Young Makers

Programming conferences are unlikely places to find teachers. But at the recent PyCon UK conference, in the Coventry Technocentre owned by Coventry University, teachers and programmers were working together and sharing their relative expertise.

It's a startling pair of statistics: When women are able to earn an income, they typically reinvest 90 percent of it back into their families and communities.

Kids do love them some robots, even the littlest kids. So I'm shopping for robots this year and the Shed's got 'em — check out these four super easy kits suitable for kids younger than 10.

Understanding Money Matters
Nowadays, parents are always spend time with their kids during weekends. They usually open up to their kids about money matters. It is true that money is one of the most significant things in the world.

New Ridiculously Imaginative Playgrounds from Monstrum Set the Monkey Bars High for Innovation http://t.co/zcDHVMb2xq via @Colossal

The culmination of my quest for more powerful learning grounded in theory and research came when recently I conducted an experiment in pushing constructionism into the digital age.

Constructionism is based on two types of construction. First, it asserts that learning is an active process, in which people actively construct knowledge from their experience in the world. People don’t get ideas; they make them. This aspect of construction comes from the constructivist theory of knowledge development by Jean Piaget. To Piaget’s concept, Papert added another type of construction, arguing that people construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally meaningful products.

Imagine my surprise and joy when I realized that I had arrived at constructionism prior to knowing that such a theory even existed. I believe that thousands of other educators are unknowingly working within the constructionist paradigm as well. Although many within the Maker movement are aware that it has it’s roots in constructionism, the movement is gaining impressive momentum without the majority of Makers realizing that there is a strong theoretical foundation behind their work.

After I came to understand this connection between my practices and the supporting theoretical framework I was better able to focus and refine my practice. Even more importantly, I felt more confident and powerful in forging ahead with further experiments in the learning situations I design for my learners.

Kids are quick learners and have great imaginations. When pursuing an electronic or hardware project with a kid, the most important thing to keep in mind is: keep things playful. As long as their hands are in gunk and they are taking things apart, or there's the possibility of blowing something up, kids will stay interested. As soon as the activity starts to seem like work, they switch off.

A few days ago, I visited a math teacher who was busily preparing his classroom for the start of the school year. This classroom, however, was a bit unusual.