Make 2 Learn Symposium

Make 2 Learn Symposium

Chicago, March 2013

Badging Maker Learning

Kevin Miklasz, Iridescent

Leah Gilliam, Mozilla and Hive NYC Learning Network

Juan Rubio, GlobalKids

Each organization first presented on their organization’s badging projects:

Global Kids @ http://olpglobalkids.org/race-white-house & http://tinyurl.com/racewhitehouse

• Used badges for a Race to the White House program
• Geocaching – virtual scavenger hunt throughout Parks in NYC; focused on upcoming presidential election
• Lesson plans geared towards badges; useful to learners and educators
• Topics included Net Neutrality/Medical Marijuana/Gun Control
•  Included an online forum
• Badges focused on: Hard Skills (geotagging, public speaking); Soft Skills (collaboration, critical thinking); Participation; Knowledge (issue expert)

Iridescent @ http://iridescentlearning.org/

Open-ended design challenges

The Curiosity Machine – bare online instructions & questions; participants could answer with pictures/video/text – entries were worth points, awarded by mentors who evaluated
each submission; mentor responses were limited to either “Try again – here are some suggestions” or “Great idea.”  As participants gained points, they achieved higher rank/status/access – ‘leveled up’. Building (beginner) --> Engineering (advanced, more badges unlocked) -->Inventing

Mozilla/HIVE NYC

• Citywide learning labs involving 30 organizations – focus on connected learning, informal space
• Framework for the entire network
• Trying to expose experience as part of network; identifying this for participants

• HIVE Badges
• User stories/Personas of HIVE participants; interests, tools they use, HIVE events attended
• Goals – incentivizing moving around the network; outreach (e.g. Maker Faire)
• Ruth Schmidt from Chicago HIVE was a big influence
• Credly – same people as Badgestack; quick way to create badges for quick events; accessible to everyone else in the HIVE network; also awarded badges to event workers/educators

General Discussion

ArtLab (in DC) tried using ‘badges’ with youth, but the term ‘certification’ was more  

popular   

• Allows youth to use certain equipment alone
• Shows who they can collaborate with
• Sometimes award ‘stealth badges’; “Hey, you by doing this, you just earned this (informally)”

Questions to consider about badges:

• Where do we/facilitators want it to fit into our culture?
• Where do youth want it to fit into our culture?

Badges allow the creation of a Living Learning Portfolio

• Mozilla’s Badge Backpack
• Collect/Decide/Curate – deciding what’s important in different contexts

Awarding badges to mentors

• Shows contributions, hours (Iridescent)

Badges should always lead to more learning, rather than do this get that; leveling helps lead learner along a path

Don’t overbadge to the point where there is little value; make a challenging task rather than making a badge ‘scarce’

Resources

https://etherpad.mozilla.org/make2learnbadges - created by Leah Gilliam at the event

https://p2pu.org/en - “At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.”

http://dmlcompetition.net/ - DML Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition

http://www.openbadges.org – by Mozilla, earn/issue/display your badges

   

Family Learning in Museum MakerSpaces

Lisa Brahms, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

Adam Nye, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

David Kanter, New York Hall of Science

Janella Watson, New York Hall of Science

Making has traditionally been adult-oriented

MAKESHOP (Pittsburgh) – 1800 sq ft; partnership between a game design Master’s program and the Children’s Museum 

• Sink and doors are the only permanent fixtures – the space is very flexible, tough, durable
• Children need to explore, play with various tools, gain experience
•  Facilitation – 5 full-time teaching artists; work one to one with children, answer questions by engaging children in a decision-making process towards making  goal
•  Adults and children as co-facilitators – shared learning experience
• Scaffolding – multiple entry points for a project, engaging for different age groups
•  Sewing: first station with the tools (needles, thread), second with peg board to practice the  motions,    another with a sewing machine

        Visit their blog @ http://makeshoppgh.com/ - many pictures and videos

Playtesting – companies can try out products in the MAKESHOP

Little Makers program – 18 months to 13 year old siblings; thematic (e.g., Weaving Works, Ice Cream Making)

• Scaffold material literacy – space for the youngest participants to touch, play with materials
•  Example of Ice Cream Making – smelling station, ice bucket with dye and salt, create a recipe station with favorite ingredients, 12 minutes of shaking ingredients in bag  (passing between family members, shared experience), tasting/sharing product
•  Introduction to tools and tool-making
•  Inspire collaboration/equal participants across ages
•  Empowering parents – exploring science, elaborating what they do already with their kids, bringing skills back home

Core objectives

•  Collaboration and experimentation, tool skills, iteration
•   Problem solving, materials exposure & literacy
•   Encouraging wonder and addressing something functional
•   Science process skills, divergent solutions, products (creativity)

Narratives

Max, a 4 year old, was first intimidated by the space/staff; his first visit staff welcomed him in and suggested a project; he eventually brought an idea for a project (I want to build a lawnmower) and a couple visits later a sketch for a project; the staff kept adding complexity to the projects – when he wanted to build a ‘weed whacker’, staff helped him design one that actually spun with battery power; Max took his skills home and worked with Grandpa.

