January 8, 2017

Okay, so the new thing is to have Makerspace activities in the Innovation Center.  I consider myself a crafty person and even had puzzles and games prior to the whole movement of Makerspace.  I got on board with it….did I have a choice?  My goal on this page is to share my experiences on the Makerspace activities I have tried.  I would like to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

I created a Makerspace area in my library (Innovation Center).  I have a wonderful husband, who also teaches at my school, build two partitions out of PVC pipe.  I made curtains and tah-dah..we built boundaries.  I am lucky to have a huge library where I can create a space for these activities.  

I put an old computer table at the entrance so students can sign in if they participate in any of the Makerspace activities.  This is the ugly….I have a student assistant sit at the desk to help with this.  Why am I doing this?  I want to know how many students use this area.  Is it worth it?  I use ping pong balls to keep up with the number of students.  I will show a picture of this at a later date.  Will I do it next year?  I don’t think so.  It takes time for them to sign in (especially when a whole class comes in) and it is another task for me.  But hey, I am half way through the year!

Some activities have ended up outside of the boundaries, such as my eight MineCraft computers, my two Sphero 2.0 balls and now my quilting frame.  I still like my partitioned area because anyone coming into the Innovation Center can clearly see we have a special place set up for Makerspace.