Tech evolves continuously, Schools lag behind

I argue that the relevant metaphor to build a successful tech group these days is “low floor, high ceiling, wide walls and open windows”.

This approach, promoted by Mitch Resnick at MIT and Yasmin Kafai (source), led to the tremendous growth of Scratch, from 2007. In April 2024, the Scratch team announced that one billion projects had been developed. See Footnote(1) for more of this history and explanation of the house metaphor.

After thought: I ought to mention too, my favourite article about the design of construction kits, written by Mitch Resnick and Brian Silverman. I wrote a summary of this back in 2019, with a link to the original. Their point 5: Simplicity works; their point 7: You can achieve a lot with a little.

All the technology has continued to evolve rapidly. It becomes cheaper and more user friendly. This applies to coding tools, design tools and making tools. Many of the tools are Free or Open Source (FOSS) which reduces barriers to access and attracts communities.

The 21stC making tools which are not free (eg. 3D printers - although some companies such as Prusa do have Open Hardware; laser cutters and more) continue to reduce in cost. One aspect of this is that 21stC making becomes more accessible to a wider audience. This should mean that a tech group should have no problem growing. School students can be part of this since schools are notorious for not keeping up with new developments.

I argue for a beginner’s courses accessible to Middle School students which then lead into more advanced courses (aka mechatronics, making devices which integrate electrical and mechanical processes).

Coding: With block coding, eg. Scratch, MakeCode, students can make something interesting with the process being transparent within 10 minutes.

Design: With Tinkercad you can quickly make 3D objects. This can lead onto more advanced design tools later (eg. KiCAD, openSCAD, Fusion 360)

Making: You can begin with cardboard and then move onto LEGO, 3D prints and laser cuts to make interesting constructions readily. Free designs are available at thingiverse, Printables and other sites.

Micro-controllers: The microbit or Circuit Playground can control neopixels, servos and communicate with each other. They also have A and B control buttons on the board. This can lead onto more complex controllers such as arduino, bread boarding and circuit construction / printed circuit boards.

Microbit or Arduino? I argue for microbit usage in the middle school (years 5-9) and then move onto arduino in the senior school (years 10-12). Start with the low floor and move onto the high ceiling will engage more students. See Footnote 2 for three articles, microbit versus arduino, which support my viewpoint here.

It should be acknowledged that the arduino was a revolution which began in 2005. Open hardware, low cost and easier to use than what came before. The thesis which kicked off the arduino was titled, “Arduino–La rivoluzione dell’open hardware” (“Arduino – The Revolution of Open Hardware”). Reference

Similarly, the micro:bit was a revolution which began in 2015. The floor was lowered further given more users access to microcontrollers. Reference

Project based learning: Many diverse projects can be made where an interesting or inspirational idea can be designed, made and controlled. This builds skills and whets the appetite for more. Once this pattern is established more complex design, coding and making techniques can be further developed.

This is a well established international educational trend beginning with Seymour Papert 50 years ago. LEGO Mindstorms was named after his book, "Mindstorms", written in 1980. He initiated a learning theory called constructionism. The 21stC Maker Movement kicked off in a big way around 2005 when Neil Gershenfeld built the first FabLab at MIT and offered a course called “How to Make almost Anything”.

Some schools are coming on board in Australia (especially Privates) because there is a recognition that STEM or STEAM is both important and engaging. But it is also true that many schools are locked into an ACARA curriculum tick the box model and so fall well short of utilising the full potential of the 21stC Maker movement.

Some brief additional information about existing groups, international and local:

Constructing Modern Knowledge (CMK). Gary Stager has been actively promoting constructionist learning in Australian schools for decades. His group offers workshops and books.

FabLabs: The Fab Labs grew exponentially around the world after 2005. See the map.

Paulo Blikstein has promoted Fab Learn Labs, a school version of FabLabs. Search this blog for some summaries of his outstanding articles.

Whittlesea Tech School, Melbourne PolyTechnic STEAM engine offer a range of courses to surrounding schools in Melbourne

Tech Explorations: Peter Dalmaris, Australia offers advanced online courses. mmm ... even if you don't go lower floor (eg. with the microbit), you can still go wider walls, as illustrated by the diverse options on Peter's site.

