I'm Back!

I have spent the last two years focused deeply on my classroom -- on making things better, finding inspiration (looking at you, Terri Eicholz!), and creating a learning space that I would be excited and proud to share.

This year, I've dipped my toe into the next level as a teacher, (how's that for mixing metaphors?), providing professional development to other teachers. 

It's been terrifying. And thrilling.

Today, I spent the morning with a dear friend creating a pitch to present at next year's SXSW EDU. We want to take what we've learned from Making in our classrooms and translate it into something teachers can use in ALL classrooms.

To find out more, check out our video. 

And stay tuned -- Ed Remix has lots of ideas, just waiting to be shared.

Creating Makers

I already have a list of supplies I want to purchase for next fall.

Until today, I thought I was doing pretty well with the whole Makerspace thing. I have engineering supplies -- bins of cardboard and recycling (think water bottles, plastic packaging, styrofoam) that my kids can raid with ease. I have on-demand access to crafting supplies like yarn and beads. I have tools (real ones!), even a kid-sized tool bench where my students can happily pound nails in to create...whatever. I have laptops with access to Scratch and iPads with access to Scratch, Jr. I have Lego robotics. My kids could make, tinker, invent...or so I thought.

What I realized today, after reading just the first chapter of "Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom" by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager, is that I barely have my toe in the water of the Makers' Movement. See, I have all these materials, but I haven't encouraged my kids to put them together in any significant way -- yet. 

We have been dabbling in Making so far, but mostly, we have been modeling. "This is a thing I could build -- someday." "This is what my thing will look like -- someday."

What this book supplies are the ideas, materials and know-how to turn someday's inventions into today's. My kids no longer have to be limited to modeling their ideas. Next year (how I love summer -- that time when teachers can reflect and figure out how to make next year even better), next year, we will Make. 

Yes, with the capital "M."

*If you already have a robust Makerspace in your school or classroom, can you send me some ideas? I'd love the help!