Resources: Making & Learning
Essential reading and videos for understanding how making supports learning
Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom – The book called the “bible of the classroom maker movement.” The companion website for this book contains purchasing information, news from the world of making, tinkering, and engineering, all resources (plus new ones!)
Books and Articles
- Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape Their Worlds – A book from the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s initiative Agency By Design offers a framework of core educational practices and ideas that define maker-centered learning.
- Makeology – This two volume series offers research and authoritative articles from top researchers around the world on makerspaces as learning environments and makers as learners.
- Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity Through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play – Mitchel Resnick, the director of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab shares his experiences working with schools around the world and heading the Scratch programming language team.
- The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School In The Age Of The Computer – In 1993, Seymour Papert looked back on the first decade of computers in schools and predicted what what might lie ahead in this still relevant and accessible book.
- Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop-from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication – Neil Gershenfeld’s prescient blueprint for the personal fabrication revolution.
- Beware Dangerism! – By Gever Tulley (Kindle Single)
- Learning by Making: American kids should be building rockets and robots, not taking standardized tests – By Dale Dougherty (Slate magazine online).
Videos
- Leah Buechley’s TED Talk, “How to Sketch with Electronics” – Inspiring and beautiful video.
- Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez – Future of Making in Schools – Conversation led by Steve Kurti of the Innovation Academy about making, scaling innovation in schools, what the future holds, and why making connects deeply with teachers.
- FabLab@School: One Fabrication Lab per School – A TEDx talk by Paulo Blikstein.
- Making in Education – Gary Stager’s interview with Steve Hargadon at the 2012 San Mateo Maker Faire.
- Tinkering School – A four minute TED Talk by Gever Tully showcasing learning by tinkering.