Adelaide groups: I am just listing Adelaide tech groups I have become aware of over the past year. I am not attempting to publicly evaluate their success based on the broad criteria outlined in this article, at this stage:

Maker Space
TechSpace Learning
Hackerspace Adelaide
South Australia Micro Controller group (SAMG)
42 Adelaide
Computer Science Education Research Group at Adelaide Uni run online courses in computing fundamentals and lend out construction kits to schools.

Footnotes:

(1) This tests the memory. The Logo language, which preceded Scratch was popular at educational computing conferences in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The educational rationale back then was, in part, to provide a more interesting and engaging way to teach maths. However, when the www came along that popularity died. Living then in Adelaide, Australia, I knew only one other Logo enthusiast. However, I used to participate in the Usenet comp.lang.logo group. Description by Brian Harvey; archive. I remember it as being down the bottom in the usage statistics of all the Usenet groups. However, with the advent of Scratch, Logo was transformed into a multimedia, story telling fun machine. With the conversion to block code (low floor), diverse project multimedia features (wider walls) and remixing / online comments and Likes (open windows) the Scratch version of Logo flourished again.

(2) Three article which argue that the microbit is better for beginners but that to continue the path to mechatronics, you can do more with the arduino:

https://mp.moonpreneur.com/blog/microbit-vs-arduino/
Extract:

Both micro:bit and Arduino offer unique strengths and benefits for DIY electronics projects. Micro:bit excels in simplicity, accessibility, and educational applications. This makes micro:bit a good choice for beginners and educational settings. 

Conversely, Arduino provides versatility, expandability, and a robust community support system, making it ideal for more complex and ambitious projects.

https://www.instructables.com/Comparison-Between-Microbit-and-Arduino/
https://picobricks.com/blogs/info/microbit-vs-arduino

Fab as a new literacy

Literacy: From Writing to Fabbing (2012) by James Gee (extract, read the full essay here)

best quote, although there are many great ones: the word becomes flesh; the flesh becomes word

IMO a very elegant argument about how Fab is becoming a new, two way street, literacy. Design literacy for digital fabrication is every bit as fundamental as reading and writing. Yes, we have some way to go but we are on that path.

The Maker Movement opens up yet another set of design kits, another set of literacies, what we can call “maker literacies”. Maker literacies are not new. People have been making things like quilts and furniture at home of hundreds of years. What is new is the proliferation of making and the ways in which everyday people can compete with businesses, experts, and industry today thanks to digital media. The special part of the Maker Movement I want to concentrate on here is digital fabrication, what we can just call “Fab”. Fab is the newest literacy beyond digital literacies.

Fab is also a code that allows humans to produce and consume meanings interactively and to engage in joint activities. The code is a mapping from ideas (concepts) to real things via computational computer code.

Oral language refers to things in the world. Language is indexical in the sense that it points to or refers to things, but it cannot touch and handle them. Things always stay just out of reach. Digital literacies simulate things, virtual things that can be handled and transformed by the very code that produces them. But like language, digital media cannot touch and handle real things; it can just manipulate them on a screen.

Fab makes real things. It can handle and transform them. It has been argued that what constituted human intelligence in the beginning was our ability to think and plan in our heads deeply prior to acting . Digital media greatly enhanced this human trait. Such media allow us to think and plan on screens in forms that go far beyond the powers of unaided human thought.

Humans have always, of course, been able to make things. Indeed, some scholars have defined humans as tool makers and homo faber. But prior to Fab making was a one-way street. You could go from conception to construction, but not back again. Fab makes making a two-way street. We can now turn bits (digital code) into atoms (things) by “printing” the code and we can turn atoms into bits by reality capturing devices that digitize things and make them into digital code. “Printing” here means machines that can add or subtract material to make things on demand from digital code.

