THE INVENTABLES WORKSHOP

"The concept of a Makerspace is amazing and wonderful, but planning and implementing can be daunting. There are implications that can make the entire process overwhelming and exhausting, but as an educator it is important to remember what your desired outcome is. For me the desired outcome was to give students a unique and worthwhile learning experience." -- Blaine Bryson is a maker teacher at Avon Middle School in Avon Ohio Q: What's your own process like for planning your Makerspace/Lab for the upcoming school year? The idea of a Makerspace for our school is new and has developed out of a district wide goal to expand electives for our students. When I first began to plan the class, I pitched it to my administration as a technology course that involved creating a variety of optional learning experiences. From the initial idea of a technology course based on student choice, the course began to take shape based on a few questions that needed answered. The

Jeremy Parker is an Agricultural & Vocational teacher at Oak Hill High School in Alexandria, LA. He focuses on making sure kids have skills they can use for a lifetime of starting businesses and hobbying after they finish high school. As he's putting his lab together for another busy year of teaching and hosting the Oak Hill High FFA club, we asked him what his priorities are when organizing his space, and what programs he's most excited about for the coming year. Q: What's your process like for planning your makerspace/lab for the upcoming school year? I teach vocational and technical classes and I had the lab running all summer, so I don’t have to set up the classroom as much as cleanup and prepare for the fall. For us, the biggest considerations as we add more machines is dust collection, noise abatement, and increasing our internet access ports. Right now, we only have one hardwired access point in our lab, so we’ll need to install wifi or tether the