Encouraging a Diverse Maker Culture; Chapter 3

This chapter was written by by Amy Vecchinone, Deanna Brown, Gregory Brasier and Ann Delaney

After a wild open to our school year, influenced by Hurricane Harvey, I’m ready to get back on track with my readings of The Makerspace Librarian’s Sourcebook.  Today I read chapter 3 and I first felt it applied more to Academic or Public libraries.  But as I reread my notes, I’m thinking it makes some important suggestions.   A makerspace is all about engagement and empowerment.  (P. 51-52) Their purpose in a school library is to provide a place to experiment and be creative. I noted that the authors said on page 54, “Because there is no assessment in a makerspace, there is no blame if a project doesn’t work quite right.” This sentence reminded me that this is not about grades, that these spaces are places to learn to be more creative.

I was intrigued by the section entitled “The Digital Divide and Participatory Maker Culture”. It listed tiered levels of engagement: 1 introductory, 2 displays capacity to learn more, 3 identify selves as makers, 4 feel they belong in the makerspace, 5 volunteer or ambassador for the space, and 6 volunteer and take on responsibilities for the space. I can’t wait to begin introducing our students to our space and then encouraging them to continue to grow. The chapter discusses makers growing and becoming more skilled; I look forward to watching that happen!

The chapter also discusses including the community in the spaces.  I hadn’t really thought about asking the community for help, (Other than grants!) and using the community to help the makerspaces and makers themselves, grow! If I can bring in persons in our community who have certain skills, they can give students other ways to think about solutions. The more exposure to different skill sets, the better.

The spaces are supposed to help students discover skills, develop those skills and become empowered.  As the librarian I need to encourage students with “targeting questions” and help them learn to critically reflect on what they’ve learned, built, or/and discovered.  I’m thinking this is a bit like my art classes at the University of North Texas when we did critiques.  Critiques help you grow and learn how to be better!

I’m planning to introduce our makerspaces in a week.  I look forward to students involvement and I know there will be excitement.  However, I know I need to teach them how to take care of the space, respect the classes going on around the space, and learn what might occur in the space.  So much!  I’m hoping it will happen flawlessly so we can explore more.  I’m only in rotation the first 9 weeks and because of Hurricane Harvey, it’s 2 weeks shorter! So, we’ll get them started and then hope that some of our teachers will let me work with their class in the makerspace area.

 

 

Getting Ready to Implement MakerSpaces

Okay, I’m just going to begin; I keep planning and it’s time to start. I’ve decided to read “The Makerspace_Librarian’s Sourcebook”, edited by Ellyssa Kroski and published by ALA editions.  I’m hoping it will give me the final push and direction that is needed to implement makerspaces in our library. As I mentioned in my bio, this is my third year at The Oaks.  Makerspaces have been going on for years, but they were not established in our library when I arrived.  I took the first two years to get to know the staff and students, schedule, collection, and how things “work” at The Oaks.  I’ve decided that I could probably work on that more, but I’ll continue in all of those areas while makerspaces happen!

I attended a makerspace workshop through our district, have attended sessions at the TLA and ALA conventions, and have been discussing what needs to happen with other librarians in our district. To begin, I cleared out a space in the library to house the makerspaces.  It looks pretty empty at present time as the photos below show. I mentioned my plan to our principle and she suggested I needed to request funds immediately so we could make sure it could/would be covered.  I did!  I believe we have some items ordered and some that will be ordered when we return to school.

Meanwhile, I’m going to begin this book!

Empty Shelves Ready for MakerSpaces