Language and digital media are complementary. Language is good at creating abstractions out of lived experience by finding and naming patterns in that experience. Writing takes abstraction to its furthest extent, especially in special symbol systems like mathematics. Digital media is good at creating new experiences or mimicking old ones. Digital media allow us to think through external images and simulations and not just through conceptual abstractions. One of the greatest powers of digital media is that it can allow people to have experiences that are hard for humans to have in the real world (or to have more than once), experiences that, nonetheless, words can refer to, such as being an electron or sky diving without a parachute. Digital media can, thus, greatly enhance the ability humans have to find and name patterns in experience, the basis of language and learning.

Think of Dungeons and Dragons played as a role playing game with paper and pencil. This is traditional literacy. Here players use words and other symbols (and the occasional plastic figures) to create images in their heads (imaginations) and in the other player’s heads. A video game (including a D&D game like Neverwinter Nights) involves players manipulating images on a screen, not in their heads. Imagination becomes externalized. One is not better than the other. They are complementary ways of thinking, learning, and problem solving.

Fab, our newest literacy, involves a code that maps from ideas to atoms (and back again) via bits. What you can design in a computer, you can order machines (“printers” and “extractors”) to make. What is in the world can be captured digitally (“reality capture”), put in a computer, re-designed, and “printed” back out into the world. The atoms can be materials, cells, or chemicals. Humans are on the verge of erasing the lines between the imaginary, the digital, and the “real” and moving effortlessly back and forth among them. Bits no longer need to create just virtual things; they can now create real ones. In turn, real thing can now easily become virtual ones.

The day may come where we can “print” an organ like a liver or even (the initial cellular plan for) a living thing like a dog. As of now we can print skin, cells, cakes, and houses. Fab is not indexical. It doesn’t point to things. It is not a simulation. It does not make just virtual things. Fab is material. It makes and manipulates matter. Fab trades not in concepts or simulations alone but in physical things as well. It is the “word become flesh”, formerly the domain of magic and religion. The ideas in our minds and the images on our screens can now be born in the world and the world can enter our minds and computers to be re-born as something new. A whole new material form of thought and planning opens up for humans.

Fab is a set of design kits to make things into bits and bits into things. It creates an entirely new way of writing and reading the world. Fab will proliferate into different literacies, different ways of producing and consuming meaning for different functions, accompanied by new registers of oral language. Fab is a cultural invention like literacy. It will without doubt create social gaps and inequalities if we let it.

Fab is a form of literacy where production (“writing”) is the main form. It finally reverses the polarity of traditional literacy and digital literacy, where consuming (“reading”) proliferates, but production (“writing”) does not, creating priests and laity. To be literate in Fab you must be a maker or at least know how a digital object will translate into a real one (and vice versa). It is as if we had demanded that to be literate in writing you had to be a writer and not just a reader, to be literate in digital game literacy, you had to be a designer and not just a player. In fact, a culture of Fab could lead to just such demands.

Just as writing made new demands on and demanded new skills in oral language, and digital lieracy made new demands on and demanded new skills in both oral language and written language, Fab makes new demands on and demands new skills in oral language, in literacy, and digital literacy. The ecology of oral language, of writing, and of digital literacy—and their various combinations and integrations—will change. Language, literacy, and digital literacy will become yet more complicated. The social gaps in each will compound, along with whatever gaps Fab literacy creates unless we will it otherwise.

Fab could create a world with yet deeper inequalities than we currently have, a world where only a few engage in the alchemy of turning ideas into bits into atoms and back again. The rest will live in a world where the stuff of life and the world--objects, cells, materials—are owned and operated by only a few. Fab is a new literacy and we have as yet no real idea how it will work out. But it is a special and, in some sense, final one. For centuries, since Shakespeare at least, being modern has meant to fashion oneself and writing has played a massive role in this process. Now being modern will mean to fashion ones world as the stage on which one plays and lives

Each new literacy ups the ante on ethical questions beyond issues of inequality. Words can hurt and harm, we know. Writing can greatly spread that harm. Digital media can spread it yet faster and further. But Fab can literally remake the world we live in, exhausting it or expanding it, destroying it or renewing it. Fab can make and remake the very stage on which we humans act for good and ill.

