Minor Musings

Still digitally decluttering…

Books, Reading, etc.

• One challenge at MPOW is getting the middle school students into the library (time, distance, lack of discrete space are issues).  So we’re thinking about the pop-up library.

School Life

• Speed Friending in the Library?  Sounds like the perfect start-of-school activity!
• Hoping I can emulate Buffy’s work with my students. Or Ethan’s. Particularly since we know colleges are still requiring research (and five page papers). A little design thinking might help. And maybe not this year, but next?
• I’m fond of this sign, but this one would work, too.

Tech Stuff

• This was done with sixth graders, but could easily scale to any middle or upper school class.
• This is of Allentown, but imagine creating a history or English class project (I know I’ve suggested this before… hoping this year a teacher takes me up on it!).  And how cool it would be to integrate the Newseum into your resources? or a Digital Timeline?
• MPOW is a GAFE/Schoology school, and Videonot.es looks like it would be a great tool to use!
• Right now, we’re BYOD (so have computer labs) – Doug has great ideas about 1:1.
• This list of tools is a great starter toolkit!
• It’s the start of a new school year.  Why not declutter your laptop before things get crazy?

Etcetera

• I’m not looking for a new job, and one might argue that this blog serves as a portfolio, but that doesn’t mean that Katie’s portfolio advice will go to waste.  Go and do likewise.
• Looking for a different conference to attend?  Maybe the First Year Experience is for you. Or maybe the LibraryTechnology conference.

And, as always, Will Richardson has some great ideas about trends we should be watching.  Something to ponder as the school year starts.

Advertisements

What are you doing with your summer?

I’ve already posted my early-summer PD schedule and a few “if only…” options.  Then I read this on Twitter:

Carrie Kausch on Twitter: “I attended disappointing PD at an #alaac15 precon, disappointing PD yesterday. Maybe I need to quit trying PD for a while.” via kwout

and Wendy posted about her Walden experience.

Both put me in mind of a friend (a librarian friend) who worked in a school that gave out summer sabbatical travel/learning grants.  No librarian had ever gotten one, because why do we need to travel/learn?  She applied and got a grant to learn to paint in Tuscany.  The rationale?  She was a very linear learner and thinker, not at all artistic.  Learning to paint would be out of her comfort zone.  Even more out of that comfort zone would be living and learning in a language she didn’t know.  Why was this important?  Because she was very comfortable (as I suspect most librarians are) doing research and speaking the language of information fluency/skills, etc..  Putting herself in those uncomfortable shoes would mean she could, for a few weeks, walk in her students’ steps as they began to learn the process of finding, evaluating and interpreting information while they did research.  She argued, convincingly, that her experience would make her more empathetic to them and help her be a better librarian.

I’ve never worked in a school that’s had that kind of program (or, if they did, I wasn’t eligible) but it’s something to consider for next year, even if it’s out of my own pocket (as Doug says, it’s good to have skin in the game).  Imagine how your program could change and improve if you did the same.

Help Yourself – personalized learning at #alaac15

(another program that will be posted online – check here)

Many schools and libraries are starting to embrace personalized learning, blended learning, the flipped classroom or whatever new buzzword appears.  At the Online School for Girls, they’re talking about “competency-based instruction” that puts learners at the center, meeting their needs and goals (in other words, it’s not teacher or student driven, it’s learner driven).  This approach allows teachers to work smarter.

Projects are remapped to put the student learner at the center, allowing for deeper engagement with the materials :

• what major competencies are desired?
• what is the individual student profile (what type of learner are they? what do they already know?)
• what “pathway options” are there to get the student to understand the material?
• what operational elements need to be designed?

remember: the pathway is less important than the competencies

You can build units in your LMS – Haiku, Schoology, WhippleHill, LibGuides, Moodle, etc. – chunking competencies and building in the pathway options.

Personalized learning is data-driven: always assign what students are learning and circle back if necessary.  In other words, assess assess assess (not necessarily formal assessments!).

In order to do this, you need to think about the school climate and have conversations about pedagogy.  For this to work, creating a climate of personalized learning needs to be a strategic intention, with an evaluation of space and investment in infrastructure for what the student’s needs are. Does the school’s mission have learners at the center?

The next speaker was from SFPL, highlighting their new literacy and learning center, a place where all kinds of learning can take place.  They’ve relabeled their classroom the Learning Studio/Learning Theatre, giving it flexible furnishings that can be positions to best assist what the program is.

