Category Archives: Maker

2014 Conference on Design Principles and Practices

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At the Eighth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, Serveh Naghshbandi presented our initial findings from Maker Day 2013. A short video explaining the day  and our abstract below provides more information. Looking forward to your comments, Serveh, Susan and Deb.

Drawing from the Maker Movement and design thinking, we hosted Maker Day 2013 as a professional development activity for K-9 educators. The goal was to introduce educators to design thinking, making and tinkering. Maker Day was an opportunity for educators to experience fully the participatory design cycle by engaging in the iterative Stanford d.school’s design thinking model. We created a problem scenario and asked facilitators to guide the educators through the design process. The educators used the main scenario in collaboration with each other to gain empathy for the person they were designing. Then, they made one prototype per group, using the materials provided. Prototypes were the solutions to the problems that participants identified and defined. After engaging in the participatory design project, each group displayed their prototype and shared their design process and ideas on how this experience could integrate in their own professional practices.

 

Maker Day Tool Kit – Revised July 2014

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Epublication:

To download a pdf of Maker DayToolKit (as of Mar.27/2014)

Thanks to excellent collaboration and support from Erin Johnson and her team at Industry Training Authority (ITA – http://www.itabc.ca/ ) and Nancy Darling and her team from the Women in Trades program at Okanagan College, the ILC hosted Maker Day 2013.

Educators, Ministry of Education folks, ITA folks all came together to design, tinker and create.  The following resources were development to help others create their own Maker Day events.  Use and enjoy!!!

If you downloaded this resource earlier – this is a new version as of July 7, 2014
Creative Commons License
Maker Day Tool Kit by Dr. Susan Crichton and Deb Carter, PhD (C) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

From the ePub

What is a Maker Day? (pp. 4-5)

1. Making a Case for Making (pp. 6-10)

2. Background to Design Thinking (pp. 11-13)

3. Annotated Reference List (pp. 14-17)

4. Globe and Mail: “Where did all our skilled workers go?” (pp. 18-19)

How to plan and host a Maker Day

5. Checklist for planning a Maker Day (pp.20-21)

6. Draft Agenda (p. 22-23)

7. Group Facilitators’ Roles and Responsibilities (pp. 24-29)

8. Designing a problem Sketch (pp. 30-33)

9. Problem Sketch (pp. 34-36)

What is needed to host a Maker Day?

10. Facilitator Guide (p. 37)

11. Facilitator Checklist (pp. 37-38)

12. Participant Guide (p. 39)

13. Design Thinking Resources (p. 39)

14. Reflection Panel (p. 40)

15. Participant Groups’ Kit Contents (p. 41)

16. Maker Day Tool Crib (p. 41)

Resources to Support Your Maker Day

17. Hatch: Maker Movement Manifesto (p. 43)

18. What Makes a Good Project? (p. 44)

19. Ice Breaker (p. 45) 

We did the low-tech social networking activity.  It worked well.  We invited participants to make their initial contributions during the registration process and before the event actually started.  We encouraged them to revisit the activity during the day to make additional connections.  Make sure to use paper that is more SQUARE than linear to encourage a range of connections.  unfortunately, we used a long piece of paper and the connections were harder to make.

Appendix

20. Required Materials (pp. 46-49)

Word documents are provided in #15 and #16 above.

Additional Resources

These resources (not in ePub or printed Maker Day Toolkit) have been gathered during multiple formal and informal discussions of Maker Day Toolkit

IDEO Human-Centred Design (HCD) Kit

Note: To download free resource (bottom left hand corner), you are asked to join  HCD Connect (free)

IDEO Design Thinking for Educators

From the website: This toolkit contains the process and methods of design along with the Designer’s Workbook, adapted specifically for the context of K-12 education.

Stanford d.school Wallet Project

Links on this page includes Gift Giving Project, the Wallet Project pdf and Design Process Mini Guide

Suggested by teachers in EDST 498O class during Summer Institute in Education 2014

Buck Institute for Education (BIE) Problem Based Learning (PBL)

 All about PBL including a Project Search curated by BiE. From the website: At the Buck Institute for Education (BIE), our highest priority is to help teachers prepare students for successful lives … As a mission-driven nonprofit organization, BIE creates, gathers, and shares high-quality PBL instructional practices and products and provides highly effective services to teachers, schools, and districts.

Catalyst for Science

From the website: Catalyst for Science provides an online collection of science-based resources primarily for BC teachers, and shares these resources with non-formal educators, parents and students … Example: Easy Squeasy Circuits