The Maker Movement: White House Google + Hangout

On Student-Centered/Created, Exploratory Learning Experiments (Submitted by Jim Ross)

At the Speed of Learning Posted: 20 Mar 2013 03:21 PM PDT My third graders have been studying the Iditarod race and tracking musher data online during the past few weeks.  Take a look at the data available on the mushers, like first place winner Mitch  Seavey.   Graphing, data analysis, addition, subtraction, addition, averages, and so much more become real as students follow the race online, tracking their own selected musher.  As a part of the study, we built our own sleds.  I cleaned out the art supplies and covered an entire table with random stuff. Popsicle sticks. Cardboard. Cotton. Yarn. Bubble Wrap. Recycled items.  The goal?  To build a sled that would carry a small bag of musher supplies (bingo chips) down the hill (a table leaned down on two legs) at the fastest speed possible.  The class dove into the supplies, building, researching sled designs, and recreating their own little sleds in small teams. When we raced? The sleds with cotton on the bottom hesitated to start.  The sleds with wood bottoms? Zoomed to the bottom.  Friction. Force. Motion. Energy. Collaboration. Data. The reflections afterward? They not only understood friction, but they applied it to their own experiences.  All of this from a pile of craft supplies, a real-life race, and morning spent creating and exploring.   Even better? They applied what they learned to the real sleds on snow, ice, and rock mushing  through Alaska. I could have given them a pattern to follow. I could have just asked them to just read a chapter about force and motion and write some defintions.  I could have even made a sled and demonstrated for them. Instead? I got out of their way.  A pile of materials engaged them, and our race at the end allowed them to make comparisons, draw conclusions, and keep it real.  They were solving problems, working as a team, and creating.  They were learning.

Connected Learning, Out-of-School - Experiences & Networks (MacArthur Foundation)

Research: Education Could Use More 'Connected Learning'

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/17/13

The possibilities inherent in digital learning won't in and of themselves flatten the global playing field for students, according to new research, unless we first give attention to the idea of creating "connected learning environments." These are learning environments in which everyone can participate, learning happens by doing, cultivation of interests is paramount, and everything is interconnected. What gets in the way is a down economy with a struggling labor market, a growing gap in access to educational opportunities based on how much a family is able to spend on its children for "out-of-school enrichment activities," and the impact that a rapidly evolving and highly commercialized media separated from academic purpose is having on young people.

A group of American and British researchers have put together a reportthat advocates for a design for learning that is "peer supported," "interest-powered," and "academically oriented." The point is to help young people link personal interests, often pursued online, to academic and career endeavors and civic engagement with the help of friends and "caring" adults.

"Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design," published by the Connected Learning Research Network, is designed to give educators, policy makers, parents, and others a framework for rethinking how education might be molded to connect individual interests with academic and work achievement in order to help young people overcome adversity and attain the kind of recognition that can make a difference in their lives.

Among the recommendations offered by the report's authors: "Close the gap between the no-frills learning that too often happens in-school and the interactive, hands-on learning that usually takes place out of school. Take advantage of the Internet's ability to help youth develop knowledge, expertise, skills and important new literacies. [And] use digital technology to combat the increasing reality of the haves and have-nots in education."

The stakes are high, suggested Mimi Ito, chair of the Research Network and a professor in residence at the University of California, Irvine. "Without a proactive educational reform agenda that begins with questions of equity, leverages both in-school and out-of-school learning, and embraces the opportunities new media offers for learning, we risk a growth in educational alienation among our most vulnerable populations."

Research: Education Could Use More 'Connected Learning'

• 01/17/13

Although new media offers "tremendous potential" for advancing learning, she added, "Right now, it's only the most activated and well-supported learners who are using connected learning to boost their learning and opportunity."

What does connected learning look like? As an example, the report offers the story of "Clarissa," a 17-year-old who grew up in a "working class" suburb of San Francisco. Along with a couple of friends, she was heavily involved in an online role playing Web site, Faraway Lands, where she spent a lot of time developing lengthy written descriptions of characters, including their history and location. "It's something I can do in my spare time, be creative and write and not have to be graded," because, "you know how in school you're creative, but you're doing it for a grade so it doesn't really count?" Clarissa told her researcher. Encouraged by peers on the site, the teenager converted some of the results of her writing into a screenplay for a school assignment and then used samples from her work as part of college applications. She ended up being accepted to two private colleges, one in Boston and the other in Orange, CA.

Other examples profile:

• A self-employed Web comics artist who found his passion online and taught himself how to create his own comics through a variety of online tutorials, reporting that he learned "few of his current skills in the formal educational context";
• A Manhattan public school that dedicates two weeks at the end of each trimester to putting student teams in charge of learning activities, which may include building Rube Goldberg machines, writing and performing short plays, putting on outdoor games, and building sculptures from recycled materials; and
• A sixth grade fan of online video game Minecraft, who was encouraged by teachers to help set up a school Minecraft club and do creative writing in class about it.

In most of the profiles, the young people have cobbled together a learning environment that combines their online interests with peer feedback and academic activities.

The report's authors state that the design of connected learning environments follows three principles: They're production-centered with access to digital tools for producing and creating content in a myriad of ways; they have a "shared purpose," that brings together people of all ages and cultures around "common goals and interests"; and they're "openly networked," using online platforms and digital tools to make learning resources available to everybody.

"Connected learning is about progress and it's about something everyone in education agrees is urgent and important--the unprecedented opportunity we're seeing to rethink an approach to education where all young people can realize their learning potential and their right to thrive," said Connie Yowell, director of education at the MacArthur Foundation, which supports the Research Network. "In today's networked world that is so rich in social connection, we have been handed the ability to suddenly be able to make hands-on, real-world, inquiry-based learning far more accessible. It's not a question of how we can achieve this--we have that in our sights now--it's a question of will."