Other ideas:

• develop a public instruction plan
• create a collection of resources and programs
• instructional materials and tools are important (use YouTube for a tutorial collection, create handouts as take-aways)

Most learners want hands-on help! Make that happen with drop-in classes, 1:1 tech help (20 min sessions), online course instruction and meet-ups.

Finally, we heard from VATech, which has created a program that stresses empowering students by partnering with faculty – to do this they’ve developed programs and tools.

Good place to start: check with the first year experience librarians at schools popular with students and build down from that

One thing they’ve created is an iPad tour of the library: auto-generated, outcome based tour (there are also auto-graded assessments).  They’re now thinking about beacons, QR codes and apps to provide the same opportunities.

It’s important to train the trainers: creating lesson plans and activities that teachers can use/drop-in to their classes.  Your role is that of coach/consultant, not teacher. Example? their Working with the Library toolkit. The anecdotal evidence is that this works, freeing the librarians to do 1:1 assistance.

VT has also created an Instructional Learning Community with the assumption that all librarians are learners.  It’s open to anyone who wants to talk about teaching and includes a Read/Lead group who read and discuss a book that deals with learning, pedagogy, schools, etc.

Tool to check out: EDpuzzle (allows students to insert questions they have about the video tutorials they’re watching)

 

Big Data and danah boyd at #alaac15

danah boyd’s research and work has been fascinating to follow – this was less “It’s Complicated” and more “it’s problematic” (if you’re an ALA member, the presentation will probably be posted here). This marks a shift from watching how teens use social media towards the idea of big data (and metadata) as a whole; essentially, she takes issue with the idea that big data collection can somehow solve all of life’s questions – it can’t because tech is not neutral, it takes on the bias of the creators/manipulators.  She then went on to talk about three things:

Privacy

• social media is a relief valve (boyd blames helicopter parents who give their children no down or alone time to just hang with friends – my problem with that is that these parents are my age, and we had plenty of this time and we managed to survive!)
• as a result, public spaces are now networked online (check out Youth Radio)
• privacy no longer means “control of information”  – it means “control of social situation” (agency is important); context is important and learned (another way to think about it is “code shifting“)
  • the skills to interpret context and how to navigate online social dynamics are emerging – adults and teens need to learn them
  • the big challenge is that real life requires constant code shifting, but online is soooooo different (esp. for teens) – check out the social stenography post danah did in 2010

Making Meaning of Data

• some teens have learned to put random brand names into their email posts (esp. gmail) to provoke those brand ads that accompany “free” email
• the lesson? who interprets, collects and provides data matters
  • q: was the Target story real or apocryphal
  • “Reckless associations can do very real harm when they appear in supposedly neutral environments like online stores” (Atlantic Monthly article)
  • look at the work Latanya Sweeney is doing and read Sorting Things Out (Bowker & Star)

Just because it’s a machine doesn’t mean there are no politics involved: there are usually more!

Networked Data

• who has control? our usual models break down online (23andme gives your consent now and in the future for you and your family; LAPD’s “spit and acquit” program)
• we now live in a world of predictions that can be used to discriminate (“legal” is another issue) and raises questions about fairness (equality, equity and economic)

So, where does Librarianship fit into all this?

• ALA’s Core Values take these things into account
• question license agreements, hours of access, technology equity – push for open access, push back against information lock-up
• there’s a new literacy: data literacy – we need to educate our users about this

we tell students that Wikipedia is BAD, but why do we also say that Google is GOOD?

• question everything: push levels of thinking, teach students to do this so they can see bias and better determine who to trust online
• social responsibility: more of us (librarians) need to speak up!
• privacy: we need to talk more and teach more about the cultural consequences of Big Data (the NSA is the tip of the iceberg)

There are three types of data collection (for more about some of this, see my post about Debbie and Kristin’s program at #alaac13:

1. data by choice (eg., Fitbit)
2. data by coercion (the LAPD)
3. data by circumstance (using Facebook)

• why is ALA so afraid to be local? we do a great job of taking national (and international) positions, but local? rarely.

This documentary was not mentioned during ms. boyd’s talk, but I highly recommend watching/showing Terms and Conditions May Apply.  Scary, provocative and perhaps a catalyst for change.

