Friday, March 28, 2014

Thinking About Our New Makerspace.....Bringing It Online With The "Digital Makerspace" Too

As we get ready to create and introduce our brand new Makerspace in the Van Meter School Library, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the online presence and place for creativity, imagination, building, and innovation online too. 

Even though our young people will not always be in the space within the library, there are so many amazing resources that we can put into their hands to give them the tools, ideas, and inspiration to create a Makerspace anywhere they might be.  
 They have Make Projects,
Better Homes and Garden Make It,
 Ravelry,
and dozens of new books about cooking, origami, recycled crafting, collage, photography, and lots of others that we can't even keep on the shelf.  

One great thing....A lot of our new maker books are eBooks so they are always available.  

So over break, I started a Smore all about our Makerspace at Van Meter and made sure I paid lots of attention to the Digital Makerspace. 

As our Makerspace in the library takes shape, we will also be putting together schedules for all kinds of special time such as Maker Lunch Bunch, Maker Mondays, and Maker-The-Time, which will be included here too.  Please check back for these in a few days for these schedule and other information. 

Until then, enjoy our Digital Makerspace and all of the places to go to be a maker anytime, anyplace, and anywhere. 
             

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this post about the work you are doing with your library and Makerspace. I especially like the idea of the digital component to it - it's something that I should put together for my school's makerspace.

    I've seen a number of the resources that you shared, but some of them are new to me. I might suggest one more for you: DIY.org. It is a website for kids that's full of many different DIY challenges that they can complete. They can even get accounts to showcase their work and earn badges once they complete enough challenges.

    And even if your students don't make accounts, you can always use if for project ideas in your new space.

    Good luck, and thanks again for sharing!

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  2. I love the digital makerspace idea! I wanted to share an idea back. I have rain gutters in my makerspace where I put "Take and Make" projects. This started because kids would miss a workshop and they still wanted the info. (Like how did you make that swanky duct tape wallet?) So I began printing some instructions and putting them in Magazine binders. Now I have a wall with low tech makes like foldable bookmarks, stuffed monsters, and high tech makes like coding sites, etc.

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