Week 9 Response
I’m taking Beyond Bits and Atoms with Dr. Blikstein, so I’ve been very immersed in the Maker Movement, teaching coding to kids, and building animals with the laser cutter this quarter. As an assignment for that course, I visited a maker space at Barron Park Elementary School, part of the PAUSD. Smita Kolhatkar, the head of that space, uses many low cost materials, such as cardboard and basic stationary tools, despite having a beautiful lab with 3D printers and programmable robots. In the Peppler and Bender article, they note that: “Too many would-be makerspace creators are focused on creating the idealized space with the right equipment. You don’t need a 3D printer, sewing machine, or any of the fancy tools mentioned here to get started.”
My main takeaway from my visit to Barron Park was that the teacher is the key component of a successful maker space. Ms. Kolhatkar has identified the needs of her students and develops projects that will interest them, not always necessarily using the flashiest and newest technology. The Margolis, Goode, and Chapman article mentions that the “secret sauce” of success is “passionate, creative teachers who are interested in the problem solving of computer science, with a variety of secondary subject credentials.” The issue of access to these teachers is vital to the success of the Maker Space movement.
Most of the children interviewed in the Barron, Martin, Takeuchi, and Fithian don’t even need to make it to school to learn about computer science–they have parents that are well-connected in the technology industry. For instance, we have stories of Alex’s father expressing his colleagues’ interest in reviewing his son’s code or the parent who paid his daughter $25 to debug his software. Only in the wealthy enclaves of Silicon Valley could these kind of experiences be viewed as a possibility.
What about all the other kids? How can the fantastic learning opportunities of students with fantastic maker space instructors and tech savvy parents be made available across the economic spectrum? I saw that Marc also posted this excellent video: https://vimeo.com/110616469. Leah Buechley’s talk really gets at the heart of the issue–it is up to the Maker Movement’s leaders (who are mainly teachers themselves) to expand access. Perhaps its an unfair burden to ask of overtaxed educators, but without a true step towards equality in representation, the Maker Movement will fail precisely because of its success with wealthy engineers. This group has effectively blocked others from joining.