 

Book-based thoughts about #alaac15

I have so much more to write about, but just don’t have time right now to digest and properly reflect on the sessions.  So instead, here’s the “easy” post, all about the books!

ARCs to savor – look for these books soon! (ok, I haven’t read more than one or two… yet…):

• Slade House by David Mitchell (huge surprise, given the appearance of The Bone Clocks earlier this year)
• Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley (historical fiction about the Brontes)
• The Trouble in Me by Jack Gantos (no one does fictional autobiography like Gantos.  No one).
• Most Dangerous by Steve Sheinkin (about Daniel Ellsberg, maybe helping students understand why what he did was such a Big Deal Back Then)
• Untwine by Edwidge Dandicat (need I say more?)
• The Year of Lear by James Shapiro (maybe understanding the historical setting around the writing of the play will help students appreciate it more?)
• We Believe the Children by Richard Beck (looking forward to revisiting the hysteria)

For the record, I got nearly 70 books at ALA, all of which I’m hoping I’ll truly enjoy.  These just seemed to be the most universally interesting.  Or not.

A few years ago, Wendy introduced me to the joy that is the Best Fiction for Young Adults teen feedback session.  If at all possible, I try to go and hear what the teens really think (because as a 50+-year-old, sometimes I just don’t think like a teen).  The following is a list of the books that got Much Love, Some Love and Mixed Love from the group that spoke, and one or two that they didn’t seem to like as much as the committee did:

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Becky Albertalli) – some love
• The Tightrope Walkers (David Almond) – some love
• Infandous (Elana Arnold) – mixed love
• The Doubt Factory (Paolo Bacigalupi) – no real love
• Silent Alarm (Jennifer Banash) – some love
• The Darkest Part of the Forest (Holly Black) – mixed love
• The Game of Love and Death (Martha Brockenbrough) – mixed love
• The Bunker Diary (Kevin Brooks) – mixed love
• Alex as Well (Alyssa Brugman) – mixed love
• Audacity (Melanie Crowder) – some love
• Death Coming Up the Hill (Chris Crowe) – some love
• I’ll Meet You There (Heather Demetrios) – some love
• Eden West (Peter Hautman) –  some love
• Poisoned Apples (Christine Heppermann) – much love
• Little Peach (Peggy Kern) – much love
• Read Between the Lines (Jo Knowles) – some love
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J. Maas) – some love
• All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven) – much love
• Vanishing Girls (Lauren Oliver) – some love
• The Boy in the Black Suit (Jason Reynolds) – mixed love
• Bone Gap (Laura Ruby) – mixed love
• The Winner’s Crime (Marie Rutkoski) – mixed love
• Fig (Sarah Elizabeth Schantz) – some love
• The Ghosts of Heaven (Marcus Sedgwick) – mixed love
• X (Ilyasah Shabazz) – much love
• Challenger Deep (Neal Shusterman) – much love
• The Walls Around Us (Nova Ren Suma) – mixed love
• All the Rage (Courtney Summers) – much love
• In Real Life (Laurence Tabak) – mixed love
• An Ember in the Ashes (Sabaa Tahir) – mixed love
• The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (Teresa Toten) – mixed love
• Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go (Laura Rose Wagner) – some love
• We All Looked Up (Tommy Wallach) – mixed love
• My Heart and Other Black Holes (Jasmine Warga) – mixed love
• This Side of Home (Renee Watson) – some love

There were 59 books on the list, so that “only” 24 were left off during a whirlwind 90 minute session isn’t bad.  For me, the surprises were that Mosquitoland (David Arnold), Saint Anything (Sarah Dessen), The Girl at Midnight (Melissa Grey), Razorhurst (Justine Larbalesteir), Hold Me Closer (David Levithan) and Black Dove, White Raven (Elizabeth Wein) were not mentioned at all.  That might not mean anything… or it might.  What I do know is that I’m going to use the much loved and some loved books in a Welcome Back display in September, asking our students to weigh in.

Now I’m off on a brief vacation (and some reading of the new books).  More on ALA when I return.

 

Summer Learning

One of the biggest complaints others have about those of us who work in schools is that we get this really long summer vacation, so why do we need to get paid a reasonable wage? While it’s true that we get that vacation (and part of me says the haters are just jealous), the reality is that few of us use it for Vacation and more of us use it to revamp lesson plans, to learn new tools and skills, and to learn from each other.

