CONSTRUCTIONISM & THE MAKER MOVEMENT

The maker movement involves the emphasis of teachers implementing a hands-on and collaborative approach when designing activities that are project and problem based (Stager, 2013).

“Constructionism takes a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge…” (Stager, 2013, p. 2).

The maker movement follows the notions of the pedagogical approach, constructionism. Constructionism possesses the idea that through the process of productive and creative learning, students are able to grasp their understandings that are relative to their individual learning style (Bower, 2017).

As a way of integrating the maker movement into classroom settings, teachers choose to integrate a ‘makerspace’ environment. A makerspace refers to a creative space where individuals of all ages design, explore and create physical and digital technologies (Sheridan et al., 2014).

THE MAKEY MAKEY

With this being said, teachers have a wide variety of technologies to choose from to implement into a makerspace. However, this week’s critique will be centred around the ‘Makey Makey’. The Makey Makey is a “tangible interface construction kit” that gives its users the ability to link physical objects to computer games, for example the program ‘Scratch’ (Lee, Kafai, Vasudevan & Davis, 2014, p. 2). Makey Makey allows students to be creators through hands on experiences and activities.

The inventors behind Makey Makey are inspired by the maker movement and believe everyone has the ability to foster creativity, therefore, they created this invention kit that adapts to all ages. The kit can be used for beginners in primary school, all the way to experts pursing a career in engineering (Makey Makey, 2012). For example, a year 4 class can create a game on scratch, and then create a hand held controller with the Makey Makey. Despite the Makey Makey being somewhat simple to use, I think facilitating a class of students in K-3 using the Makey Makey will come with more challenges as a teacher, when compared to students in older years. The product itself is rather fiddly and would require the teachers help and assistance majority of the time. However, with the correct support from the teacher and varied difficulty level in activities an effective class can be achieved.

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References

Bower, M. (2017). Design of Technology-Enhanced Learning (pp. 429-449). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Bower, M., Stevenson, M., Falloon, G., Forbes, A., & Hatzigianni, M. (2018). Makerspaces in primary school settings: advancing 21st century and STEM capabilities using 3D design and printing.

Lee, E., Kafai, Y. B., Vasudevan, V., & Davis, R. L. (2014). Playing in the arcade: Designing tangible interfaces with MaKey MaKey for Scratch games. In Playful user interfaces (pp. 277-292). Springer, Singapore.

Jay Silver. (2012, May 13) MaKey MaKey – An Invention Kit for Everyone. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=rfQqh7iCcOU&feature=emb_logo

McKay, C., & Peppler, K. (2013, June). MakerCart: A mobile fab lab for the classroom. In Position Paper at the Interaction Design for Children Conference (IDC).

Our Misson to Encourage Young Inventors – Makey Makey. (2012). https://makeymakey.com/pages/mission

Sheridan, K., Halverson, E. R., Litts, B., Brahms, L., Jacobs-Priebe, L., & Owens, T. (2014). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505–531.

Stager, G. S. (2013, June). Papert’s prison fab lab: implications for the maker movement and education design. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on interaction design and children (pp. 487-490).