Makerspace workshops teach students new making skills
"Whether they鈥檙e learning directly from a member of the Makerspace staff, from a peer or seeking advice from an online community they find themselves engaged in a conversation." - Bronwen Densmore, Makerspace Coordinator
"Whether they鈥檙e learning directly from a member of the Makerspace staff, from a peer or seeking advice from an online community they find themselves engaged in a conversation." - Bronwen Densmore, Makerspace Coordinator
As part of helping students build their Digital Competencies, the 桃子视频 makerspace held workshops throughout the recently-wrapped semester on critical making skills. Makerspace staff members taught on a range of topics, covering everything from hand spinning to 3D printing. For Makerspace Coordinator Bronwen Densmore, teaching students both analog and digital fabrication skills is vital to the space's mission. 鈥淲e work with students as they experiment with the knowledge they鈥檙e building in other areas in the curriculum," she said. "Translating knowledge and ideas into a (making) practice requires both critical thinking and a sense of empathy. Learning a design or fabrication technique can be quite technical, but this work also asks a practitioner to consider the ways that other people interact with objects in the built environment: what role do these things play in our lives? What happens when we make a choice about use of a skill or resources, and what are the relationships between the makers and users of an object?"
One of Densmore's colleagues in the makerspace, Educational Technology Specialist Sean Keenan, put these ideas into action by organizing a workshop where students made electronic Valentine's Day cards. "We run this activity each Valentines Day," Keenan said, "because it's one of