Making as mindset, process and product; playing, failing and trying again
For mentors – the museum looked for makers not educators; developed teaching skills
Authenticity – they use real tools and materials
Different entries/parallel activities in same room with same tools
Process (hammer a nail into wood) vs. end goal (finished wood piece) – younger children can focus on process

    

Handouts are available here.

--Leslie @Sun Ray/Admin

Designing Interactive Library Spaces

Brian Pichman is one of the creators of the Evolve Project, which aims to get libraries ready for the 21st century and beyond.

Competitors to libraries:

• Amazon --their website says no waiting for ebooks
• Google
• About.com
• Wikipedia
• Internet access at home

How do you get people to come in if they can get everything at home? Offer an experience. Create new ways to learn and explore. Be engaging! Learn from museums and schools and steal their best ideas.

Pichman discussed a project to redesign the children’s room in the Mokena Public Library in Illinois to make it more fun and interactive for kids. The budget was $165,000  for everything -they did all the manual labor themselves.

They decorated the library in bright colors and moved shelves around to make it seem bigger. Outfacing shelves make browsing more appealing--we all judge books by their covers! A white wall with special dry-erase paint  lets kids write a review of their favorite books or create collaborative artworks. Kiosks with Xbox & Wii have no enforced time limits, but staff encourages kids to try something new if they have been playing for a long time. A Microsoft Kinect and a television allow Gesture Based Computing -- kids can play videos, paint, dance,  all without touching. When not in use, it can promote library events.

The goal is to encourage innovation--original, disruptive acts. Kids who have never met before interact and discover things on their own. Collaboration makes libraries more like Fab labs or makerspaces.


Interactive Programs:

• Laser Tag in the library! It takes place after hours. Ammo packs are hidden in the library and kids have to follow clues to their location -- they learn the layout of the library while having fun.
• The Menager-E: e-readers and tablets are made available to patrons. It promotes Overdrive e-books while letting patrons try out devices without any sales pressure. They didn't lock the devices down because they didn't want to discourage people.
• Showing one movie in a loop all day. If you have an activity room that is only used part of the day -- why not have it open all day long? include related books with a  "map" to find them. Have a craft activity and let patrons “check out” what the kids made.

Recommended Technology:

Spero - a sturdy, waterproof ball that can be moved with a smart device for games and even giving a tour of the library.

Sifteo Cubes - “smart tiles” that can be used for games or creating a maze.

Lego We-Do - robotic Legos that teach programming.

Smart Tables - interactive smart touch screens --up to eight people can play games at a time.

Sound Egg -a music station that keeps sound from bleeding out without closing users off.



Ideas for the future:

• Replace traditional end panel signs on shelves (e.g. A-F)  with a tablet. Record patron reviews and letting patrons scan the end panels to hear the review.
• The Game of Books: participants get different "points" for reading types of books.
• Checking out pots and pans for cooking
• Growing a garden together.

The webinar is archived here: http://vimeo.com/georgialibraryassociatio/review/59919733/dfe356e9b5


--Andrea @Central

Webinar: Makerspace @Carnegie Public Library, Pittsburgh

Carnegie Public Library in Pittsburgh received a Digital Learning Initiative grant which caused usage to soar, but when they learned about YouMedia in Chicago they were inspired to do more. They interviewed recent library school graduates and asked for proposals. The proposal they chose was digital storytelling. Teens used Tumblr, Youtube and photos to tell stories about their neighborhoods. They then received an IMLS grant and are currently entirely grant-fun
ded. The launch party was at local Google office, which generated publicity and got people excited.

Tips for creating a Makerspace:

• Don't let the intimidation factor keep you from doing things -- Youmedia approach is scalable. Stealing ideas is OK, but adapt them to your community.
• Justify work with research, especially when seeking funds. Studies show correlation with teens having an adult mentor who is not a parent and their success in adult life.  
• Ask teens what they want.
• Programs don’t have to be expensive -- get free ideas from the Instructables website
• Staffing needs to be included in a proposal.
• Need to consider location of lab--can residents get there without a car? Is there enough space?
• Partnerships help sustainability, but there are good and bad partners. Discuss any payment issues early on. Mentors with digital media experience are needed.