My plans, in addition to revamping and trying new tricks, are:

• ALA Annual in San Francisco (where I’m triple booked at times on Saturday, with long stretches of downtime on Sunday and nothing on Monday – a far cry from the good old days)
• Wonder Women! Uncovering your Superpower and Signature Leadership Presence at my alma mater

If I had the time/money, I’d also be attending

• AISL Summer Institute in La Jolla
• Capstone Project Summit (also in CA, where apparently I could stay for most of the second half of June!)

Between now and then, however, I have time to go through my archived tweets and blog posts, pulling out great ideas to try for next year and tools/tricks/tips to share with you, my faithful readers.  And after, more time to play and explore, not to mention get caught up on all the wonderful summer book releases and getting ready for fall.  Sadly, Faculty Orientation and Student Orientation in August will be upon us far too soon…

What will you be doing?  where?

Change, or thinking the unthinkable

“Life is change”, we’re told. And we need to “lean in” to the discomfort (a real misreading of That Book) or recite the Serenity Prayer or do yoga or something. But change is stressful, no matter how we try to deal with it.

There’s a very loosely connected group of librarians who meet once a year at a day-long conference (the group is called the New England Association of Independent School Librarians, or NEAISL, and has no elist, no website, nothing more than this moveable conference) and this year, Porter’s is hosting that conference.  Our metatheme is change in all its permutations and instead of presentations we’re having facilitated conversations.  I know, from personal experience, that those conversations we have amongst colleagues are incredibly valuable – going to a conference presentation may lead to a new idea or two, or give an overview of a new tool, but for help with real change, real problems, it’s that interpersonal piece that works best.

So what kind of change?  As a librarian, I know that our programs have changed radically over the past couple of decades.  The school library my parents had looked very much like the one I had, but the one my nieces and nephews had has undergone so much change that they wouldn’t recognize mine!  Gone are the micro-format machines and drawers of film/fiche, ditto the card catalog, the LP collection, etc. and instead there are computers and databases and possibly makerspaces, and no shelves of encyclopedias with annual updates.  Do we stay with Dewey, or go with Metis or BISAC or Library of Congress?  What is the right size to the collection?

And then there are professional changes, like a shake-up in school or library administration.  Sometimes it’s a redistribution of duties or divisions, based on staffing changes.  What do you do if you have to change divisions, moving from your Middle School comfort zone to working with Upper School?  Or losing your K-12 range to go K-4 only?  Maybe there’s been a reduction, where your clerk has been “reassigned” (or someone without any training has been assigned!).  And if you’re new to a school, how do you fit into that team – if there is a team; sometimes you’ve gone solo and are suddenly everything from the Head Librarian to the occasional volunteer.

For some people, and I’ve heard from a number, these changes are too much.  They’ve gotten that one straw too many and it’s time to think about What’s Next.  Years ago, a colleague at another school sent out an email describing a situation at her school, where the new Head was radically changing the program and essentially turning it into a non-library space with a non-library focus.  This distress call got back to the school and a few days later, What’s Next became What Do I Do Now?  Some of us are trying to prevent that from happening to us, but the strain of keeping up with the changes is difficult to deal with.

It’s my hope that instead of thinking the unthinkable, we’ll be able to band together and share resources, share tool and share our stories, bolstering each other so that we can deal with the stress and the change.  What are we doing, and where are we going is relevant to everyone – so here’s your opportunity to vent, share and help.  I look forward to your comments!

Ever changing landscape

I’m a list maker.  I like checking off that To Do list, getting organized and Getting Things Done.

Being a school librarian is not the best profession for anyone who likes that!

My Big To Do List for this school year has changed, morphed, been ignored and resorted over the past few months… and even after 18 years in schools I’m still not totally ok with that. I keep thinking that we should be further along with the weeding project.  The Varsity Reading Team should be meeting.  Updating the library blog and twitter feed needs to be more frequent. Our Resource Guides aren’t exactly where I want them.  Etc. Etc.

So why aren’t we there? Because of the constant interruptions: helping students find books to read for pleasure… working with them on how to cite a source… ordering new books for the collection… chatting with the student needing an adult ear to listen and shoulder to cry on… And, sadly, neither I nor my Partner-in-Crime are good at being in two places at once.

