My MakerEd PD Plan
Today was my first day back to school. I’m a Technology Resource Teacher (TRTs) in a large school district in Northern Virginia. TRTs play an essential role in the professional development to facilitate new instructional initiatives. New initiatives this year include One to the World, Project Based Learning and BYOT. Maker education aka MakerEd is ready made to support these efforts.
This summer, I was able to grow professionally by learning, networking and presenting about MakerEd at the national ISTE conference in Philadelphia.
I was also invited to participate in Make Magazine’s 3D Fabrication Shootout. http://makezine.com/2015/07/31/knee-deep-pla-our-2015-3d-fabrication-shootout-kicks-off/
So, how can I continue to develop my MakerEd skills this school year?
Here is my personal MakerEd PD plan.
- Join a Makerspace: A new makerspace, Makersmiths, opened up in my local area. I’m happy to join a community of makers and hope to gain inspiration and support. https://designmaketeach.com/2015/08/06/makersmiths-a-loudoun-county-makerspace/
- Learn to Solder: I asked for a learn to solder kit for my birthday this summer but didn’t have a chance to try it out before going to the Make 3D Fabrication Shootout. I was a little embarrassed when I had to solder something and one of the other reviewers nearly shot milk out his nose in surprise at the awful solder joints.
- Learn Hand Woodworking Skills: I’ve been interested in woodworking for a while. I met Jason Loik this summer and he said that even though my focus is on digital fabrication, learning how to dimension a piece of lumber and make some simple joints using hand tools would provide some important lessons.
- Make an iBook: Well, more like iBooklets. iBook Author now supports exporting ePubs. I want to explore creating multimedia texts.
- Make Videos: Video is where it is at and I need to develop skills at quickly generating watchable video. YouTube, Hangouts, screencasts.
- Attend/Present at World Maker Faire New York: Hoping to attend MakerCon and World Maker Faire New York. My presentation proposal for 3D printing in the classroom was accepted and I might be on a panel or two.
- Help Run VSTE Hackerspace: Annual VSTE conference hosts a hackerspace and I help plan, setup and run.
- Attend/Present at SXSWedu: I’ve heard the energy at SXSWedu is awesome and want to give it a try. I submitted a proposal. https://designmaketeach.com/2015/07/29/brainstorm-sxswedu-2016-proposal/ (Vote for me!) This one is a little bit of a stretch in terms of distance and cost.
- Attend/Present at ISTE 2016: Working some different avenues to make this happen. The Denver location makes this a pretty expensive conference. May have to wait until ISTE cycles back to the east coast.
- Read Imagineering Workout: Went to Disney this summer and the idea of imagineering learning experiences has sort of stuck with me.
That is my personal MakerEd PD Plan. I also need to take graduate class for recertification this year so if anyone has any MakerEd and/or science course (chemistry) let me know.
This is a great MakerED plan 🙂 I’m a big fan of setting goals and intentions for the school year. I’m hoping to go to SXSWedu this year too – there’s so many amazing sessions proposed.