Building a Culture of Making at KAS

I started this post a few months ago, November I think, and am now just finishing it. 

The Why - Why start a Maker Space?

I have often wondered what students do when they go home. Especially those who live in a city, where do they go? Are they allowed to wander through the alleys? Do they have access to resources they can use to build? Do they have the time to do it?

Parents want the best for their kids. So, they try to set them up for success by enrolling them in programs the parents think would be beneficial. I look at elementary students here in Taiwan, and many are busy every night of the week. I asked my high school student how their weekend was, and he replied, "I studied all weekend. I have a test coming up and a few projects that will be due."

When did kids lose their time to be bored and find out what they are interested in?

Kids need time and space to do the activities in which they are interested or try activities they have not yet experienced -- giving students a chance to create.

MS

I have two students in my maker club this session, both girls. They didn't know what they were getting into, but I'm glad they joined.

A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 7, 2016 at 11:35pm PST

Build Confidence and Self-Efficacy

I want students to figure out how to solve problems independently. In the elementary session in August, I told the students to ask three before asking me: Google, YouTube, a Peer.

One trait I wanted them to develop was self-efficacy. I wanted them to the time and space to geek out and find something they are interested in. It was a good chance for students to take something they were learning in class and build upon it.

I remember some elementary students had been building games in IT Class, and they decided to use their time (because it is their time) to continue developing the game they were making in class. In the Middle School club, one girl asked if she could bring in a kit of some sort and make it in the club, another MS girl made my dog a little scarf.


ES Maker Club

Breaking out the robots in maker club #KAStw #maker

A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Oct 18, 2016 at 1:37am PDT

HS Maker Club

HS maker club playing with electronics #KAStw

A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 8, 2016 at 11:59pm PST

These are some of the skills/traits I saw:

• students using design thinking
• ideation
• building confidence
• experience learning by themselves and learning how to look or ask for help
• making connections
• making with their hands

What I think I will always remember is how, over the two years, they built friendships and learned from each other.


The Current State (as of last November)

Currently, the elementary and middle school Maker Clubs include the following "options" (so far):

• 3D printing
• 3D modeling
• Coding
• Minecraft
• 3D pens
• LEGO robots
• and other options I have not considered yet

Really, if students can make it [safely], it is acceptable.

I considered having them show a plan, or express one verbally, but that could hinder the process for some students. Besides, sometimes when you are making something, the project unfolds before you. Yes, it may be better to have a plan, but when you are building, sometimes you start to see something not previously conceived.

While this looks like a "tech" club, the spirit of the club is STEAM projects and student choice. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Recently some enthusiastic girls asked if they could knit. They were surprised when I told them they could because knitting isn't "technology". While that is true, it is art, and there is a logical thought process that is behind the making of a knitting project. So it is absolutely acceptable.

Bringing Apple Teacher to KAS

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Feb 13, 2017 at 11:36pm PST

When I heard about the Apple Teacher program, I was interested and went to apply. Unfortunately, my Apple ID is registered in Japan, and Japan was not one of the countries where the program was available. So, I decided to make a new Apple ID and I took the Apple Teacher Certification.

I have gone through several tech certifications and after each one, I kept thinking how much better each would be if teachers got together and went through the certification together. I am not talking about the test, but rather the training that most certifications have to study for the test. I could see that some interesting conversations could come out of sharing experiences with each other.

We tried this at KAS with the Tech Ambassadors this year and it was awesome. One takeaway I had was to use Keynote's Instant Alpha for greenscreen images.

Apple's Planning Guide

Chrome Extensions for Learners

This post is out of date and my extensions have changed. The updated link to the extensions I have created is here.

Below is a screenshot of extensions I have installed in Chrome; these might be helpful to students.

Mercury Reader
Websites are getting better about design and making sure the pages are not cluttered. However, there are still some sites that are not reader-friendly and have additional content that distracts from the articles.

Mercury Reader is a Chrome Extension that cleans up websites and removes clutter to make websites easier to read.


Stay Focused   
Many students spend too much time on some sites. For some, it might be Facebook, others it might be a gaming site. The Stay Focused extension allows you to set the amount of time you want to spend on a site per day. When you are close to reaching the limit, you are warned, and after you exceed the limit, you are blocked from the site for the rest of the day.

While you can simply adjust the time allotted per day, or remove the extension, this could start a good conversation between parents and their kids.


Google Scholar Button
Google Scholar is a powerful way to find academic articles on any subject. The Chrome Extension gives you that functionality right in the browser so you don't have to leave your page.


See Google Similar Pages
Google Similar Pages gives you the power of Google to find a similar website that you are on. This is a great extension for research and finding multiple sources about a topic.


BS Detector
Fake news is in all the headlines recently. This extension will place a small red banner at the top of sites that are dubious, and explain why the site is being flagged.


WOT
Probably better than BS Detector because you don't need to explain the meaning. It also goes a little further and will show ratings for the websites next to the search results. Ratings are not always accurate though, so it is better to use this as a guide.


OneTab
How many times do you need to shut down your computer, but have a lot of tabs open and you don't want to lose them so your computer stays on for a week? One Tab allows you to save all open tabs to open later. Students could use this to save tabs they are looking at as a web page and share with peers.


Google Bookmarks or Diigo
I am torn between the two for bookmarking. (Actually, I have started using a Blogger blog connected to ifttt.com so I can save and tag all the interesting Tweets and make them more searchable. In the end, it is fewer clicks than opening a new tab and clicking to bookmark.)

