Maker Movement is Significant for our Time...Do YOU Understand Why?
I had the opportunity to debrief my experiences in Washington DC with two assistant superintendents and three program directors from our district. After presenting my newfound credentials and talking about many educational initiatives that they should expect to see in the near future such as computer science and coding literacy, engineering design in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the Maker Movement. I was floored when one of them asked me what the Maker Movement was. It was then that I realized that I was not in Washington DC anymore. I had been extremely fortunate to have spent the past year in the educational epicenter of innovation, to have experienced and learned what I had, and I have since come to realize that sometimes people don't know what they don't know.The power to create our own learning experiences...
This young man from California got turned on to Making by attending a local Maker Faire and learning about the Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino is an open source electronics controller which allows developers to create custom computer controlled devices. An example of Arduino processing is the popular quadracopter drones which have an Arduino brain. This young man (Quin), goes on to show how he tricks out his garage with a 3D printer and laser engraver and trains other students on how to use the equipment to create projects. Quin then presented his passion for Making to the local school board and won over the superintendent with the amazing potential that the movement has for student engagement...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9lvW6ZY-Gs
White House Maker Faire
This past June the White House Office of Science and Technology hosted the first ever Maker Faire at the White House. President Obama made mention of the Faire several times during the lead up to the event. As members of the Einstein Fellows class of 2013-14, several of us worked very hard to present at the event and took the time to delve deep into the Maker Movement. In anticipation of the event The White House issued a Maker Fact Sheet detailing all the initiatives across our nation. The work of the Einstein Fellows was featured in the White House Press Release and Facts Sheet. Perhaps if district administrators had access to these proceedings they would better understand the significance of the Maker Movement so I am providing it here.White House Maker Faire Fact Sheet:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/18/fact-sheet-president-obama-host-first-ever-white-house-maker-faireMaker is really a reaction to our country loosing capacity to build things ourselves and desperately trying to reclaim our roots in industrial arts, manufacturing, and the simple human need to create and to learn and practice craftsmanship. I had the opportunity to address this disparity with the Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology while at the Koshland Science Center's "Making Education Great" Summit:
How Can Maker Work with CTE?
While the Maker Movement is exactly what the doctor ordered and 3D printing is on fire in educational technology circles, the deployment of this movement has been haphazard and fails to tap a ready source of trained industrial talent in our CTE programs across the nation. The DOE and ITEEA really need to get together and write into new legislation or tie into Perkins language to address this disparity. Since Tom invited my suggestions, I obliged, here is my question to him and my invited recommendations to the White House OSTP:
“We have seen the systematic dismantling nationwide of our school shop programs in past decades and are now waking up to the realization that we have a generation of youth that do not know how to make things. We have reduced the capacity of our country to train youth in the art and delight of making and have unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector as a result. To the extent that we need a maker movement to energize our country to the benefits of making is a sad commentary ...
Stephen Portz - Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow
... and hopefully is not too little too
late. As an early adopter of 3D
printing – I installed the first 3D printer in our district over ten years ago;
I have watched the maker movement with great interest. Despite the traction the maker movement is
getting I am concerned about sustainability.
What is this administration's overarching plan to revitalize our
nation's career and technical programs by funding strategies like Perkins,
workforce development, as well as curriculum development initiatives to support
making so that our students have the training to support this effort and keep
the momentum going?"
Your response made some great
connections with the movement, the challenges that manufacturing is
experiencing with the staffing of skilled workers, and the potential to bundle
the effort with CTE programs nationwide.
You mentioned in your response that you would be interested in knowing
what some of my ideas are that the Department of Education and the CTE community
could do to further the effort.
Thank you for this invitation, here
are some of my thoughts. I
believe the maker movement has the potential to bridge the gap that was left in
our country with the demise of shop programs but there are still barriers to
establishing a maker habit of mind that are not being addressed.
1. Barriers - Maker Needs a more formal educational approach
If you look at many maker initiatives, the movement is very informal, sometimes even haphazard – if we get a 3D printer for our classroom… if we designate a maker space in a library… if we hold a maker faire in our community… or if Tech Shop comes and opens a shop in our town… then our students will understand how to make. If I can draw upon the analogy that the President used when comparing Tech Shop to a gym membership – just because a gym is in town doesn’t mean the community is going to get fit. None of these activities by themselves will create a generation of makers without the formal education piece to provide training on how to be makers. In many ways the skills of making today far surpass the shop skills of yesterday, with their band saws, welding, and auto shop. Making today involves students learning 3D CAD Modeling because it is the gateway to accessing desktop manufacturing. 3D design is a complex engineering skill that requires very high order processing. Likewise are the skills of design for manufacturing and industrial design for product development. As a result, I find there is a void and that no one seems to be suggesting any formal basic skills training for our students to support making in the 21st Century.
2. There is precedence in history that we can use to benefit the movement
You often hear policy people talk about the democratization
of manufacturing and technology.
