Blog Post 8: Budget-Friendly Makerspaces!

Image created by Rachel Shearer on Canva.

As I watched this week’s lecture and did this week’s readings, I was floored by how incredible some of the featured makerspaces were. (And as a resident of Columbia, I was excited to see my local library featured! I love the Richland Library.) However, like many of you, I kept thinking about the cost of these spaces and how I can’t imagine dropping several thousand dollars on a space that I don’t know will be successful. What are some ways to create a budget-friendly makerspace, particularly for middle school?

Luckily, there is no shortage of ideas. I found some great ones from Edutopia. One post I found is all about middle school makerspaces, and while some of the items on the list are a bit pricey, there are some great affordable ones as well, including writable desk surfaces, dry-erase walls, quadrille pads, and dollar store items. As makerspaces have shifted to a STEM discovery model (Fontichiaro, 2019, p. 51), these affordable tools still allow students to create and discover in the same way a 3-D printer or a Raspberry Pi would, except for several hundred dollars less. 

Edutopia also has an entire post dedicated to the use of origami in schools, which is another great budget-friendly activity for a makerspace. Origami, which is Japanese art of paper folding, beautifully marries math and art. It would be great to use with students learning geometry and fractions, and it could specifically appeal to more artistically-minded students who struggle with math.

Step-by-step images for how to make an origami boat. Source: NEWRITA - STOCK.ADOBE.COM

Fontichiaro also writes that it’s important to intentionally select different tools across grade levels in order to have long-term sustainability of the makerspace (Fontichiaro, 2019, p. 51), and selecting more affordable options would make that much easier. Differentiating tools across grade levels would also be a great opportunity for collaboration with classroom teachers (which would also likely help with buy-in)! Science and math teachers could collaborate with the school librarian to plan what types of tools would be most applicable to what students learn at each grade level. 

Makerspaces are going to look different at every school or library, as discussed in research done by Heather Moorefield-Lang and Megan Coker (2019, p. 374). In an ideal world, every library would have the funds to provide all the tech that patrons could possibly want, but this is almost never the case (especially for school libraries). These budget-friendly ideas outlined by Edutopia are a great way to get a makerspace started at your school, especially one that aligns with the ideas mentioned in research done by Kristin Fontichiaro. I hope you give them a try!

References

Fontichiaro, K. (2019, Apr.). What I’ve learned from 7 years of the maker movement in schools and libraries. Teacher Librarian, 46(4), 51-53.

Jarrett, K. (2015, December 4). Middle school maker journey: Top 20 technologies and tools. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/making-makerspace-top-20-technologies-tools-kevin-jarrett

Moorefield-Lang, H., & Coker, M. (2019). How to make a maker librarian. Journal of New Librarianship, 4(SI), 371–379. https://doi.org/10.21173/newlibs/7/9

Ramirez, A. (2015, April 29). 5 reasons why origami improves students' skills. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-origami-improves-students-skills-ainissa-ramirez

Blog Post 7: Cyberbullying & Creating a Better Generation of Digital Citizens

Though I’ve always known that cyberbullying was an issue, I don’t think I was aware of the scope until reading Faucher, Cassidy, & Jackson’s 2015 study, “From the Sandbox to the Inbox: Comparing the Acts, Impacts, and Solutions of Bullying in K-12, Higher Education, and the Workplace.” I was disturbed to learn that the researchers discovered the issue of cyberbullying is much larger than I thought. Lots of different studies were referenced in this article, but somewhere around 40% of K-12 students are victims of cyberbullying (p. 115), around 25-62% of university students are victims (p. 116), and around 37-52% of adults in the workplace have experienced cyberbullying (p. 116). As an adult who’s experienced workplace bullying, I wasn’t surprised that it exists, but I was by the extent. I thoroughly concur with the authors of the study that a more concerted approach to cyberbullying prevention is needed (p. 120). 

So, how can this be done? I was very interested and encouraged by the Digital Citizenship Project discussed in Jon Orech’s 2012 article on incorporating digital citizenship into everyday curriculum. I like the idea of older students serving as mentors to younger students; I think a lot of people underestimate the impact and influence that high school students have on middle and elementary students. I loved seeing the example responses from students and how they talked to each other, and I think this is a great way to help combat cyberbullying.