Carnegie Public Library has four makerspaces in four branches. Each space has the same tech: two iMacs, two Macbook Airs, iPads, a drawing table, a controller, tripods, iPad cases that attach to tripods (for stop motion animation), Arduinos, and Adobe Creative Suite software. They searched digital learning blogs and asked their Teen Advisory Council to recommend equipment. Staff took classes in Arduinos and soldering at Hack Pittsburgh.


Tips for doing teen programs:

• Having equipment out is good -- gets kids curious.
• The more rules, the less accessible the space. (Here are their rules: http://www.clpgh.org/teens/events/programs/thelabs/#rules)
• A different subject each month works well.
• Use badges to make learning fun (http://www.ala.org/yalsa/badges-learnin).Teens get a badge if they attend all the programs in a month.
• Going out to schools works for outreach as well as a chance to test programs.
• Two people at every program is good to encourage shy teens and answer questions
• Don’t forget related displays of library material!

Carnegie Public Library’s next goal is to create programming “starter kits” that can be ordered and sent to any branch. They consider the labs a way to teach teens about professional opportunities in addition to being a place of creation.

Recommended software and web sites:

Appitic --recommended  iOS apps for learning: http://www.appitic.com/

Comic Life-- an app for creating comics with photos: http://www.comiclife.com/

Smoovie -an app for stop motion animation: http://www.openplanetsoftware.com/smoovie/

Skokie Public Library’s list of digital lab equipment and software:: http://www.skokielibrary.info/s_about/how/Tech_Resources/DML.asp

The Library as Incubator project :http://www.libraryasincubatorproject.org/

Oswego State University’s list of free apps for media creation: http://libraryguides.oswego.edu/toolbox

Popbooth-- create a photo booth with an iPad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/popbooth-photo-booth/id432092216?mt=8



A recording of the webinar is available here.



--Andrea @Central

Webinar: Makerspace @Detroit Public Library

The HYPE Makerspace at Detroit Public Library is located in the main library in the teen center. It is for ages 13 to 18. The space is 4,000 square feet.

DPL had been doing crafting and making programs with Handmade Detroit, but didn’t know how to take it to the next level. Staff attended a Maker Fair in Detroit and were inspired. It was also a great way to discover community partnerships such as Mount Elliott Makerspace, Futuremakers, the University of Michigan Design department, and the Hub of Detroit bicycle shop and to benefit from their experience and recommendations. DPL also received a grant from the Making the Future initiative in New Jersey.


DPL decided to wait on expensive equipment such as 3-D printers or laser cutters and start small.

Some of their makerspace programs:

• Bicycle repair and maintenance
• Art projects such as stencils, wood block printing and silk screening
• Sewing --repairs and creating a fabulous outfit
• Soldering basics
• Building audio amplifiers
• Creating robots with Arduinos

Tips for makerspaces:

• Programs work best if everyone is in a circle
• Ventilation is important
• Turn off computers so teens don't get distracted
• If you get the leader of a teen peer group to come, the rest will follow
• Mentors who aren't teachers can inspire -- teachers who aren't experts can learn
• Don't define a makerspace with specific workshops or activities
• Give mentors power & ownership -- share budget
• Do process of choosing programs slowly -- "date" before you commit
• You don't need to do everything -- find areas of concentration based on community interest
• You don't need a ton of money
• Make barriers to entry as low as possible
• Having special events builds pride in patrons’ accomplishments and make more people want to get involved

DPL started with an 8-week summer camp. They held meetings with instructors & teen volunteers to discuss safety & loss of materials. At the end, they held meetings with instructors & asked teens to fill out evaluation forms at the end. Two of their teens were selected to attend the World Maker Fair in New York City, with all expenses paid. The teens learned new terms and software they didn't know about and were inspired to study for jobs they had never thought of before. For one project, they helped seniors digitize documents, recorded audio interviews, then made a movie using iMovie software.


Where to find mentors:

• Library staff
• Local businesses
• Schools
• Churches
• Local hackerspaces & hobby clubs
• Senior and retiree organizations
• Colleges and universities
• Host and publicize an event to attract mentors

DPL likes to think of a makerspace as a garden and makerspace leaders as gardeners. They try to be more of a “guide on the side than a sage on the stage”. Every maker/hacker they’ve contact so far has been enthusiastic about working with libraries. The most common complaint from patrons is that their should be more programs for adults and younger children.



A recording of the webinar is available here.




--Andrea @Central