It's all about the Makerspace

We decided to jump on the Makerspace bandwagon.  We have read numerous articles on the movement (click here for Pinterest board on Makerspace Ideas) and attended a couple of conference sessions too.  As I read these articles and attend sessions, I am able to picture the end result, and it looks fabulous.  Getting there is another thing.  Where do you start?

Blanca, Karen, and I have been discussing this idea since August after Blanca visited the Grand Prairie Public Library.  Then in November, we had a visit from one of our top administrators talking about this "radical idea"he saw at a conference.  He began  describing the various "stations" in the library with legos, tools, craft supplies, etc.  All three of us responded with "the Makerspace Movement." So after that we decided to sit down and figure this out.

I will be the first to admit that we have yet to figure it all out, but one does have to start somewhere.   Here are a few things we have already learned on our Makerspace journey.

My advice at the beginning is to read as much as you can and decide where you want to start.  Do you want a passive makerspace area where students can work on projects assigned to them?  If so, what types of supplies should your provide? Do you want to host workshops using your Makerspace area? If so, what types of products are you envisioning? I know this sounds very elementary, but it helps to drive your budget.

We decided to then analyze the budget and purchase what we could.  We went in 2 different directions.  We bought a lot of craft type consumables like duct tape, markers, crayons, glue sticks, paints, paper, and glitter which we bought through Office Depot & Every Season.  Then we bought board games like Battleship, Connect Four, Sorry, Boggle, and 3 giant games....Connect Four, Checkers, and Jenga.

Why board games you ask?  What does that have to do with the Makerspace movement?  When we attended the TLA (Texas Library Association) conference 2 years ago, there was a conference within the conference called TT4L (Texas Teens 4 Libraries).  We were able to take our Book Club students to this event because it was in Ft. Worth.  During the Teen Makerspace time, the moderators put out all of these stations.... a photo booth, a 3D printer, circuit boards, games, a jewelry making station, and a soldering workstation.  We watched  how engaged the teens were with these giant games (as well as the other stations), and that is how we decided to include the board games.

Our next step... where to put our Makerspaces?  After scoping out our options, we decided to start small.  We have a student production room that has 4 computers and a video production studio which is in the process of being installed.

We decided to pull the desktop computers out, and we plan to put a couple of tables or maybe some more comfortable furniture in there; we are not sure.  We have an iPad lab that we plan to keep in there along with the the video studio in hopes to make the area more flexible to fit the needs of our students.

In addition to the production studio room, we have a rarely used magazine rack that we also plan to use for our passive Makerspace supplies.  We decided to place the magazines and comics in a more visible place so the students will discover them...

...which frees up the area for a crafts Makerspace.  As classes or small groups come into the library to work on a project, we will now have an area for them to physically create.  It's about more than just providing databases, print resources, computers and printers. We also need to think about those assignments that are more crafty in nature; not all teachers ask students to design digital products for every assignment.  We want to be there for our students when the product assigned is a poster, scrap book, or sculpture.  As many of our students do not have printers or computers at home, it it also true that they lack many common supplies like crayons, construction paper, markers, glue, paper, etc. We know this to be true because our students ask to use these supplies all the time.  So why not stage a DIY station to help out.

More on Makerspaces soon!  Thanks for stopping by.