How many of us will get to be homo faber? Humans have always been the ultimate took makers. Soon the tools for world making will be cheap enough to be in the hands of everyone, should we want to make that happen. Will we, as a species, make a better world or a worse one when some or many or all of us become god-like creators, calling worlds into being?

Bits and Atoms, part one

- Towards a wider walls 21st C Maker Education curriculum pathway
- Wider walls means making the learning accessible to more citizens

Modern Maker Education has a history, philosophy, theory, practice and methods all of which have been dynamically developed over the past 50 years (refer Stager's book). This article outlines how to set it up and make it work in a big picture framework. The main aim is to provide a guide to teachers and school administrations interested in this pathway.

THE SPACE and MATERIALS

Paulo Blikstein argues the case for a dedicated Maker Space, aka Fab Lab:

“… after having conducted tens of robotics and invention workshops in schools, I was disappointed by the fact that students did not have a place to continue and deepen their projects – and projects would die after the workshop or the final expo. Schools manifest how they value a particular activity by building a space for it. If sports are important, schools build a gym and a basketball court. If music education is in demand, schools set up music rooms. Only then can like minded students gather together, hang out, do projects, talk about them, and create a productive subculture in schools. Unfortunately, I realized that there was no such space for engineering and invention. Even when schools had robotics labs, they were highly gender-biased and not inviting for most students. Robotics labs and science labs were not disruptive spaces anymore. Therefore in 2008 I started to work with schools around the world to establish digital fabrication labs – the FabLab@School project was born”
- Paulo Blikstein. The Democratisation of Invention (2013)

To setup a Fab Learn Lab or Maker Space we need a dedicated space, equipped with the right furniture, tools and storage. The room needs to be spacious with movable furniture. Beginning materials could be lots of cardboard, computers, 3D printers, microcontrollers and an equipment trolley. This is where my school's current maker space is at, including five Prusa 3D printers. Over time, the plan is to progressively expand into a full Fab Learn Lab with 5 types of machines (laser cutter, 3D printers, CNC routers, vinyl cutter and digital embroidery).

Much of the software is Free or Open Source (FOSS): MakeCode, Tinkercad, Prusa Slicer (if you have Prusa 3D printers), Scratch, Turtle Art … feel free to add to this list

THE THREE BETTERS: some materials are better for great learning

Harel and Papert (1990) argue that some materials are better with regard to the following criteria:

• appropriability (some things lend themselves better than others to being made one's own)
• evocativeness (some materials are more apt than others to precipitate personal thought)
• integration (some materials are better carriers of multiple meaning and multiple concepts)

This was said in connection with Idit Harel’s “Instructional Software Design Project”: a cross age tutoring project in which older students developed screens, using Logo, of fraction puzzles for younger student to solve. The better materials in this case being the learning design, computers and logo (an earlier version of Scratch). Of course, things have changed enormously since 1990. The atoms and bits are cheaper, better and more integrated than before. I argue that 21stC Maker Education is a modern embodiment of this educational philosophy. The materials outlined in this article are still better for achieving appropriability, evocativeness and integration than other materials.

THE HUMMING HOUSE METAPHOR

“low floor, wide walls, high ceiling, open windows”

This metaphor has been used as a descriptor for Scratch but it equally applies to a well constructed Maker Education curriculum. To explain:

• Low floor: develop an interesting project in 10 minutes, easily done using Scratch v3;
• Wide walls: Many diverse multimedia project pathways into any curriculum area and connections between software and hardware are available.
• High ceiling: In Scratch the priority has been on the wider walls but certainly the high ceiling (the ability to develop complex projects) is there as well. And there is a spin off from Scratch called Snap! where the powerful tools are more overt.
• Open windows: Collaboration, search and remix is a feature of the Scratch site, take someone else’s project and modify it

In the trade off between wide walls (project diversity) and high ceiling (project complexity) the emphasis ought to be on the wide walls, for most students. The goal is to get all students working on meaningful projects. A few will go on and master high levels of complexity in their making and coding. That opportunity is there too. (refer Resnick)

CAUTION: MOST CHILDREN ARE NOT HACKERS

Are all students makers in the age of social media? NO!

