During this meeting, we paired up based on subjects and came up with a rough outline of a lesson.
I really enjoyed bouncing ideas off of other math teachers to get ideas about Maker Lessons. |
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Tuesday, May 1, 2018: Maker ShowcasesThis was the day that it all came together. I presented my Maker Showcase to a bunch of people. First, there was a Maker Playground, where I had the opportunity to see a few people's Maker projects.
Then it was time for presentations. Kira went first, and she was awesome. Her Lux staff is amazing. I was second and showed a little bit of my crazy by personifying my beautiful cat, Mr. Darcy. Finally was the gift. Patrick, Blaze, and Maisha 3D printed us lanyards with a Micro:bit in them! They are amazing. They also 3D printed stamp holders, which are equally amazing and fitting since I made stamps for my Maker Project. |
Tuesday, April 3, 2018: Robo-Inch Worms Design ChallengeToday, we learned how to use a small programmable computers called a micro:bit. These are currently taking off in schools in England and UTeach Maker was able to get some for us to try out at a Maker Meeting. Shelly and Jason gave us the inchworm challenge. We had to try to make an inchworm and program it to inch along. The most challenging parts was trying to get enough traction on the back so that it would not slide back, but getting enough grip to have the worm pull itself forward. I think my partner and I made the prettiest inch worm, our was the only one with eyes, but it was the pretty little inch worm who couldn't, yet. I think part of the issue was the programming, we needed the horns on the servo to rotate more than 90 degrees, and maybe at a faster speed.
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Tuesday, March 6, 2018: Maker Education Meet UpI met Maria and Nancy, who both work for KQED. They put together a PBS Media Literacy Educator Certification program. This is so that teachers can show off their Digital Media Literacy, I plan to look into it further over the summer.
I also met Jeff from SparkFun Electronics who introduced me to Beetle Blocks. This is a program that allows you to make something on the computer, and then 3D print it. The programming style is pretty much like how you program in Scratch or micro:bit. There was also a raffle. Kira won a Circuit Arcade from Maker Promise. I won a hard copy of the Youth Makerspace Playbook by MakerED. |
Sunday, February 25, 2018: Design. Make. Take. Laser Cutter WorkshopThis was a workshop outside of our normal monthly meetings. In a previous meeting, we were introduced to UTeach's Laser Cutter, and today we were given the opportunity to use it to Make something. I used Inkscape to design a business card holder for my husband. At first, I was wanting to use finger hinges to have the pieces hold together, but I could not figure out how to make them in Inkscape, so I decided to go with a simpler design. I think I had my words be too small, which is why the center pieces for the a's, e's, and o's are missing, and the details for the Blue-Footed Booby were too small, but the Squirrel turned out great.
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Tuesday, February 13, 2018: The FoundryAt this meeting, we walked to the Foundry located in the Fine Arts Library at UT. We learned about the different forms of Making that can happen here. The coolest thing they have is a Virtual Reality Kit that students can use. They also have 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, a recording studio, and computers capable of video and game design.
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Tuesday, November 7, 2017: Mice in Ann Richards' Maker SpaceWe met at Ann Richards' Maker Space and were given the following design challenge. "Create a self-propelled buoyant blimp. Oh, and by the way, here are some remote-controlled rats."
Our first design relied on the rat. In fact, the rat is what propelled the balloon blimp. This design came about fairly quickly, so we decided to redesign it so that it was buoyant and didn't rely on the rat to move. With the second design, it was really challenging to get the weight just right, but we did it. |
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Tuesday, September 5, 2017: Lighting up UTeach MakerThis was my first meeting with UTeach Maker. I hadn't been to Painter Hall in a while, but it felt great to be back. Most meetings, we are given a Maker Challenge, and our first one, was to make a sign for UTeach Maker. Each group was given 2 letters to build, and it was challenging because we needed to align the cardboard so that light wouldn't shine through, but it was a lot of fun. When we were building the letters, we had to work together to hold up the sides and use hot glue to put the pieces together.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2018: Travis MakerspaceI was given the opportunity to see Travis Early College High School's Maker Space-TRi Lab. It was so awesome.
We also make collab-kabobs--collaborative sculptures that represented everyone in our group. |
On Saturday, May 5, I was at the Maker Faire Austin Regional Maker Education Summit at the Austin Maker Faire. In the morning was the first Regional Maker Education Summit. There were 6 session options, but only enough time to go to 2. I choose to go to the one about Micro:bits and Maker Education and Students with Special Needs.
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The Maker Education and Students with Special Needs session was really informative to me. It was a panel with Education professors, Education students, and teachers with Maker Spaces. They all talked about how to support students with special needs and how to help them shine.
The session started with asking "Consider a time when you did something overwhelming or when you were interrupted a lot. What was your reaction?" For me, I get frustrated and my temper tends to get shorter and shorter. The panel then said that that was how SPED students react to Maker Spaces. Students with ADHD or on the Autism Spectrum do not react well to the high sensory space that is a Maker Space. We talked about how we could use partitions to block out spaces that are not being used, or even something as simple as using headphones to block out noise. We also looked at a toy take away activity and discussed how we could modify it to be more friendly to SPED students. |
After the Regional Maker Education Summit, I went to the Austin Maker Faire. I was really awesome to see how many people are Making things. I got to meet some astro droids.
There was a group of college students who was showing off some of the things that they made, one was a bunch of dream catchers using copper wire. You wore a ring lined with copper and touched the dream catchers, each one ringing a different note. |
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Over the summer, I will be writing an article for The Mathematics Teacher. This section will be updated over the summer.
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As part of joining UTeach Maker, I was required to look for Maker Communities to join. The K-12 FabLab Community is one that I was able to find that seemed promising.
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