I have really enjoyed my time being part of the MAET Year One Summer Hybrid Cohort. (That is a mouthful!) As part of our Innovative Learning Project, we collaborated on building a website that explains the technologies associated with Maker Spaces and the Maker Movement. We also each designed a lesson that incorporates ideas used by the Maker Movement so that that can be shared with the Maker and educational community. When designing my lesson, I always had in the back of my mind that there are not a lot of activities available for World Language teachers wanting to use Maker tools and technologies. In my lesson students are using Ozobots to practice story-telling, experience coding and giving and understanding directions. As we know, giving and receiving directions is something important that we do on a regular basis in society. Talking about directions is also part of a larger unit I teach in Spanish 2 about traveling. I am excited that this lesson includes newer technology and that my students will get to experience coding. When the Innovative Learning Project was first introduced to year one students, I was very intimidated by it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what would qualify as an innovative lesson using all these technologies that had been introduced to us, so there was a bit of a panic that happened. However, after we talked about things as a cohort, met with the MAET year 2 students and had some more readings and information that we learned, it seemed like creating this lesson was much more doable. I didn’t know much about Ozobots before creating this lesson, so it was fun to jump in and play with a new technology. I also learned about how to look and design this lesson from a maker viewpoint. I was hung up on students making or creating something because in my mind it needed to be something physical, however, the year 2 students pointed out that by writing/designing a story, students were absolutely creating something - it just wasn’t tangible. The creation of the larger Maker website has been fairly straightforward and user friendly. Weebly has a multiple editor option which has made it super streamlined for everyone in year one to collaborate on building our website about Makerspaces. WIth Makerspace being such a new and emerging movement, I think its hard right now to find lessons that connect to all subject areas, so I am hopeful a World Language teacher somewhere will find our site and my activity and be able to use it in their classroom. I think the website will be something very valuable moving forward. Overall, I think there is value in the Maker Movement. Having students create, question and work with their hands is a great tactile way to make connections to areas of study. That being said, I think the maker movement does probably lend itself to some subject areas better than others. I am not sure the Maker movement has a place in every classroom. I ultimately found what I consider to be a fun and unique way to use Maker technology in the Ozobots, however, I am not sure I could replicate an activity like that multiple times. The biggest take away I have had so far from this program and as a result of this project was redefining my scope of how I look at educational technology. Technology ultimately can be repurposed to fit whatever your needs are in the classroom. Halverson and Sheridan (2004) note that in Maker spaces “the focus in design for learning needs to be on the process and the product, not the tools.” (p. 499) Designing my activity and seeing other’s activities was a really great way to see this represented in a real world, real classroom context. I thought the lesson that was done involving the reforming of cups (check it out here) was a perfect example of repurposing something to fit your needs in the classroom. A cup isn’t typically a piece of technology, but in the nature of this lesson it a very useful technology. With this newfound mindset, as a teacher I will allow my students to question things a bit more and try and design more activities that allow them to question and create within the realm of possibility in my classroom. I have never been an educator who uses technology for the sake of technology (and I still won’t be), but moving forward I am going to try and keep a better eye out for objects and technologies that can be repurposed with an educational lens. For anyone who is interested in using maker tools, I would tell them that the sky's the limit! As long as students are creating and questioning in some way, your activity can be considered to be part of the maker framework. Your student’s creation doesn’t need to be tangible, they can create stories or songs or (more) ideas. I would also recommending erring on the side of time. You can never have too much time when trying new and innovative activities for the first time, especially with students who are enthusiastic about various maker tools. References Halverson, E.R. & Sheridan, K. (2014). The maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495-465.
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