I have written a separate article about this (refer Kerr, thoughts on an article by Paulo Blikstein and Marcelo Worsley). The central point is that students often need support. If some don’t get it they will feel lost or frustrated. They drift into doing the less demanding parts of a task, eg. painting a project rather than tackling the coding. Without help (sink or swim approach) those who feel uncomfortable in a maker space can become disempowered.

Having recognised this there are different awareness's and strategies that improve the chance of success:

• include tasks that are meaningful to all students
• avoid too much “learn from failure” rhetoric
• find ways to get students out of their comfort zone. Setup collaboration so the lower ability in a pair is the driver)
• be aware that some groups expect to fail (stereotype threat (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006) which shows that individuals can perform below their ability level when they suspect that they belong to a group that historically does not do well at a particular activity)

THE PATHWAY

For most students there is lots of new learning involved. Here is a one pathway I have used suitable for Middle School students, say, Years 5 to 9, in my case Year 8s. There are other such introductory pathways, this is just one grape in a potential banquet:

(1) Work in a team to make a cardboard hat, then attach a microbit to code and power a half metre neopixel strip. Since it is a guided project the code will be supplied by the teacher. All groups will be supplied with basic introductory code (change the strip colours by pressing buttons) but then different groups will be shown how to develop more interesting effects (eg. rotating rainbows which respond to sound; neopixel strip lights that change colour one by one by pressing buttons or tilting the hat etc.).

(2) Work in a team to make an art machine. The machine has pegs to hold a couple of pens and is powered by a continuous micro servo (360 degree rotations). Once again the setup code is supplied. Then respond to challenges like: can you make the art machine draw a straight line.

There can be more introductory projects. But after a few like this students are ready to design their own projects.

DESIGN and REDESIGN: imitation, iteration and improvisation

When I trialled this approach recently with year 8s the sort of things they decided to build were a complete exo skeleton, a submarine made from geodesic domes, a sword and scythe weapon set, a mini computer, a dancing cactus and a couple of others.

Motivation was high for some groups:

• One student in the exo skeleton group made a shield at home and brought in DC motors extracted from remote control cars to augment his group's design.
• student in the weapon set group found the code for a flappy bird game and painstakingly copied it out for a microbit on the handle of their sword
• A student in the submarine group reported that she had spent about 10 hours at home making the triangles for her geodesic dome

All of the theories of design talk about the iterative stages of the design process. For example Mitch Resnick gives us this diagram to illustrate the process:

I began with guided design, then invited students to do their own design and then some (not all) of them during the process decided to redesign or improve their original design. I did not overtly teach this process. Rather some of the groups just decided to do it.

You could call this process imitation, iteration and improvisation (Designing Reality, 198). The process invites perseverance and resourcefulness.

I like Austin Kleon’s (“Steal like an Artist”) annotations on Mitch Resnick’s diagram:

TIME BLOCKS

Project based learning works much better with large blocks of continuous time – not one hour lessons but two, three or four hours (with 5 minute or recess / lunch breaks as normal). The difference this makes is remarkable. Some students became so engaged with their projects they were asking to work through their break times! The larger blocks of time enable both increased engagement by students on their projects, including the opportunity to improve their design along the way, and also increased opportunity for the teacher to build positive relationships. We are working as a team to build fun projects. Mitch Resnick’s Lifelong Kindergarten group calls this the 4Ps: Project, Passion, Peers and Play.

DESIGNERS NOTEBOOK

For each session (which varied between 2, 3 or 4 hours length) I told the groups to write out their plan in word and annotated pics at the start of each lesson (and to anticipate possible problems). Towards the end of a session I asked them to record their achievements, problems encountered and solved, who they had helped and who had helped them. So, by the end of the whole process they had a more or less comprehensive record. I also took photos of progress at significant points. One of my assessment goals was "Designers Journal and Teamwork". I think the quality of the journals did often reflect the Planning and Collaboration goals. One group was struggling to bring some disparate parts together into a coherent project. Their patchy journal keeping alerted me to this. On the other hand, some students were poor writers but compensated for this in their verbal presentations and questions to other groups when they presented.

