Makerspaces

A maker space is a collaborative workspace inside a school or other private or public facility where high tech tools to no tools are used for making, learning, sharing ideas, brainstorming, exploring, and building. It is used in conjunction with STEM or STEAM. Not every maker space looks the same. Some are very high tech showcasing 3D printers, laser cutters, computer numerical control (cnc) machines, soldering irons, and even sewing machines. Some spaces are low tech, housing cardboard, Legos, pipe cleaners, blocks, popsicle sticks and more. Others are somewhere in between.

Many educators are beginning to implement maker spaces into their classrooms. When doing so it is important to first start small. There are so many great ideas and tools to put into setting up your maker space, but it can be overwhelming so it is best to look around the house or school to see what kind of recyclables and art supplies are available. Second, it is important to find an area of the classroom that will accommodate 3-4 students workings together or individually. Thirdly, write a letter and ask parents for donations of recyclables and other supplies like wire, yarn, cups, etc. You can even ask for donations of small tools like screwdrivers, pliers, scissors. Some teachers may even want to ask for old toys or broken electronics that can be taken apart. One writer for teachers, Angela Watson, suggested putting away and organizing donations as they come in so it is not as overwhelming. She also writes, it is nice to have an inventory list if possible so students know what is available. This could be pictorial or words. Many teachers would agree that a maker space without rules could get chaotic. Consequently, writing the rules, posting, and verbalizing them is important for a productive work space. Lastly, it is always a good idea to make a wish list and look for grants or donners so the maker space can evolve over the years. 

Teachers should look for ways to incorporate STEM and maker spaces into their existing lesson plans. It should naturally flow from already existing objectives within the curriculum so that it brings together several subjects in one. This is called the interdisciplinary approach. Maker spaces allow both the teacher and the students to be creative, the teacher in the planning and the student in the solving of a problem. Teachers should weave in opportunities to spend time at maker spaces because it gives students real world situations to work through where they have to call on knowledge in multiple subjects without even realizing it. Students learn to design, be creative, solve problems, and persevere. Maker spaces in the classroom are an excellent way of preparing the next generation.

References

https://facebook.com/makerspaces. (2015, November 27). What is a Makerspace? Is it a Hackerspace or a Makerspace? Retrieved April 26, 2021, from Makerspaces.com website: https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace/

Angela Watson. (2015, September 30). Retrieved April 26, 2021, from The Cornerstone For Teachers website: https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/makerspaces/

Personalized Learning

In a classroom setting where students are diverse, an educator is bound to have some students along the way who have learning difficulties and disabilities. This can at times be frustrating for the student as they begin to fall behind in understanding and/or classroom work. This can escalate to a point where the student begins to think they are not smart enough to accomplish the work or understand what the teacher is trying to communicate. This can lead to attitude and behavior problems. Therefore it is very important for educators to be familiar with assistive technology which is available and its accessibility features in order to have the knowledge to offer solutions for a student's learning challenges. Researching and gaining this knowledge is an effort worth making to help break down any barriers the student may have in their education.

When a student has been identified as having a disability a teacher should think about tools to help overcome their challenges in the classroom. When thinking about using assistive technology and accessibility features to help it is important to consider the individual with the disability. Every person is unique and even two students who have similar disabilities may need different tools that work with the way they are wired. A teacher should assess a student’s needs and collaborate with colleagues and family members of the student to determine the best technology for the student. After that technology should be selected and given to the student for a trial with supervision then reevaluated to see if it was a good fit. An educator should be familiar with the device given to a particular student and its accessibility features in order to help the student if they have problems so operating the device meant to help does not become another challenge to learning.

 

Video Conferencing in Education

     Video conferencing across the educational spectrum can be beneficial in several ways. It can enable teachers to continue teaching their students even when in person schooling is not available. In church, Biblical education can continue as pastors conduct prayer services and Sunday school teachers teach the Bible to adults and children alike. This was the case for my church during quarantine and snow storms which caused us to cancel our services. Also, I observed my mom, who teaches ESL, use video conferencing to continue lessons in small groups with those learners who needed continuity. Even though many schools now meet in person, I think we can continue to utilize video conferencing for parent/teacher conferences for those who are unable to leave the home or need a more convenient time to meet.

