Educators Austin Maker Faire 08

Goal

Use Maker Faire as an educational resource, creating publicly usable products for educators and students accessible worldwide.

Participants

• Educators and learners
• People who are interested in helping others learn about how do do and make things.
• People who are interested in creating social change through Engineering and Technology.
• People who would like to help others find and use a knowledge base relating to Engineering and Technology
• Editors and other collaborators to help form the information gathered into a more coherent product.

Community meetings

• Online community meeting to organize the group before Maker Faire
• Physical meeting(s) in the days before Maker Faire to plan and provision for the project.
• In process meetups (formal and informal) during the Faire to get, gather and share feedback about the project.
• Wrapup meetup at the closing of the Faire to discuss the project and plan for post Faire actions and products.
• Online community meeting to get, share and gather feedback about the project.
• Widen the community of the project after the Faire to use and add to the knowledge base.

Products

Online products that will help teachers and learners learn more about the technologies, ideas and projects demonstrated at Maker Faire. These products will include:

• Short video clips
• Digital photos
• Text such as wiki pages, blog entries, and microblog entries.

Material needs

• some web space to use for organizational/community building.
• Digital Cameras, Video, smart phone for text upload on site.
• Wireless camera card for uploading video and text on site.
• Meeting space for gathering during Maker Faire event.
• Editor/technologist facilitator to advise participants on how to gather information so that it can be effectively worked with during and after the event

Timeline

Before Event

• Make contact with known participants.
• Recruit potential participants.
• Set up basic logistics such as initial meeting agenda, rough schedule, web 2.0 accounts, share goals and ideas of project.
• Test out information gathering techniques for onsite training workshop.
• Identify project leaders and work out roles

On Site Arrival/before Faire

• Set up workspace for initial meeting.
• Organize and provision tools and equipment dedicated to project.
• Identify new tasks that will need leadership, work out roles.

Planning meeting Thursday or Friday before Faire

Have planning meeting to:

• Discuss background, goals and project strategy.
• Share participants interests, strengths and previous commitments.
• Identify external expectations on the group/project.
• Make plans for project relating to during and after Faire.
• Provision for participants who may join the project during or after the Faire.

During Faire

During the Faire, project participants will gather experiences through hands on activities, conversations and observations that will inform their responses to the question: How could this be used to teach and learn about Engineering, Technology and Community?

Project participants will:

• Do hands on activities and attend workshops.
• Have conversations and make relationships with Makers and Fairegoers.
• Work together or solo to explore the Faire.
• Meet up periodically formally and/or informally to share information, observations and ideas on the subjects of the Faire and project.
• Upload information in the form of photos, videos and text.
• Project participants may stay in one place for an extended period of time to gain greater mastery on a tool, technique or idea. (Work together for several hours on building technique with the Shopbot, for example.)

After Faire

Project participants will continue to work together in a community of teachers and learners to add to and form the knowledge base.

This will include:

• Keep in contact with each other as needed.
• Share the body of knowledge.
• Promote the body of knowledge.
• Refine build and improve the body of knowledge.
• Add reflections on the process and use of the project.
• Make plans for improvement of developing a more effective system for future events.
• Edit, share and refine project information.

Support Documents

• A Community of Learners Link
• Cultivating the Joy of Learning - Link
• Facts, Frustration and Fun Link
• Announcement of Proposal: Link

Responses to the Proposal

EmailResponsesto08Proposal

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