Facing History Together

Teachers, here’s a powerful opportunity to engage your students in a shared mission of creating a better future with human flourishing for all. Face the Future: A game for social change.

Set in the year 2026, the game imagines the future of empathy and social change. It explores how new technologies may make it possible for us to *literally* feel each others’ feelings as if they were our own. If you are a middle-years or high school teacher, please sign up for more information and please SHARE THIS WITH YOUR NETWORK! The online game will take place November 13–14, 2016.

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MAKE

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As Solnit (2013) shares in in The Faraway Nearby, “to become a maker is to make the world for others, not only the material world but the world of ideas that rules over the material world, the dreams we dream and inhabit together.”

What are you making? What are you sharing? What’s your story?

MAKE is a collection of creative and intellectual works (artifacts, stories, poetry, photography, ethnodrama, and research) by a team of teachers engaged in the art of making meaning together. We welcome you to join us in our journey, “let us take what we have learned from our courses and from each other and fly on eagles’ wings to (s)p(l)aces beyond our imagination” (Stuart, 2016).

Download MAKE from iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1093003369

Authors: EDCP 508 Collective
Editor: Paula MacDowell
Publication Date: March 13, 2016
Format: Interactive, multi-touch eBook

A place for wonder, creativity & discovery

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“The child starting school this year will graduate in the 3rd decade of the 21st century, a world that will have challenges and opportunities beyond what we can imagine today, with possibilities and problems that will demand creativity, ingenuity, responsibility, and compassion. Whether this year’s student will merely survive or positively thrive in the decades to come depends in large measure on the experiences he has in school”

OWP/P Architects, VS Furniture, & Bruce Mau Design. (2010). The third teacher: 79 ways you can use design to transform teaching and learning. New York, NY: Abrams Books.

Kids speak out on student engagement in Edutopia (2015): “I think having freedom in assignments, project directions, and more choices would engage students. More variety = more space for creativity.”

To what extent do students need/deserve:
1. Freedom
2. Choice
3. Variety
4. Creativity
5. Engagement

Lessons in creativity from Star Wars

“It’s easy to look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and assume that the creative team had some kind of crazy competitive advantage in coming up with ideas. After all, it’s the latest edition of the world’s most popular movie series that sets the standards for special effects. Maybe they got a head start down the road of Good Ideas? Perhaps, they used The Force?” Matt McCue

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has completed principal photography. ..#TheForceAwakens #StarWarsVII

Lessons in creativity from The Little Prince

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The big lesson of The Little Prince: (Re)capture the creativity of childhood

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Questions for creative teachers

How do you nurture and sustain a culture of creativity in your classroom? How do you support and encourage your students to be curious and feel empowered to solve problems in unique and innovative ways?7494885_orig

Give me an example of creativity in your curriculum and pedagogy. What have you done lately that’s creative?

How do we foster innovation in formal education institutions? What are the barriers to creative learning methods and practices in your school?

How do you respond to Margaret Wheatley’s assertion: “The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity?”

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What are makerspaces?

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There is no need to reinvent the wheel!

MakerLabs is a 26,000 square foot makerspace in Vancouver that provides you with the tools, space, and skills to make almost anything.

Maker Mobile is a travelling classroom, hackspace, workshop, art studio, and laboratory on wheels.

The Tiny Community Centre is the world’s smallest mobile classroom, artist residency, and curiosity cabinet! Built using waste and recycled materials, the Centre provokes visitors to examine the waste generated in their own lives and consider how it can be re-purposed to create positive social change.

Vancouver Hive Learning Pop-Up This annual event is a celebration of hands-on digital literacy and an opportunity to learn about the city’s various learning pathways. The pop-up makerspace is a creativity-inspiring experience for makers of all ages.

Vancouver Public Library’s Inspiration Lab is dedicated to digital creativity, collaboration, and storytelling. It offers sound studios, high-performance computers, video editing, self-publishing software, and thousands
of online video tutorials on design, video, photography, production, and more.

Instructables is an online makerspace where you can make & share EVERYTHING: technology, workshop, craft, home, food, play, outside, costumes <Spectrum LED> <toddie123>

Why do makerspaces matter?

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Fleming, L. (2015). Worlds of Making: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

What are the dilemmas of maker culture?

What are the ethical dilemmas and moral questions raised by the rise of maker culture? Is our current moral and ethical framework compatible with the maker movement? Are we developing a moral and ethical framework as quickly as our technological capacities are evolving?

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The maker education movement

All children deserve opportunities to be the creators of the technologies that create our world, as well as to take part in changing who controls, leads, and owns our future.

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“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other” Paulo Freire

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