TASCHA has begun looking at innovation spaces that support making activities and how they may provide communities with unique opportunities through fostering innovation and creativity, but there are challenges that must be addressed before “every child a maker” becomes a reality. Through a …
As noted in the previous post, Democratized Tools of Production: New Technologies Spurring the Maker Movement, the power and opportunity purported to emerge from the maker movement is strongly focused on STEM education and the ‘tools of production’. This post will focus on the history of STEM, …
The discourse surrounding the Maker Movement, particularly in the political spectrum, focuses heavily on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education, manufacturing, and jobs (Kalil, Extreme Marshmellow Canons, 2012). It is the technology and tools that are ushering in “the …
The extensive discourse regarding ‘making’ and the maker movement is primarily centered on the opportunities that ‘making’ creates for society, particularly for manufacturing, entrepreneurship, and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Through this blog post series, …
In this informal get together, 2013 Library Journal Mover & Shaker Lauren Britton will lead a discussion on the concepts, theory, and ideology behind the maker movement, and examine if the public library creates a unique platform for community and civic engagement, through making. Lauren is a …
In June 2013, I joined TASCHA’s Chris Coward to help launch a project on Innovation Spaces. This work builds on earlier conversations Chris has had with Christine Prefontaine and Beth Kolko, among others. Using a giant whiteboard, we shared, discussed, debated, synced, and altered our …
In our research on innovation spaces, we needed to arrive at a definition of innovation that fit the spaces we were observing. It was not entrepreneurship, as that would be too narrow and not explain many of the uses. Rather, it was about problem solving, and making use of these spaces to find …
Innovation Spaces: From Access to Information to Access to Each Other was the topic of a presentation delivered by TASCHA Director Chris Coward at Cotexto Digital in Bogota Colombia, October 17, 2013. Contexto Digital is a series of events organized by the National Library of Colombia and the …