I have both Google Bookmarks and Diigo installed. Each has strengths and I like that they give students a chance to practice curating their discoveries.


Send by Gmail

This is a goodie for anyone. Have you ever come across a web page that you want to share with a friend? Send by Gmail will send it to them through Gmail. Tweet this Page works similarly. 

Screencastify
Screencastify is the extension I recommend for students to do their screen recordings. I like that it has the option to add their picture in a corner, and saves to Google Drive or to YouTube.


Adblock for YouTube
Sometimes the ads on YouTube are inappropriate for students. This takes care of that.



Grammarly
Grammarly checks for spelling and grammar mistakes. As a bonus, it gamifies it a little by sending you a weekly summary of your statistics.


For teachers ...

EDPuzzle YouTube
EDPuzzle for YouTube gives you the opportunity to create an EDPuzzle lesson while in YouTube to save time.


There are many more extensions available, and more I have installed. These are just a few. If you want a quick way to create a Google Doc, Slide Presentation, or Sheet, I recommend:

          

Maker Club - A Year in Review

At KAS, teachers are required to coach a sport or supervise two activities a year. This year was an active one for me; I coached MS Softball and MS Soccer and did seven sessions of Maker Club at all levels.

KAS does not have a design thinking/maker culture, so part of the challenge was to create it.

This year's maker club schedule looked like this:

Elementary

Last year I was asked to do a tech-related club, so I started with an Elementary Coding Club. A few weeks into it, I was told that a few rambunctious Middle School Students were really good at coding and were far ahead of their classmates, so I thought it might be a good idea to enroll them to help with the club.

For them, it was a good way to help their self-esteem and give them a little leadership experience. For me, it was a good lesson in learning to help students structure lessons they give and give some "problem" students a chance to show their skills to younger students and hopefully increase their self-esteem.

This year I did one season of ES Maker Club. I had 11 students, then I was asked to take 16 more, I agreed, and it turned out a little chaotic. There were some students who really got into coding (they used their make club time to work more on the coding they were doing in IT class) and there were some students who got into the LEGO robots I brought in.

I tried a system where we took a class period to learn a new skill, then the next week we learned another, and students could choose between the two. I continued this way through the season, but the problem with this was students could not spend as much time with the skills I presented later in the club. Before the club-size more than doubled, I had intended to set up stations where students could do what they wanted.

Middle School

After School

When I got my student list for the MS, I was surprised to see that I only had two students. Reading the names, I saw they were both girls. This was interesting since I just had a cohort of too many students in ES and now I only had a pair of students.

What would I do with two girls?

I started off with the 3D pens. We then went on to using the small drone I have. I then gave them the task of choosing what they wanted to create and use their time after school to simply make things.

MS maker club of to a curvy start testing out the 3d pens #KAStw first attempt in learning

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 1, 2016 at 12:51am PDT

MS maker club

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Jan 24, 2017 at 7:50pm PST

Flex Time

Near the beginning of the season, I was asked to do a Marker Club for Middle School during the day, in Flex Time. Flex Time is once a week, and it is a time for students to try activities or clubs they are interested in.

High School

Student led lesson on hour to make headphones #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Dec 13, 2016 at 11:32pm PST

HS maker club learning about audio (student led learning) #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Dec 13, 2016 at 11:25pm PST

Last year I started the HS IT Club to give students a chance to explore what they wanted. Many days I would find students off task and the attendance was rather low on some days.

This year, I decided to shift the focus to more of a Maker Club, where they could have the time and space to explore IT concepts. It ended up being time well spent.

It was really cool to see students bring in projects they were working on, like the electric current gadget below, and show other students a new skill, like teaching them how to make headphones.

Some things students did were:

• fix the 3D Printer 
• assemble robots 
• play with robots 
• present to each other and make websites and headphones 
• take apart old equipment and explore their parts 
• experience a presentation by Acer

More importantly, students:

• formed friendships 
• found a space to socialize 
• sparked curiosity 
• gained confidence in themselves

Step 1: assemble Step 2: play #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Sep 21, 2016 at 12:38am PDT

HS maker club playing with electronics #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 8, 2016 at 11:59pm PST

I have two students in my maker club this session, both girls. They didn't know what they were getting into, but I'm glad they joined.

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 7, 2016 at 11:35pm PST

These students are using code to create their designs in Inkscape #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 7, 2016 at 10:30pm PST

Breaking out the robots in maker club #KAStw #maker

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Oct 18, 2016 at 1:37am PDT

Breaking out the robots in maker club #KAStw #maker

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Oct 18, 2016 at 1:37am PDT

Awesome first attempt using the 3d pen. It caught on with this g9 student. #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Oct 5, 2016 at 12:55am PDT

Connect with an Expert

Social media gives us the ability to talk in real time with others who might not be in our space. The hard part is determining the audience and how to reach them. #KAStw

A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on May 10, 2017 at 5:26pm PDT

Grade Seven is just starting an interdisciplinary unit with English and Science and talking about how to communicate science using social media.

The platform they will be using is Twitter, so I helped them set up their accounts. The two biggest issues we ran into were students who had previously signed up so their accounts are suspended and kids not having phone numbers.

For the students who have previously signed up, they will just have to open a new account. Students who do not have a phone will need to ask their parents to use their phone number as for verification.

So today the students [in Grade 7] all gathered in the Dining Hall to Skype with Sam Stacey, an expert in Social Media Marketing for different science organizations.

Students were able to ask and get an answer to, a variety of questions that were relevant to them and their project.

Allow students to communicate directly with experts to make a powerful learning experience.