Nation of Makers Conference
June 9-10, 2018 (Santa Fe, NM)
Complete documentation: bit.ly/mcp-index
Overview
Nation of Makers is a national nonprofit dedicated to helping support America’s maker organization through community building, resource sharing, and advocacy within the maker movement and beyond.
The Nation of Makers Conference is the first annual convening of makers from around the US, focusing on regional impacts of the maker movement, sustainability, education, and the impact of the social and global change efforts elicited by the maker movement.
The 2018 theme is Intentional Inclusion. The maker community naturally provides a welcoming and encouraging environment, but attendees were challenged to look at our making activities and spaces from outside perspectives. We were given a list of reflective questions and were challenged to identify structures in place that prevent intentional inclusion in makerspaces and brainstorm ways to combat those structures.
Some of the identified structures:
- Leaders in the maker community are predominately white males
- Lack of diverse facilitators
- Language barriers
- Lack of accessibility for disabled participants
- Myth of high-level making versus low-level making
- Gender binary
- Marketing materials do not reflect the diverse group we serve
Ideas to combat structures:
- Seek out diverse audiences (outreach)
- Connect with diverse facilitators, reach out to local tech meet-ups
- Build leaders from participants
- Conduct maker activities that are more hands-on, less lecture
- Ensure spaces and tools are accessible
- Celebrate all forms of making (knitting, scrapbooking, 3D printing, woodworking are all equally valuable)
- Create welcoming spaces without gender binary labels (gender neutral restrooms, programs, language, marketing materials)
Sessions
Sandbox tools for education
Library group identified common goals in making activities:
- Lifelong learning
- Collaborative learning
- Entrepreneurship
- Certification in skills to become more competitive in job market
- Soft skill development
Several libraries reported conducting 2-3 years of programming before designing a dedicated space (usually at a larger branch with outreach/kits circulated to smaller branches). Libraries admitted a physical space anchors them to a location, making it difficult to conduct outreach to new audiences.
Several libraries have evolved to include an entrepreneurial focus due to the change in their local community.
Companies see the value in the training of future workers at libraries and provide financial or professional assistance.
Library group identified common tools for successful makerspaces:
- People/facilitators
- Open-source (tools that can be accessed easily from anywhere)
- Arduino/Raspberry Pi
- Tinkercad
- CodeAcademy
- Blocksmith
- High-end equipment and software that are otherwise unavailable to the community
- CNC
- Laser Cutter
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Sound Booths
- Mixing Boards
- Audio/Visual equipment for creation
Accessible Making
Disabled makers often find themselves on the receiving end of making activities, but projects are determined by able-bodied makers who think they are creating something that benefits the disabled maker. Disabled makers want to make for themselves and drive the conversation on what will best meet their needs.
Suggestions for more accessible making:
- Are you making things you think people need, or are you letting people make the things they want to make?
- Empower others to make for themselves
- Taker partners in the making process and listen to their feedback
Agile Learning Environments
Makers don’t wait to be asked to do things. Makers get stuff done
Educational playground, intentionally designed to be adjustable, exchangeable, and movable
Libraries adapt to changing community needs and interests. To know the changing needs of community, libraries must conduct outreach to diverse groups who may or may not visit the library regularly (or ever).
Bullies in Your Makerspace
When a makerspace participant’s actions impede access of other users, action needs to be taken.
- A code of conduct helps enforce a collaborative work space.
- Board/administration must be on-board to support the decision to exclude a maker.
- It is important to weight the actions of a few and the needs of the many (will excluding one individual be a detriment to the space, or allow others to use the space in a more positive manner?).
Meow Wolf & Experiential Art
Meow Wolf is an immersive art installation where visitors interact with the displays.
- The installation is created through the collaboration of 300+ artists.
- Collaboration is more important than the individual.
- There’s art you make for yourself and then there’s art you make to spark a discussion.
- People are hungry for experiential art (not hidden behind a rope or do not touch signs).
- Experiment with world building through sound, technology, sculpture, 3D modeling.
- VA’s Mini-Golf can be considered a miniature experiential art installation!
- Artists are makers and makers are artists.
English Language Learners and Makerspaces
- Making for English Language learners helps build engagement, creativity, and literacy skills.
- Hands-on maker projects focus on exploration and experimentation without a lot of language barriers involved. This type of engagement can build confidence in English Language Learners.
- To aid in learning, have a board with key terms (not definitions) displayed. Useful tool for all participants new to maker activities, not just ELL.
Making & Computer Science for All
Several states have passed legislation requiring CS education in high school curriculum
Identified challenges:
- You can get a CS job without a degree
- Few certified teachers of CS fields (mostly math/science teachers)
- Block-based coding and “coding for everyone” is misleading to students interested in coding
- How much patience does a student have to learn the topic?
- Teaching certification is different in each state and many teachers who have taught CS for years have to get new certifications when moving to a new state (science teacher has to get a math certificate)
- Parents unable to help with CS homework (didn’t have subject in school)
Identified alternatives:
- Trade schools for CS
- Partnering with organizations like Boys & Girls Club, Parks & Rec to reach more underserved youth
Identified resources:
Public Libraries & Maker Education
Serving audiences “K-Gray”
Justification to shift funding to support making activities: libraries have long funded one-off ephemeral programs, where participants engage in a one-off activity. Making activities have the opportunity to connect with participants in a more meaningful and sustained manner (learned skills, community connections, empowerment)
Getting library staff buy-in. All librarians are trained Information Professionals. We know how to provide access to information. Thinking of maker skills as a new form of access to information where we take patrons a step beyond providing the book to DIY, but include the tools and collaborative environment to learn the skill.
Successful library makerspaces assign staff dedicated to space and activities (not split among many duties). Compare this to dedicated reference librarians or outreach librarians.
Makerspace staff come from diverse backgrounds and have a unique skillset that may differ from traditional library staff skill-sets.
Bldg 61 curates makerspace the same way a book collection is curated: systematic and clear for patrons to browse independently:
- Instructions on all equipment
- Color-code things by media (textiles=yellow) raw material —> sewing machine/embroidery]
Jamie’s Thoughts
Making at FVRLibraries is comparable to activities going on around the country. I am pleased with the making activities conducting at Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries thus far and see a positive path forward as we continue to develop and evolve accessible making activities for our communities. Our biggest asset to implementing a more comprehensive maker program is the diverse skill-set of our staff and pulling everyone together to form a cohesive team and share best practices. I see communication as our biggest stumbling block as we move forward. The most represented maker group at this conference appeared to be non-profit makerspaces and professional educators. I see a large partnership opportunity with our local schools.
Jamie’s Action Items:
- Build makerspace team from diverse skillset of staff
- Develop Mission, Code of Conduct
- Assess current spaces for accessibility & inclusion
- Introduce staff to maker equipment
- Identify Outreach opportunities to bring making to new audiences (Share, Day Center Jail, JDC, B&G Club, Girl Scouts, etc)
- Make some key term cards for programs
- Engage with wider tech community
- Roll out new maker programming
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