THE ENDPOINT

The goal is for students to build personal or social meaning with engaging objects, microcontrollers and block code.

The end point should be some sort of display of products that have been created, a show and tell. I have seen this work. Teams that have planned their own project, worked hard, struggled with various problems and overcoming them, encouraging each other and then with pride displaying their final product to an audience. This might be on a small or large scale. When done on a large organised scale this is a Maker Faire.

The ultimate guideline in my view is eat your own dogfood! The teacher should also complete their own project, their own version of hard fun.

The experts who began all this have their own longer term, socially transforming goals:

• Neil Gershenfeld: to turn consumers into producers , How to make almost anything
• Adrian Bowyer (RepRap project) - to put the means of production into everyone’s hands

WHAT ARE THE STUDENTS LEARNING?

The students are designing and making artefacts, coding, designing and printing 3D objects, sharing ideas, collaborating and presenting their finished artefacts to an audience.

We can divide this along a constructionist to instructionist spectrum. The making and designing of artefacts was almost entirely student driven. With collaboration I did ask students who their preferred partners were and I set up the teams based on their selections. A couple of students asked to change teams early on and I said yes. With Makecode and Tinkercad (3D design) I did teach some introductory lessons. Particularly with Makecode my teaching was more on the instructionist end of the spectrum. But later on, when it came to completing some Makecode challenges I rearranged the seating and asked the stronger coders to help those who were having problems with it. To explain further would require a separate article.

REFERENCE

Listed in the order they are referenced in the text
Stager, Gary.20 Things to do with a Computer: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert & Cynthia Solomon's Seminal Work(2021)
Paulo Blikstein. The Democratisation of Invention (2013)
Harel, Idit. Software Design for Learning: Children's Construction of Meaning for Fractions in Logo Programming (MIT, June 1988)
Resnick, Mitchel. Designing for Wide Walls. (2020)
Kerr, Bill. Children are not Hackers, thoughts on an article by Paulo Blikstein and Marcelo Worsley.
Resnick, Mitchel. All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten, pdf
Kleon, Austin. The creative learning spiral
Resnick, Mitchel. Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity Through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play (2018)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Kerr, Bill. Own your own factory that makes more factories (about Adrian Bowyer, the founder of the RepRap project)

student engagement is a variable

All teachers experience this but it is not always pointed out. We like to emphasise the positives. But the reality is that our well thought out programs don't always work for all students. This paper profiles three different types of students found in the Stanford Learning Fabrication Laboratory. The authors then make some recommendations of how to develop classroom environments which have a better chance of engaging all students.

Marcelo Worsley & Paulo Blikstein. Designing for Diversely Motivated Learners (2013). pdf available.

Based on the research of others the current authors develop a descriptive framework for levels of interest and commitment: ‘hanging out’, ‘messing around’ and ‘geeking out’

Jason
Geeking out

• interested in video games, programming and curious about science
• spends his lunchtime in the lab
• frustrated by structured tasks, wants to do own thing
• indifferent to peer connections

Delia
Messing around

• would start any description of her project with, “it’s complicated.”
• Extremely diligent, including HW – Powerpoint slides, Visual Basic, GoGo Board coding, questions to staff by email
• expected just in time help
• She needs structure
• High satisfaction when the project worked
• socially interactive across domains

Shawn
Hanging out

• Disruptive, disrespectful, inability to remain on task
• more interested in socialising than working
• Found he was better at Corel Draw than his peers
• a task of making a key chain for others appealed to & motivated Shawn & his group
• Their ambitious CREAM (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) project was abandoned as too hard

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHERS IN A FAB LEARN LAB ENVIRONMENT

1) Identify student interest & motivational level.
2) Develop a curriculum that has alternative, easier tasks for students with low interest or motivation, eg. hands on mini projects. Try to provide multiple entry and exit points with different levels of scaffolding. It's hard to do this first time you teach a new course but as you get to know all the possibilities better you can offer more options to students.
3) Additional interesting lab demos may spark interest for some who are not motivated

I would add another point here. Set up an expectation that students will either help others or ask for help.