Essentially what they are saying is that with open source design,
desktop manufacturing, and electronics control, more and more people are able
to access the tools of product design and innovation. With this access, they can be makers, they can invent, they can
be entrepreneurs, and they can be job creators and not just job seekers. The convergence of technologies which are
facilitating the desktop manufacturing and maker movement bear striking
similarity to the revolution in desktop publishing which occurred during the
80s and 90s. But just as giving access to the tools of desktop publishing
didn’t make people graphic artists or make for good print copy, giving students
the tools of desktop manufacturing is not enough to turn them into makers. It was
not until we created and implemented an associated CTE training program in
graphic arts that we began to raise a generation of students that could do work
in the media. A strategy to develop
curriculum and deploy programs to teach product design, mechatronics, and
desktop manufacturing is essential because the tools of making are much more
sophisticated and daunting than the tools of desktop publishing ever were.
3. There are powerful social and behavioral aspects at play here.
It is interesting to me that the equipment that you would
find in a Tech Shop or FabLab are many of the same kinds of tools you would see
in a CTE technology education program today – where they exist. A 3D printer for rapid prototyping of design
ideas is the modern equivalent of school shop prototyping which was
accomplished in the day using machine tools.
In fact, the 3D printing process also goes by the term “additive
manufacturing.” But the Maker Movement
is so hip, avant-garde, and has a trendy college prep look and feel about it
that most people do not even associate it with manufacturing – which
traditionally has been the purvey of CTE programs. A considerable factor that played into the demise of school shop
programs was the rise of college prep programs and the notion that “CTE
programs are alright for other people’s kids, but not mine, mine are going to
college.” This notion even permeates the policy speak of today where Maker
Movement is compared to the “chemistry set” of bygone days. The notion here I presume, in that period of
time, the children of professionals played with chemistry sets, while the shop
kids tinkered with automobiles in the family driveway. Interesting that I do
not remember any great engineers, architects, product designers, or
entrepreneurs indicating that the secret of their success was that they had a
chemistry set when they were a kid. I
do hear them mention a lot about having access to legos, erector, and other
types of building sets. Steve Jobs
referenced his Heathkit, but not a chemistry set. I suspect that a chemistry set plays better with the college prep
crowd and does not scare people into thinking their children are actually
learning about manufacturing or getting involved in a CTE program. I raise this issue because one, I see this as
a significant psychological barrier to infuse making into our nation’s
consciousness and two, providing the movement with the necessary educational
scaffolding through CTE programs is
essential to properly train our students.
4. The Maker Movement, without a formal education strategy, will widen the gap of the “haves” and “have nots” even more
The notion of placing maker tools in public spaces like
libraries is interesting to me because I personally would like to see more
access to them for myself and for others.
But if the idea is that somehow providing access is the same as
providing accessibility, the strategy is ill conceived. Living in DC this year, my family and I have
been amazed at all the informal educational experiences that are available
here. Having moved from the Orlando
area, the fact that these experiences are all free boggles the mind. So if you are looking for evidence to
support the effectiveness of informal educational strategies, one needs to look
no further than the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. It is perhaps the informal education Mecca
of the world. Yet in the shadows of this most amazing educational resource are
some of the most educationally impoverished children in our nation. The fact that the equivalent of an informal education PhD is free and less than a mile or two
away for many of these children has done little to help them and should put to
rest forever the notion that informal education is effective for all student
populations. This is the difference
between access and accessibility.
Clearly, informal education is only effective for students that come
from backgrounds that value and support learning in this way. Similarly, hoping for family or community
support to assist were both is lacking is not tenable. Students who report success in informal
making relied on support from a community of likeminded makers, mentorship, and
access to tools in the home. Due to
these circumstances, students that tend to benefit most from informal education
in the making movement are already well supported in their learning
activities. So again we see that
without formal training strategies in our schools, informal education is no
silver bullet for many of the populations we would hope to benefit most from
this effort.
Solutions
1. Working
closely with manufacturing and industry, develop new CTE programs of study
which focus broadly on the skills of making and not just industry specific
skills. For example we should teach
students how to prototype potential products using a variety of methods, CNC
machining, 3D printing, vacuum forming, plastic and foam molding and modeling,
etc… so we are teaching the concept of prototyping and not just a skill
specific process.
2. Train
and deploy a new generation of CTE trained professional educators with an
emphasis in teaching desktop manufacturing, industrial and product design, and
mechatronics.
3. Revitalize
CTE programs nationwide; gear them up with the charge of 21st
Century making. Place these maker
spaces firmly in the center of our schools as hubs for all academic programs
and not as the place where non college prep students go for their programs of
study. The activities and products of these CTE programs should be the focus of
our STEM effort. The E (Engineering)
and T (Technology) parts of STEM need to be recognized as the true purpose and
integration ingredient of our student’s academic skills – just like it is in
our industries. Make these school maker
space hubs accessible after hours for students to work on personal projects of
passion - the essence of innovation in our society. Giving students the formal training and access to the tools of
innovation will greatly accelerate the technological development in our
country.
These are my thoughts and ideas. If I can be of any further help, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Stephen Portz