Maker Movement/Spaces

The Maker Movement Comes Alive

inShare

OCT 22 2012, 11:41 AM ET

Advances in technology have helped people create items using affordable 3D printers, bringing them back to their DIY roots.

Creative people and consumers around the world are embracing the "Maker  Movement," a term that defines the practices and habits of millions of people who are returning to pre-industrial roots by self-producing everything from robots to handmade crafts.

The trend's momentum has been documented in the book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, released Oct. 2.

Makers' tools of production are epitomized by the rise of 3D printers that have become affordable for the masses. However, despite such advances, many people lack the time, tools, or creativity necessary for the Do It Yourself (DIY) culture.

In addition to online homemade crafts giant Etsy, startups are taking advantage of this trend by offering consumers the "maker" experience by combining their ideas and dollars with those who can turn them into reality. One site, Quirky, allows its community of "inventors" to submit ideas that they'd like to turn into products. If the idea gets enough traction, Quirky works to mass-produce the item and sell it through its retail partners. (The "inventor" keeps a royalty from the sales.)

Makeably, the newest site to enter the market, was founded by two long-time ex-Googlers, Anastasia Leng and Ryan Hayward. Leng says, "We enable our users to work with makers to create custom objects, including art, home decorations, accessories, and unique wedding pieces. Users browse from hundreds of 'custom project templates' submitted by their curated network of makers and collaborate with a maker of their choice to turn their idea into reality."

In addition to these sources, Kickstarter and other crowd-funding platforms have given inventors the funds they need to create the products they envision. 

But online retailing isn't everything, as community interaction forms a major component of the Maker Movement. Sonja Rasula runs StateOfUnique.com and organizes events that connect makers with consumers, such as her upcoming Unique NYC. She said, "While the Maker Movement traditionally refers to people creating DIY technology-based products and solutions, in my world the Maker Movement is much larger and more diverse. To me, a maker is someone who solves their own problems, uses do-it-yourself methods, forges their own path, and is quite simply passionate about creating things."

Ryan Blumstein, 27, who co-founded Surface Grooves LLC with his fiancee Elissa Masin, 28, recently exhibited home furnishing and lighting products at New York City's Maker Faire. He said, "The Maker Faire was a great representation of different people creating new and fresh experiences. It brings the community together through education and innovation."

As at-home creative technologies become better and cheaper, traditional retailers may face increased competition from both the little guys and producer-consumers.

Building a Networked R&D Collaboratory (Overview: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) Submitted by Jim Ross

Getting Ideas Into Action: Building Networked Improvement Communities in Education (PDF)

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/sites/default/files/bryk-gomez_building-nics-education.pdf?utm_source=Ready+News+D3+-+13&utm_campaign=Ready+News&utm_medium=email

"While innovations abound in education, we argue that the field suffers from a lack of purposeful
collective action. Instead, actors work with different theories of the same problem, activities are
siloed, and local solutions remain local."

"In this essay, we focus on an alternative social organization for this activity network: How might
one structure and guide the varied and multiple associated efforts necessary to sustained
collective action toward solving complex improvement problems?"

"Open networks abound in education. In the main, they function as free-floating idea bazaars,
contexts for self-expression, and places to share information. In fact, the current social
organization of educational R&D functions much like an open network. It is characterized by a
multitude of voices lobbying for preferred approaches, but with weak mechanisms for directing
intentional action that cumulates in coherent solutions to complex problems. In this regard,
educational R&D’s inability to orchestrate such improvement is akin to a market failure."

"The terrain for possible innovation is vast and complex. The roadmap organizes the challenges to be confronted in this space in agreed upon ways. It establishes standards for how developments in different domains must fit together, and then sets micro-targets, domain by domain. In these ways the roadmap helps to coordinate he activity so that different innovations in hardware and software can be expected to interoperate at designated times in the future. In the industry’s view, road mapping is a “practicalapproach to deal with the complex process of technological innovation” (Schaller 2004:13). In essence, the roadmap reshapes accountability relationships that go beyond the confines of an individual firm or laboratory (Schaller 2004). Participants, both individuals and firms, are not autonomous actors operating within a disconnected marketplace. Rather, they form a densely connected network of peers who share a focused interest in common regions of the roadmap."

Absent a working theory of the whole, interventions fail because of externalities not considered (also known as implementation failures), even though these are often predictable. For example, curriculum
interventions often fail because of inadequate professional development. At base here is a natural human tendency to grasp for promising solutions or best practices without fully understanding how such solutions must be integrated with other solutions and pre-existing organizational conditions.

(21st Century Digital Learning Environments Process - Similar to Roadmap & Driver Diagram presented by Carnegie - our graphics designed to aid this process)

RoadmapDriver Diagram

"In general, a driver diagram has three key elements: targets, primary drivers, and secondarydrivers. The target is one of the community’s agreed upon outcomes from the program improvement map. The primary drivers are the major causal explanations hypothesized to produce currently observed results. Secondary drivers, in contrast, are interventions in the system aimed at advancing improvement toward targets."

***** "In principle, each cycle propels some bit of local learning. When parallel development activities occur in different sites at the same time, a network can learn from the ensemble of these experiences."

******* "This practice of learning through doing enlivens the mantra of continuous improvement that deficits are a treasure. Each process failure provides an opportunity to learn and to improve both locally and network wide."

******** "Applied research in education today has become hyper-concerned with the internal validity of the individual field trial. Treatises on modern causal inference place primacy on the word cause while largely ignoring concerns about the applicability of findings to varied people, places and circumstances. In contrast, improvement research must take this on as a central concern if its goal is useable knowledge to inform broad scale change. This consideration has important implications."