We’re hosting this year’s New England Association of Independent School Librarians conference, and change is our metatheme.  The programmatic changes when your school goes 1:1 with laptops or tables, or decides to go more (or totally) digital, or the research focus moves more online and in class than before.  The personal changes when you move from being a team member to a solo librarian (or the reverse), or become a department chair, or are asked to move from your division of comfort (K-4, or 9-12) to another division, or are suddenly losing staff and being asked to take on more.  The organizational changes when the school’s Head or other administration changes, or the school drops AP exams, or joins the IB program.  And thoughts about retirement and/or career change.

Those are conversations we need to have, and have needed to have for years.  Decades maybe.  I can’t wait to share stories with my peers, and to feel a little less alone with these questions and fears and issues.

I think about my high school librarian, who ran a program relatively similar to the one my parents would have had.  She was at the school for over 30 years and saw a hugely shifting landscape (where did that wonderful room of LPs go? what about the microfilm/fiche room?).  In my time things have moved from databases on CD-ROMs to “in the cloud”, for example, and movies are not on VHS (or laserdisc) but streamed.  Keeping up with those changes is exhausting!  What makes the perfect program?  How has that perfect program changed since what it was last year?  or last month?

I’m grateful that I now have a week to think about those things, to reassess the To Do List and to regain my footing on the ever-changing landscape I call “my” library.

#YALSA and the badging program – #ALAMW14

Linda Braun made it clear – this is a work in progress: testers are needed.  Just go to yalsabadges.ala.org

So what do we need to know beyond that?  Badges are a serious learning process, more about the learning than about the badge.  These are tied in to YALSA’s Core Competencies, with the idea that they will help people get the skills they need to be successful.  The following are about YALSA’s badges (my thoughts on this and some badging takeaways will follow):

• These badges are “crowdsourced” – once someone has completed the work, it becomes open to the public, who can then comment and either approve (“thumbs up”) or disapprove (“thumbs down”) for their work.  In other words, earning the badge is contingent not only on completing the various steps and requirements but on peer approval of the work you’ve done.
• The exact number of thumbs up is unknown, it’s based on an algorithm.  There is the danger of someone doing the work and then waiting… and waiting… and waiting… for approval.  Community buy-in is critical, as is community participation.
• The system is (as of right now) a Pass/Fail system, so you could be 100% on several steps but still not “badge worthy”; once you do get approval, you cannot lose it.
• Badges can be exported to Mozilla’s Backpack, which will enable people to show a variety of professional development badges as part of their online portfolio/resume.
• Obtaining badges demonstrating competency is gaining acceptance in the military and at colleges.  They demonstrate actual skills, much more clearly than a grade on a test does.

They are still working on the badges, with only three available right now.  The format for each is Overview -> Goals -> Technology Requirements -> Steps (what you need to do) -> Rubric and screencasts on how to do things like set up a Google Form are included.  An online forum may be set up so that those working towards their badge can communicate with others in the same position as well as with people either already badged or those who are experts/mentors.  Notifications for new content need to be created so that people don’t have to log in daily (and see nothing there).

Linda stressed that this is a soft opening, reminding us that Gmail was in beta for five years (but YALSA’s working on a faster timeframe than Google).  She also recognized that there is work to be done on providing administrators and supervisors with information on the rigor required and the skills learned, so that people recognize this as a credential.

So, my thoughts about these badges specifically:

• The skills skew heavily to the public librarians and their needs; school librarians might not be able to see a need or value to the work needed to complete a badge.  School librarians have the NBPTS for Library Media/Early Childhood Through Young Adulthood and AASL’s NSLPY Award to help them focus their programs and skills. YALSA is going to have to make a really strong case for the school librarian contingent to make this a valuable professional development tool.
• There’s a w whiff of “checking in” here, like Foursquare or Get Glue.  This may skew the process towards younger librarians, or those who want to become a librarian, while those in the middle or further in their careers will not see them as necessary.
• Many school librarians are required to get CEU’s and without getting state buy-in to make a badge the equivalent of a certain number of hours of learning, again, there won’t be as much buy-in from school librarians.  Some states won’t accept CEUs from outside their state, again limiting the desirability of this program.
• While I understand why YALSA feels the need to provide interesting ways to provide professional development tools, particularly those that allow for self-paced, reflective learning, this feels as though YALSA is trying to be LITA Jr.  Perhaps a partnership with LITA to create badges for all ALA members would work better?
• At Midwinter, the Board approved the creation of a badge for Literary Evaluation.  One supposes that this is so that the President-Elect has better information when considering appointments to the various selection and awards committees – but murmurs I’ve heard are fears that this won’t be objective, that people “on the outs” with YALSA’s Board or VIPs won’t get fair treatment even if they have the badge.
• The badge that was used as an example, Leadership and Professionalism, struck me as problematic on two levels.  The first was that there are suggestions of library and related twitter feeds to follow – granted, I didn’t ask how that list could be updated by people, but I suspect that newbies might only follow the ones already listed and thus lead to a privileged echo chamber while interesting, outsider voices go unheard.  The second was that once the badge is earned, what mechanism is in place to ensure that the badgee(?) continues to keep up with this newfound PLN?  Maybe I’m jaded from working with students who tend to forget things quickly after the test, but…