    Unfortunately, not everything about video conferencing is great. The main negative is the delay, pauses, or breaks in technology. It is frustrating to start talking-stop-start again only to find the other person is speaking too. Or to be in a meeting and only understand part of what is being said because the bandwidth does not support the whole family using a video platform all at the same time. This problem is sometimes solved by choosing times when others in the house are not conferencing. However, that is not always possible. Another challenge for me personally is the age group I work with. Contrary to popular belief (I say this sarcastically), video conferencing is not the best nor easiest way to teach 3-4 year old children. They like to see themselves, make faces and get distracted and walk away when being talked to. In one case when I was using Google Meet one mom was determined to keep her daughter “in class” and held her on her lap while she was screaming. This was before Google added the ability for the host to mute all and it was very awkward to try to ask the mom to mute when in my mind she should have known to do that out of consideration. Of course this may have been avoided if I had thought to add that instruction to my list of expectations for our class meeting.

    I think video conferencing is most effective for collaboration, meetings where face to face interaction is preferred, and in giving opportunities for students to share with the teacher and each other. For preschoolers a good use for it is show and tell. Communicating about protocol and expectations for students with parents and students prior to the conferencing would be a great way to overcome some of the social challenges of video conferencing.

Researching Google Scholar

 As an educator and mother, I am always searching for the best ways of researching a subject, but also the least frustrating. This led me to investigate google scholar to see what kind of help it would be to me and to a student in need of research and sources. I chose three subjects: something commonly searched (Covid-19), something a student may search (WW2 airplanes), and a personal/professional search (preschool language development). Both in google search and google scholar I used the same wording, then investigated the top three results in both, and compared the results. 

For my google search about Covid-19 I was given statistics on a graph, news articles from the Washington Post, CNN, links about vaccinations, and local channels and sites geared to the state in which I live. However, in Scholar the top links were an article by AS Fauci, a medical journal and clinical immunology articles, followed by mental health writings. Whether one believes the information or not it seemed the Google search results were mostly media related whereas the Scholar results were more research based. It seemed Google Scholar had a lot of medical journals and articles that would be good for reading and research including clinical trials and its ethics from Mayo Clinic.

The next subject I imputed was WW2 airplanes. In the google search the top results were amazing images to view right away, an education and Smithsonian website. This was followed by Ducksters.com which is specifically for kids learning about history which contained audio in order to hear all the information written if needed/wanted. In addition to this, there were videos recommended for this subject. However, Google Scholar was frustrating to get information I could actually view. When searching for WW2 airplanes, I was given links that did not apply but actually suggested different information such as gays in WW2, the airplane market, etc. There were some sources that seemed to deal with my subject, however they were in book form. When Google Scholar recommends a book to read on your subject search, you are able to read an abstract which tells about the book. Then, there is a link to go to the book but only a preview is available and oftentimes access needs to be granted by entering your institutional login code or email address. Even then only the paragraphs mentioning the word searched appear for reading. If a person wants to get the full context of the book chapter, etc. they need to purchase the book or search the title in a virtual library. This seemed like a hassle a student would not go through when conducting research.

The third subject I entered into both search bars was preschool language development. Google search’s top results gave me a US government site from the department of education about teaching and training for language development, followed by an Australian parenting website and an article by a professional who specializes in parenting and education with expertise in learning disabilities and AD/HD. This was a helpful article in understanding language development for preparing children to read. Google Scholar showed articles from the American Psychological Association and books from experts. Both search and scholar were helpful in this instance.

Findings from my research are as follows. Generally, when a google search is done the programmed algorithms take into consideration past searches which have indicated the area you live in, interests, and bias wording previously searched. So for my searches I was given what google considers to be most applicable sites based on prior searches. This can be good as it saves time and effort in some instances, but in other instances it requires creativity in wording to get the desired results. 