I would love to implement some kind of Digital Citizenship Project in my own school; ideally, it would be a district-wide project that includes middle and high schoolers like the one in Illinois (Orech, 2012). Students are much more likely actually improve their behavior online if they have a high school mentor helping them rather than a teacher. At the very least, it could be implemented at just a singular school by having older students in the school mentor younger ones. 

I think it’s hard for students to meaningfully learn about cyberbullying from teachers because they perceive us as being out of touch and not understanding what it’s like to be young and online. In actuality, as more and more members of Gen Z enter the educational profession, students are surrounded by more and more people who actually have experienced being online as a kid. I was born in 1995, and I got my first social media account when I was 13. I remember rolling my eyes when teachers talked about online etiquette. It’s not that I was unaware to the dangers of the Internet, but I cringed to hear teachers lecture me and my classmates about using something they didn’t have at our age. My middle school students likely don’t realize that I and their other young Millennial/older Gen Z teachers actually do know what it’s like to be online at their age. I think this is something that I and other educators my age should capitalize on when we talk about cyberbullying and Internet safety.

Reading and engaging with the sources this week really opened my eyes to just how massive the issue of cyberbullying is. I want to educate students about it, but I worry that they won’t take an adult seriously, just like I didn’t when I was their age. I hope that some combination of peer mentoring and educator-led instruction can help create a more responsible generation of digital citizens.

References

Faucher, C., Cassidy, W., & Jackson, M. (2015). From the sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in k-12, higher education, and the workplace. Journal Of Education And Training Studies, 3(6), 111-125.

Orech, J. (2012, July 25). How it's done: Incorporating Digital Citizenship into your everyday curriculum. TechLearningMagazine. https://www.techlearning.com/news/how-its-done-incorporating-digital-citizenship-into-your-everyday-curriculum

Blog Post #6: Using Instagram to Promote School Libraries

For my social media tool, I chose to make an Instagram account for a pretend school library, as the school I work at already has a very active social media presence. The account I created is called @kdmsmediacenter for a fictional middle school named after one of my favorite children's authors, Kate DiCamillo. (The rabbit mascot is intentional, in honor of my favorite book of hers, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane). Screenshots are provided below of the account, the avatar, and the first post I made:

Overview of the account

Cover image for the first post.

The rest of the images on the first post.

A user's view of the first post and caption.

An up-close look at the profile picture.

I chose Instagram because of its appeal to both kids and adults; I wanted to make an account on an app that I knew both kids and their parents would be interested in, as Facebook and Snapchat generally only appeal to certain demographics. I also thought back to what Lucas John Jensen wrote in his article about choosing platforms you know students are engaged in; ultimately, a school library is for my students, and I want to be where my students are (Jensen, 2019, p. 28). I also think Instagram has tons of creative tools that allow for some really cool ideas, like making reels and doing interactive Instagram stories. I plan to use the tool not only to share materials and programs from the library, but I would also love for kids to write mini book reviews to post, as well; I think that would be a cool way to get kids involved, and it will be a great way to communicate with both kids and their parents. Collaboration can also be fostered amongst teachers by having them share their favorite books, share how they use the library with their classes, and make the library interdisciplinary.

Perhaps most importantly, I want to use Instagram to advocate for how vital school libraries are to a school and its community; in Dr. Green's words, I want to be a "frontline advocate." In a world where books and libraries are facing constant legal battles and challenges, I want to show my school's community that what we are doing matters. I want to show kids getting engaged with an excited about literature. I want to show all of the research skills I can teach my kids. I want to show that that literacy skills they learn in a library matter.

References

Green. (n.d.). SLIS 761 Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Advocate for the School Library             [Google Slides]. iSchool, University of South Carolina.                                                                               https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rswnwL_QA16SjO3gE5KzLH26OeReTFxdJkJ3_xz8uYk/edit#slide=id.g35f391192_00

Jenson, L.J. (2019). Integrating social media into online education. In L.S. Green (Ed.), Librarians as         Online Course Designers and Instructors (pp.27-30). American Library Association.