Makerspace stakeholder meeting June 5

Please RSVP Strahan@wcu.edu if interesting in attending a gathering of Jackson County, NC folks interested in the creation of county makerspaces. The meeting with be held on the WCU campus from 3-5 pm.

Makerspace Planning Guides

How many planning guides are out there?  Here's two and news of more.

Maker Media (2013). Makerspace Playbook: School Edition. 84 pages, almost 30 in the Resources appendix.
http://makerspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MakerspacePlaybook-Feb2013.pdf

New York Hall of Science (2013). A Blueprint: Maker programs for Youth
 Designing, Implementing, Running a makerspace program. Great Appendix: Sample Budgets; Safety guidelines; Maker Coach; Sample projects. 40 pages.
 http://nysci.org/wp-content/uploads/nysci_maker_blueprint.pdf

It was announced on May 8, 2014 that a big planning guide project is underway. "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums) announced a $425,000 initiative with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (CMP) to build the capacity of libraries and museums to develop effective makerspaces and programs. With $425,192 in IMLS support, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is working in conjunction with the North Carolina State University Library, Exploratorium, Chicago Public Library, and Maker Education Initiative, among others, on the project.  The project aims to provide museum and library professionals with a suite of tools and resources, hands-on professional development experiences, and a community of practice. The project’s website and online publication will share the framework, makerspace studies, research and evaluation reports, as well as resources for field wide replication."
http://www.imls.gov/imls_and_children’s_museum_of_pittsburgh_to_partner_on_makerspaces_project.aspx

Makerspace - oasis for self-direction and rejuvenation center for learning

"The Makerspace in the library is an oasis for student self-directed learning. It serves as a rejuvenation center for inspiring of love for both formal and informal learning. In my opinion, a space like this should be a priority for all schools in the twenty-first century; and you do not have to break the bank to create one."

Eric Sheninger, award-winning Principal at New Milford High School, Bergen County, NJ.

http://corwin-connect.com/2014/05/whats-makerspace/

Albemarle Schools deep into makerspace

Here are two stories from up the coast in Virginia, of schools in Albemarle County that have been building a Project Based Learning curriculum for 12+ years and then did an exponential advance into the makerspace movement.

http://www.nbc29.com/story/25226286/high-school-students-show-off-3d-scanner-at-tom-tom-fest, a focused story of their makerspace festival and student creativity from their makerspace.

http://www.nbc29.com/story/24201428/albemarle-schools-maker-spaces-program-gets-national-attention, this is the bigger Albemarle story, of getting national attention, of administrators from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and elsewhere stopping by the school to see how they can use the program at the college level.

""We're interested in re-envisioning our teaching resources center, our TRC, into more of a 21st century learning commons complete with Maker Space," said Karen Wixson, the dean of the school of education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. "It's exciting that they see this space and what's done here as sort of the center of the school and that it's used by many different teachers in many different subject areas," she said. "They're more collaborative they're more engaged, so that's what excites me."Thursday, administrators from Harvard will be touring Monticello High School to learn more about Maker Spaces. Some students will also be presenting their work to members of the Smithsonian Thursday as well.”

P.S. We need more stories of makerspace developments in communities.

At the heart of Makerspace culture is Lego

Many communities have intrepid Lego Clubs that meet to share the joy of construction and design. Many schools and clubs also participate in Lego Robotics competitions. They create logical allies for building a makerspace of some permanence, a place where Legos also belong and where natural transitions can occur to both older and newer forms of technology. The Learning from Legos article in the Sunday, March 15, 2014 edition of the New York Times offers tribute to the design heredity of Legos in Maker culture.

A MakerSpace for Jackson County

A "makerspace" is physical space and technology within a building that encourages building projects with new forms of 3D design software and "shop" equipment (computer driven manufacturing technology) and with the people who can teach its use. There is much to learn about makerspace, but its implications are far larger. Anderson (2012) in his book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution and Brynjolfsson and McAfee in their book, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2014), have described such developments in much larger and highly significant cultural terms, a new transformed version of the industrial revolution. Its learner centered and project-based nature can also be seen as the transformation of the meaning and methodology of public school and places to provide the digital tools for learning the other elements of the digital literacy palette. This site seeks to organize citizens of Jackson County, North Carolina, to work towards the creation such spaces with its opportunities for education and entrepreneurship. How can we make this happen? Please use the Comments boxes beneath each posting to participate in this effort with your ideas.

Getting Organized

We were able to gather a few of those interested for an initial meeting last month and are just getting started; this is a long term, multi-year effort. We need to meet again. An important initial step is to publish some blog postings sharing the ideas and motivations of those willing to encourage next steps in Jackson County in making its first public  makerspace a reality.  These postings will begin to emerge in the time ahead.

For Twitter folks who like to Tweet and ReTweet, here's a shortened form of the Web site's address, http://bit.ly/1is4toA. A suggested hashtag for the creation of digital makerspace in Jackson County (JC) would be #digimakersjc.

Please suggest other "find your tribe" hashtags that would connect us with related topics and relevant people. Some are: #fablabs, #makers, #makerspace, #DIY