 Hi, this is a great topic. I'm very excited to talk about it. It's part of the K-12 online conference. I'm excited that I've been accepted to do this. It's such a joy to have this as one of the topics that is of interest in the education field right now. My name is Jackie Gerstein and I have a byline that says I don't do the teaching for a living. I live teaching as my doing and technology has amplified my passion for doing so. A little bit more about me in terms of why this is such an important topic for me. I didn't come from a traditional teacher background. I actually started off in an experiential education which really is in line with the maker movement and maker education and really does affect my mindset about it and how I approach it and that's what the topic of interest in this presentation is going to be about. But this is just a little bit about me in terms of I just love developing new curriculum and testing new things out with learners and using hands-on whole body activity and especially controlled chaos where all the learners are doing something and it's not me instructing them, it's them instructing each other instructing me. And this is all in line with the maker movement and maker mindset. So a little bit of background and this presentation really is more about the educator and the mindset that comes with an educator who wants to approach maker education in either formal or informal settings could be school after school. But Dale Daugherty, so I wanted to give you a little background before we jumped into these characteristics of an educator with a maker mindset. And Dale Daugherty who is credited for really pushing the maker movement. This is a great quote that says, when a kid builds a model, rocket or a kite or a birdhouse, she not only picks up math, physics and chemistry along the way, she also develops creativity, resourcefulness, planning abilities, curiosity, engagement with the world around her. What I've asked educators for years and now even more than ever is really to examine what the purpose of education and learning is and why we became teachers, what we want, the legacies we want to leave students after they've been in our classrooms, in our learning environments. So before I jump in and discuss the educator with a maker mindset, I just wanted to show you that we're in this perfect storm for maker education and give you a little bit of background on that. And I really don't like the word perfect storm, but it works. It's really the perfect gift because we have all these really amazing variables and things going on that make it right for maker education. So I created this infographic and then I put it into ThingLink. And ThingLink is a great little tool that has way to link into other resources. And I'll put this as part of the links that I provide with this presentation. So the first variable is information, access, and abundance. Education, institution, and educators are no longer the gatekeepers of information. Content of all types, all kinds can be found on the Internet. I don't know of a single topic that can't be found on the Internet. And so we're living in this great time that's information, abundance, and that really rocks. That's really exciting for me. I'm just showing you how they link into different web pages. We're living in a world of information, abundance, surplus, and access. The result is synergy. We're by the human mind plus our current technologies far exceed the sum of these individual parts. We have technology to access any type of information. It's great products that match the pictures and voices in our minds. And we can use technology to get assistance and feedback about our creations from folks around the globe. Perfect for maker education and should be the norm in schools. Related to that is open source movement. And the one that I really want to point out that's very cool is Thingiverse. And Thingiverse is a 3D printing. This is a car that was 3D printed. And people are putting their open source plans and blueprints online so that people can download them, try them themselves, and improve and put it back online, which actually improves the product and helps everybody out. Which is directly related to this crowd sourcing and participatory culture that we're in. So that people are sharing due to information abundance and open source, and then it becomes crowd source. And again, making the world of information and products so much better with the synergy involved. And related and just other things that make the perfect storm. Some discussions about maker movement. Do-it-yourself movement, which we know is people, again, having these cheap resources and information online are being able to make it themselves. Affordable technologies where we have, which really is cool, things like arduinos and makey makies and little bits, so that these tech tools that used to cost mucho dinero are now affordable to the average consumer, even the price of 3D printers are going down. And finally, the focus on steam, our STEM, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, and that focus being in the school. So with all these variables together, we are entering this really amazing time that educators really should be taking advantage of to create this 21st century learners and learning environment. So I'm going to show you a short clip. They're giving similar, like, having fun. We have a vision of maker ed, of every child a maker. It's both a recognition of the childhood status as makers. We are born makers making meaning, language, connections. It's a natural state of being. We are bringing this event to help remind people of the importance of bringing out those opportunities for expression. We're helping to find new pieces of curriculum that I can bring into my science classroom. There's all these little activities that can take basic scientific principles and turn them into concrete objects that they've made themselves. Making gives kids a chance to learn how to troubleshoot. And oftentimes, the process of figuring out where you've gone wrong can help them understand the basic scientific principles much better. And especially when it comes to girls, it's so often that when a girl makes a mistake, we scoop in and fix it for her. And while we let the boys, you know, tinker and realize where they've gone wrong and make corrections themselves. And I think that it just sinks in so much better and there's a much deeper level of understanding that they've actually built it with their own hands. My favorite thing about maker ed is that all the cool robotic things and how things like that can help you and we just like quote things that you don't see normally every day. I think making isn't great for especially for girls because it can show that they can also do things. My favorite thing about making is that you can make stuff that sometimes you didn't know that it was possible. For me, making helped me find where I was supposed to be because I realized this is what I'm good at. This is what I'm meant to do. So with the rest of this presentation, it's going to focus on this maker mindset. And here's another quote from Dale who you saw in the video. Fostering the maker mindset through education is a fundamentally human project to support the growth and development of another person, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Learning should focus on the whole person. So for me, the only way that maker education can be successful in any educational setting is that it has to begin with the educator. It begins with the educator really understanding and approaching education from this mindset. But given that as I started off the presentation that many educators have been trained in traditional sense, they get stuck in these shoulds. Teachers should be the content experts. Teachers should lecture and directly instruct to the learners for them to learn. I had a teacher once and she was a pretty young teacher who I was doing a workshop with and saying, I don't think I'm teaching unless I'm standing up in front of the room lecturing. Teachers should know all of the answers. This idea of saying I don't know or we'll find out together just as foreign to a lot of teacher again because of their traditional training. Teachers should ensure that there are predictable outcomes for student learning. This is very true with no child left behind to the top is that there's these really measurable objectives and learning should be predictable and students should reach these objectives. Teachers should ensure that the classroom is quiet and that students are attending to teacher. Again, I used to get, I told you about in the beginning how I like controlled chaos in the classroom and I'd have my students loud but they'd be learning and they'd be interacting and they would be focused on the content we'd be covering but I often hear knocks on my door. The teacher next door wants you to be quiet please. Teachers should never make mistakes especially in front of the students. We know that. And finally, teachers should be the sole assessors and evaluators of student work. But if teachers are serious about really embracing the maker education and which really translates into being an educator for the 21st century then it might mean developing a new mindset, new roles and new skills. So it's my belief that the maker education, the maker movement is determined by the educator and that a lot of teachers make in the classroom like the templates for Thanksgiving, turkeys but that's really not in the realm and flavor of maker education and that it becomes the teacher's mindset that really sets up a climate for maker education. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions. There's no judgment, it's just information and I'm going to ask you to make three different, one of three different responses. Yes, no, or I don't care. I don't care meaning it's not an important variable for you in the classroom. And as we go through these, think of one or two that you'd like to focus on this year in your teaching practices and develop more in terms of that element of becoming a maker educator. So first of all, do your learners produce as much or more of their learning content as they consume? Do you learn in these days of information abundance and access of almost student self-directed learning of content online that students should be producing a lot of their materials, learning materials, content information and a lot more than I believe that they should be consuming it? Do your learners work harder than you during meeting times? This is an important one for me. Do you look in a classroom, if I look in any classroom and I see the teacher standing in front of the class, it's obvious he or she's doing most of the work and it really should be the students that they're giving you their time and they should be the ones doing the work during class time. Does a physical setting of your classroom reflect an information-rich, connected participatory creative culture? So you could tell again walking into any classroom how the desks are arranged, how the students are interacting if it's set up for that type of interaction. Is your classroom an open portal open to people, visitors, social networks? I talk about Skype in the classroom and global connections and even having experts come in face to face or virtually in other classrooms, parents. So it really should be a very dynamic interactive space. Do you assist your learners in finding, joining and interacting with their own learning networks to find their own online and face to face tribes? I think most, a lot of us, especially as adults have our own interest groups. I do pottery and there's running groups and music groups and they're a really important part of skill development and interest-driven education and some kids are good at it and some aren't but I think it should be a strategic intentional practice in the classroom. Do you encourage your learners to explore what could be the current curriculum is a lot of learning what already has been learning of facts and knowledge instead of imagining what a future could be what space exploration is going to be what medicine is going to be what the arts is going to be and having that again being part of your classroom instructional strategies. Have you and your learners developed creative methods for finding and gathering resources? These young men, this was their setting to a story that they were a fictional story they were writing and as you could see there's very no-cost materials here. If you focus as much or more on the process of learning as the products and outcomes get, she's learning how to set up this little chemistry lab and for me that's really the important element here. Do your learners interact more with each other's students, professionals, web materials and hands-on materials than with you? It's a several of the questions we just asked again taking that time that they meet face to face to really let them interact with one another with the web, with materials. Do you set a climate for learners to be kind, concerned, passionate and compassionate? I strongly believe that every class and school year should start with community building because again all these are interconnected and interdependent and they'll be more willing to collaborate, share resources, make together if that this type of environment is set up. Do you not only build community but also allow it for independence, individuality, uniqueness of thought part of maker education is people learning to put themselves into their projects. Do you encourage student voice in all its forms, speech, writing, drawings and media creation? I believe that speaking and writing is for many people not their first language. Some it's the arts, some it's body movement so to allow students and give them the tools and opportunities to express themselves in a variety of ways. Do you and your students normalize failure and mistakes considering them part of the learning process? This young man was trying to build a mechanical arm failed terribly but nobody made a big deal of it and he just went with the flow because the expectation that experimentation and failure mistakes are just part of the process. Do you use authentic assessments that provide ongoing and continuous feedback to learners about their performance? A lot of the maker and steam and stem activities are actually built in assessments, they work or they don't work but you could also build in and should build in peer reviews and online type of assessments. Do you set up the conditions for your learners to be great? For me this is the most important this young man Peyton just kind of hated his regular classroom, not hated it he just kind of was checked out and then I had him in gifted class one day a week and he built this solar Ferris wheel and the other kids would walk by and see it move and just really being of him and he was great and I think all of our students should have opportunities to be great during our classes. So which one of these one or two ideas do you want to try to begin integrating maker education why don't you share that with some colleagues and become support with one another that can make it more powerful? Excuse me what that translates then is into some different roles and this is a thing link again I'll provide some links so that you can access this but these are some of the roles that the educator as a maker educator has and you'll see you can just review them here but my favorite is lead learner now in these days again of open information and open web and now the educators shouldn't be the content deliverer or the content expert they should show the process of learning which also means learning new things in front of the students and showing them and explaining them the process of how you as the educator learn new things and finally as I said the educator as a maker learner as a lead learner I just want to conclude with this reflective piece that the educator could direct his or her own learning and reflect on these questions as well as share these reflective questions after sessions of maker educations with the students and pointing out the two that I find most important did I play and have fun and did I learn anything new and finally this little quote I like to reinvent this old quote into the modern day have me watch a video I forget ask me to do an online interactive I remember let me produce and create I learn this there's just some resources I'd like to point out to you I have an e-book that I've compiled on my blog posts I have again a lot of blog posts on this if you just want to access them online just tag maker education under unit user generated education you'll find all my blog posts Sylvia and Gary's book and then to learn is some very good information and I also put it together a Pinterest board of just activities that could be done in the classroom so I want to thank you for watching this and I hope you just try some in your classroom we're just it's just ripe for this exciting time of maker education thanks again bye