FOOTNOTES
Marcelo Worsley bio

Not directly relevant to this article but when googling for a pic of the Stanford Learning Fabrication Laboratory I was blown away in discovering how many making classes and making spaces they have. Follow the links and you'll see what I mean.

an innovative 21stC maker ed pathway (part one)

PART ONE: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Part One paints a brief historical overview of the development of the new maker education over the past 50 years.

Maker Ed 21stC: Although making is older than the wheel, the 21st C version combines something old (making) with something relatively new, digital technology. This combination opens up a broad range of new fruitful educational pathways.

50 year history: This new version of education (Maker Ed) recently celebrated its 50th birthday with the publication of a new book edited by Gary Stager (20 Things to do with a Computer: Future Visions ...) with contributions from roughly 50 authors from multiple countries.

The founding initiators were Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon with their prescient 1972 article (see reference section). The ideas and practice are not new. But, as so often happens, due to declining costs of the technology, these ideas are now far more accessible. (Footnote: see Blikstein’s 5 reasons for this trend)

Bits and Atoms: Both software (then called logo) and hardware (the floor turtle) were there from the beginning. There has been a massive proliferation in both software and hardware since.

The original floor turtle (1969)

Coding: The original logo software has been through several iterations. The current most popular version is Scratch 3. The Scratch website kicked off in 2007. Today, with more than 43 million registered users, Scratch is now the world's largest creative coding community for children.

Block coding: Scratch has popularised block coding. Sadly, it seems that many teachers and education administrators still don’t understand the significance of block coding. Many still believe that coding is difficult and hence mainly for geeks. But the proven reality is that block coding makes it accessible to 99% of students. It is easy to build an engaging project in 10 minutes.

Year 7s can make the cat walk in 10 minutes

Microcontrollers: Although arduino has been around since 2005 the advent of the micro:bit (2014) and Circuit Playground Express (2017) marked a further advance due to the relative ease of block coding and controls on the board itself (buttons, touch, accelerometer). From early 2016, up to one million micro:bits were distributed to Year 7 students (or equivalent, aged 11-12), non-formal education settings and libraries across the UK in a project led by BBC Education

The micro:bit

Proliferation of block coding: In conjunction with the micro:bit Microsoft developed MakeCode, another block code variant.

Hardware: After the floor turtle, Seymour Papert then collaborated with the LEGO company to produce computer controlled robotics (LEGO TC Logo, 1985). Since then the floodgates have opened. There are so many computer controlled kits on the market now that it is hard to keep track and teacher’s do need guidance to evaluate the educational pros and cons: Makey Makey, Arduino, Little Bits, Ozobot, Micro:bit, Chibi Chip, Circuit Playground Express, Lilypad, Bee-Bot, Dash and Dot, Sphero, Edison, Drones – add or choose your favourite

By the way, with Scratch 3 a lot of hardware can be connected and controlled (Makey Makey, the micro:bit, LEGO Mindstorms EV3)

Fab Lab: Neil Gershenfeld (MIT) created a new course in 2003 called “How to Make Almost Anything” and found people queuing to take it. Since then Fab Labs have been growing exponentially around the world! Yes, exponentially! Fab stands for Fabrication or Fabulous, take your pick. The five machines found in a Fab Lab are the 3D printer, the laser cutter, CNC machine, Digital Embroidery machine and the Vinyl cutter. The ability to make almost anything potentially alters the relationship between consumers and producers.

A Fab Lab

Note that the most popular machine in a Fab Lab is not the 3D printer but the laser cutter, due partly to the quick production times

Maker Movement: The modern Maker Movement was created around 2005. The movement has a regular magazine (“Make”) and holds regular Maker Faires (“The Greatest Show-and-Tell on Earth”). In his chronology Dale Dougherty lists some of the many companies, websites and technologies that have grown up around this movement: Spark Fun, Arduino, Instructables, Adafruit, RepRap Darwin 3D printer, DIY Drones and many more.

