Creation Station and More - Looking Ahead

With just a couple of weeks left in the school year, the hustle and bustle in the Creation Station looks like it will continue right up until the last student walks out the door next week. As the first full school year of making in ESH’s Creation Station winds down, in no way does it mean that the on-going process of making and evolving our makerspace itself will be winding down.

In the Creation Station, we lead students through a variety of flexible design process steps, depending on how we structure the problem or challenge, which boil down to an iterative process of THINK - MAKE - IMPROVE, or TMI. This is actually an acronym coined by Sylvia Martinez, in her book, Invent to Learn - Making Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. We had the pleasure of bringing her here earlier this month for a faculty keynote on making, STEM, and gender issues as they relate to those topics. We also had the opportunity to meet with her and glean some ideas, suggestions, and affirmation that we’re heading in the right direction with our efforts.

TMI is how we’ve approached the process of evolving what has become known as the Creation Station years ago before we had an official “space” or anything in it. This past February, I had the opportunity to attend the EdTeacher Innovation Summit with some colleagues. I also had the opportunity to present a Summit session on the evolution of the Creation Station with our principal, Susan Devetski. In our session we talk about how we approached and continue to approach the “process of making” the Creation Station from a design process, TMI. We’re applying design thinking and an iterative design process to the Creation Station and how we’re using it. It’s in a continuous state of evolution as we reflect and make changes.

As part of our presentation, we emphasized the importance of collaboration and teamwork to the growth and continued evolution and success of our makerspace. The Creation Station would not be what it is at this point if not for students, teachers, parents, facilities, administration, and IS all working together in some way to make it work. Teachers have already started talking with me about ideas they have for next year.

As part of my own ongoing process of reflection and professional growth regarding the makerspace, I’ll be attending a couple of professional development workshops/conferences over the summer. I’ll also be exploring ideas and working on ways to grow my abilities in my other responsibilities here at ESH – working with and providing teachers with opportunities to integrate technology for learning and teaching, managing iPads, and providing technical support.

There’s always something new to learn.

Creation Station Tinkering

There has been a steady flow of activity in the our makerspace, now officially named the Creation Station, by first and second graders here at ESH. In order to provide students with additional opportunities to participate in maker-centered experiences, I've been having a couple of students from each classroom come into the maker space together during their lunch/choice time to tinker with all sorts of gadgets and electronics. They have been tinkering with and taking apart tems such as computers, videocameras, iPhones, keyboards, alarm clocks, and VCRs. We've been exploring how the individual parts and pieces make up the whole gadget, their purpose, and asking questions about how they interact with the other parts. Often times, the challenge has just been trying to figure out how to take something apart. Students have been very determined and resourceful in the disassembling of their gadgets using a variety of tools such as screwdrivers, wire cutters, pliers, awls, and a paint scraper.

I watched one student captivated by the variety of sounds he was making, as he curiously plucked away at the coils of wire in a battery enclosure that he had just removed from an alarm clock. Another student was trying to estimate the length of tape in a VHS cassette that had been stuck in a VCR she was taking apart. Others have discovered that the buttons on a keyboard make great projectiles when popped off at just the right angle with a screwdriver, hence the use of goggles. Others want to wear the goggles just because they look cool.

It's been great to see to see our first and second grade students working together, playing together, and helping each other.

 

ESH makerspace is now...The Creation Station.

It seems like we just started back to school and here it is the week before winter break. There has been a flurry of activity in the ESH makerspace, now officially named the The Creation Station, by 1st and 2nd graders. Students submitted many great ideas for the name. Names were narrowed down to four and then voted on. The Creation Station was the clear winner. Total and individual classroom voting results in the form of bar graphs and pie charts hang outside the PS office for students to see and examine on their own or with teachers and their classmates.

Students have been working on a variety of problems and challenges in The Creation Station so far this year. Here are a few…Mr. Ratliff’s 2nd grade classroom worked on designing and constructing plant cages and trellises made of wooden skewers, wire, string, and dowel rods for an indoor class garden. Ms. Gillespie’s 2nd grade class designed and constructed a collection of cardboard play areas on large bases for their classroom rabbit, Cookie, who ventures in and out and climbs the ramps. This year, Ms. Marinho’s 2nd grade class has been publishing a digital and print classroom newspaper. For the print version, a rotating group of her students designed and constructed a newspaper vending machine using cardboard.

Ms. Wagonheim’s class has been in working on a neighborhood project. Students worked in groups to design a neighborhood on different plots of land and then transformed those designs into three-dimensional models. In several 1st grade classrooms we’ve explored and played with opened and closed circuits and switches and then connected it to classroom areas of study. After reading a book about the telegraph and morse code, group of students in Ms. Wagner’s class used cardboard, wire, brass paper fasteners, and a battery, to make a working telegraph. As part of a unit on Patterns, Ms. Luna’s class incorporated their knowledge of circuits and switches to create Scribblebots using a motor, battery, markers and a plastic cup. They observed the resulting patterns and marker trails on paper left behind by their creations and how by making subtle changes to their design, they could affect those patterns. Ms. Lee’s class incorporated circuits, simple paperclip switches, and LEDs to add lights to their three-dimensional neighborhood project's buildings.

I’m looking forward to many more classroom collaborations in the coming year.

Best wishes for a blessed holiday season.