On the other hand, the idea of badging is one that has interested me for a while.  I love the idea of creating skills-based badges so that students can demonstrate their ability to do things like cite a source, find information in our catalog or a database, and format a paper.  Teachers planning to do a research paper could mandate that the students complete certain badges by a specific time so that they (and the librarians) know what, if anything, is needed in the way of instruction on basic skills.  There were several things mentioned in this session that were very helpful as I think about how best to create a badging program:

• Make the look of the badge simple – not childlike, just simple
• Beware of complexity (perhaps break up a larger piece into smaller elements) and the time it will take (boredom or frustration can prevent completion
• Start small, figuring out what’s most important/needed now and then build
• The LMS needs to be really, really robust (YALSA is using Drupal) and that you have lots of tech support and training on how to use it
• Test, test, test and retest
• Ask the community experts how to assess the “win” and provide peer review

I’ve done one badge on information literacy and it was time-consuming and kludgy.  Not to mention the fact that there were two questions I got right but were marked wrong by the system (luckily I took screenshots of the “wrong” answers and successfully got the grade changed). I can only imagine the work it must take to keep them up-to-date and smooth-running so that students don’t have technoangst on top of everything else!

Maker/Create/Collaborativespace pre-conference – #RUSA #ALAMW14

I was fortunate to get off the waiting list for the RUSA MARS/RSS pre-conference and see what public and academic librarians think about the maker/create/collaborate space trend.

The overwhelming message was the “maker/createspace” was not just about 3D and Audino, it was anything that isn’t reference or readers advisory.  You don’t need to be a coder to be a creator, you can be a knitter, calligrapher or a rubber stamper (or another type of creator).  This is a message that we need to remember as we create our spaces: it’s about the creation, not the tools.  At bottom, doesn’t “maker” meet our mission as librarians, helping people explore their passions?  In schools especially we’re supposed to help students create new things with the knowledge they acquire – and a maker/create/collaborative space does just that.  Thinking about the space is a great way to start the strategic planning process, too, as it will involve people from different constituencies.

One important thing is to not be a closed shop: be open to all platforms (iOS, WinTel, Chrome, Lynix) and allow people to use all those during the programs.  A diversity of experience and resources can spark really interesting ideas.  It’s also critical to remember that not everyone can afford the tools necessary (it’s also important not to go broke providing for people using the space – finding that happy medium can be difficult).

How should you start? Ask the community what they want, and what they can bring to the space.  Consider an Idea Studio (a la Warwick PL). NCSU’s Hunt Library has a 270o Visualization and Teaching Lab (home of the Virtual Paul’s Cross Website).

Final words: balance what the users really do want and need with what they’re told they want and need (by the media, the library administration, etc.).  It’s a difficult process, and an on-going one, but very worth it.

Other pearls of wisdom:

• outside funding, but BYOP[roject] is also good
• Facebook and Twitter are great sources of ideas for what other libraries are doing – see how you can re-purpose their ideas
• helping people with digital curation is as much “maker” as it is “archivist”
• consider putting large windows in the space, so people outside can see what’s inside and get inspired
• students like whiteboards, flexible seating and furnishings

Resources:

• MakerCamp (includes kits and program ideas) and other Google Summer Projects
• Squishy Circuits
• Ice Cube Crayons
• Cardboard Robots
• MakerFaire
• Lynda
• Learning Space Toolkit (especially journey maps)