilot Designer good for software- can also do browser-based if user doesn’t have VR access

·         Meta Quest 2 for headsets-wireless – requires a Facebook account

 

Creative Collaborations with Cardboard: Developing community informed maker events

The Science Museum of Minnesota was looking for a way to attract more diverse families. They had to think outside the box, as it is hard to get satisfaction surveys from people who don’t use the museum.

 

BIPOC family listening sessions:

·         Gave families wearable GoPro cameras to use as they went through the museum and then had a conversation with the family

·         Partnered with community organizations like American Indian Family Center, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center, Hmong American Partnership, St. Paul Promise Neighborhood

·         Asked what is preventing families from attending- families wanted transit help, translation- didn’t want to tell museum what activities to have

·         Closed building to the rest of the public and provided a meal

 

Results:

·         Created cardboard city maker activity

·         had attendees take polaroid pictures and add “today I made”, “What is it?” “I make _at home” “I am _ years old”- hung it on laundry line

·         Joined cohort of 3 other museums for in-house events and pop-ups

 

Presenters:

·         Nora Beckemeyer

·         Laura Geake

·         Robby Callahan Schreiber