Having never used Scholar, it did not seem to have the same results in its programming. However, it did have some helpful features. It allows a person to include the option for patents and citations. Citations are nice because if you use that book, article, etc. you can just click the (“) and you are given several citation options and it will do it for you. Then a copy and paste seems the most effective way to add to your paper. Another nice thing that can be done is to specify a range of years to search. In using this it is important to note that the years entered will yield writings during those years not what happened during those years. Scholar offers an “Advanced Search” for specific authors and titles. It also has “my library”. This is a nice place to put things you want to come back to without having to do the search all over again. Instead, clicking on my library will bring you to all the resources you put there.

Unfortunately, there were some things that were not great about Google Scholar. First, when you click on the link of a resource, only a preview and an abstract of what the book/article is about is given and you have to sign in under your institution login or email. Then you have to click on the link of what you want to read and it takes you to the original for further detail. Second, if you find a book that seems like it would be helpful and click on it, you can only see aspects of the book or sometimes not at all. Links are given to buy the book or search the book and view the sections that mention your search, but cannot view the full context of the chapter. You would have to go to an online library to gain full access to the book. This would need to be explained to students in order to avoid unnecessary frustration.

I have much more to learn, but for now I would say Google Scholar is a good resource to be used by students and educators alike in certain situations for in depth research. However, I would mostly defer to Google search to gain pictures and videos related to the desired subject matter.

Digital Communication in the Classroom

     In my classroom my digital communication is with parents only. My 3–4-year-old students cannot read, nor do I have need to tell them anything electronically. However, I do need to communicate to the parents and guardians on a weekly basis in order to keep them updated on our learning activities, show-and-tell for the week, and sometimes for behavioral comments (good or problematic). In the past my parents let me know they really like the updates, so they know what subject matter to use to converse with their child. So, the question for me is, what is the most effective way to reach the parents with this information weekly. Recently, I began just doing bullet points rather than a long email update. Now I am considering switching to a classroom blog so the parents can choose to look at a verbal and pictorial update of their child’s learning instead of being inundated with my emails. On the blog I could also post my monthly newsletter.

    I do not think that digital communication is the best way of dealing with problems or discussing a child’s behavior. Words without voice inflection and facial expressions in an email can be misconstrued and misunderstood. Requesting a meeting to discuss problems and behavior is better.

    I think a short video blog is nice sometimes to deal with specific content. For instance, last year when our school first went into quarantine through the end of the school year, our school principal did weekly video emails. This was perfect because he is a type A person and writes very “to the point” which I like but can seem unemotional. However, his short video addresses showed his emotion, kindness, empathy, along with giving pertinent information. This was an excellent choice of technology for him in order to communicate well to families. It is good to consider our own personalities and how we sound in our writing and speaking. That will help us make good communication decisions.

Blogging in the Classroom

    As an educator I can practically use a blog in my preschool class to give parents a view into the classroom. In this day and age when parents are not allowed into the classroom because of all the Covid restrictions, parents are not getting to participate in special days, celebrations, and field trips. They do, however, want to know what is going on and this would be a window into classroom life and learning. It would be mostly for parents because preschoolers are too little to read and write. I do not know much about technology yet, but perhaps if they could a video blog to answer a question. With the help of their parents that would allow them to begin to formulate their thoughts and words on a particular topic and have a record of it. A potential problem is if the parents are unavailable to help or if they do not have the skills or interest to help their child blog then it would not work.

    I can also use blogging to encourage parents in their parenting. Many times in the past when parents were allowed to be actively involved (i.e.: volunteering, drop off/pick up in the classroom, chaperone) they would share parenting problems with me in person and I was able to pray for them, offer encouragement, and sometimes give advice. Under the new restrictions my interaction with the parents is limited. I can use a blog to give back a little bit of the personal feel to parents. Of course, nothing can truly take the place of personal touch and interaction, but at least they may feel a bit more connected and encouraged.