Fab Learn Lab: Paulo Blikstein developed the Fab Learn Lab for schools (2008). A Fab Learn lab has the same machines as a Fab Lab but in the desktop variety. If schools value an activity then they build a space for it: Science labs, PE spaces, computer labs etc. A Fab Learn lab doesn’t have to have all the capabilities of a full Fab Lab, but needs to have enough to put students onto that pathway.

Part Two will focus on new courses that emerge from 21st C Maker Education environments.
Part Three will delve into the optimal teaching methodologies to deliver these programmes.


Footnote: According to Blikstein (2018), the interest in the creation, dissemination, and popularization of makerspaces can be attributed to five trends:

1. the greater social acceptance of ideas and principles of progressive education;
2. countries’ interest in establishing a base for an innovative economy;
3. the growth of public awareness, in addition to the popularity of computer programming combined with the creation and production of artifacts;
4. the sharp reduction in the cost of digital information and communication technologies (DICT), as well as digital fabrication technologies (DFT)
5. the development of tools that are more powerful and easier for students to use, along with studies and publications in academic research focused on the effect and impact of these new technologies on learning

REFERENCE
Blikstein, Paulo. Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Education: The Democratization of Invention (2013)
Blikstein P. (2018). Maker Movement in Education: History and Prospects. In: de Vries M. (Ed.) Handbook of Technology Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Dougherty, Dale. Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is Changing our Schools, Our Jobs, and our Minds (2016)
Make Magazine
Papert, Seymour. Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. Harvester Press, 1980.
Papert, Seymour & Solomon, Cynthia. Twenty Things to do with a Computer (1972)
Stager, Gary (Editor). 20 Things to do with a Computer: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert & Cynthia Solomon's Seminal Work (2021)

the 3 game changers: high level overview of the possibilities

The 3 game changers are: (i) block coding (ii) physical computing with microcontrollers such as the microbit (iii) Fabrication Labs, called Fab Labs if community based and Fab Learn Labs if school based.

The 5 types of machines found in a Fab Lab are laser cutter, 3D printer, vinyl cutter, CNC milling and digital embroidery machines.

Here are some possible outcomes that I am seeking support to create. They can be framed as community initiative or school based initiative. The educational and community goals overlap and reinforce each other. They are synergistic.

1) Campaign for an Alice Community Fab Lab (open to the community). This would be great for Alice Springs but also for your town / city where ever it is
The Fab Foundation
Welcome | FabLabs

2) School based Fab Learn Lab (same sorts of machines but desktop variety and school based)
FabLearn Digital Fabrication in Education

FabLearn Labs are a growing network of educational digital fabrication spaces around the world. These labs, developed in collaboration with K12 schools and university partners internationally, put digital fabrication and other cutting-edge technology for design and construction into the hands of middle and high school students.
- source

3) Introduce new subjects at primary, secondary and tertiary level into the existing curriculum based on the

• 3 game changers (block coding, physical computing with microcontrollers, Fab Lab, and
• 5 types of machines: laser cutter, 3D printer, vinyl cutter, CNC milling, digital embroidery)

I have provided a list of possible new subjects, many of which have already been well developed. My list will grow further as I deepen my knowledge about the third game changer.

4) A Fab Lab or Fab Learn lab can be introduced incrementally machine by machine spelling out how they meet local needs.
Eg. The Fab Lab in India, Vigyan Ashram grew out of and was synergistic with local work performed earlier by Yogesh Kulkarni

5) Significant structural curriculum reform in schools. Everyone knows there has been a computer revolution but many schools, in fact most schools, have yet to figure out how this revolution can enhance student learning in amazing ways. We have been procrastinating for 50 years now. The Constructing Modern Knowledge group has been leading the way here, see CMK Press – Invent To Learn. Interestingly, I recently discovered that Kurt Seemanns one of the founders of the Centre for Appropriate Technology in Alice Springs has been promoting similar ideas for a long time, which he calls Technacy.

Related: Your town needs a community Fab Lab