The last set of readings in my emerging technology class was on the “maker movement.” The Horizon Report subtitled that as “shift from students and consumers to students as creators.” Those of us in learning and development are usually appreciative of ways to engender active, hands-on learning, so “making” is a trend we should watch.
Online, we had a lot of discussion about whether people who created intellectual products (e.g. writing, plans, designs) were included as “makers,” and we discussed whether we had to see “making” as usually about new ways to make money. I liked Hagel, Brown & Kulasooriya’s definition of maker as “someone who derives identity and meaning from the act of creation.” I can tell you that I certainly feel that way about all the slide decks I create!
There is a lot of interesting material on this trend – enjoy these readings. And please share other references if you like.
If you’ve been following along, this post is the final one in a series which reading lists for the overview of emerging technologies, social media, MOOCs, and learning analytics. Thanks for following along.
Introduction
When you first start looking into the “maker movement,” you might think that it is especially important for modern day entrepreneurs and not necessarily of interest to corporate learning and development strategists. But the movement at its core is about the freedom to create, and from a learning perspective, the depths of learning that comes out of that creation. (See the Maker Manifesto, under recommended readings, and notice that making, learning, and playing go hand-in-hand.)
There is a lot of discussion about “making” in the education arena, and it will, I think, eventually come to the T&D space as well. Corporations already try to encourage innovation by giving employees a chunk of time to do their own projects – they know that the employees will come up with great ideas that the company might never have developed otherwise.
The constructivist and constructionist learning theories would strongly endorse this approach, and some of your readings dig into those theories a bit more deeply. I would encourage you to pull out your adult learning texts and remind yourself of constructivist theories as a way of understanding how learners as creators makes a great deal of sense.
In T&D, we should look at how making can be an important learning and teaching technique – and consider what hands-on projects might really help our learners to more fully understand key concepts and approaches. Some of our existing techniques, like problem-based-learning, action learning, and other “hands on” strategies fall in alignment with the spirit of “making” I think. But I’ll be interested to hear how you see it.
Required
A Movement in the Making. By John Hagel, John Seely Brown, & Deleesha Kulasooriya. (Deloitte University Press, 2014)
What Is the Maker Movement and Why Should You Care? By Brit Morin (Huffington Post, May 2, 2013)
What’s the Maker Movement and Why Should I Care? By Gary Stager (Scholastic Web Site, Winter 2014)
The Maker Movement and the Rebirth of Constructionism. By Jonan Donaldson. (Hybrid Pedagogy, January 23, 2014)
How the Maker Movement is Transforming Education. By Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary S. Stager. (We Are Teachers web site, nd). See also the links provided to the left of the article.
Recommended
What We’re Reading. (Making Things Happen, Agency by Design project, Harvard Graduate School of Education) This post lists quick reviews of a variety of books on the subject of “making” – great for bibliophiles! The Agency by Design web site is worth exploring.
The Maker Movement Manifesto. (Sample chapter PDF available here) By Mark Hatch.
A Defense of Constructionism: Philosophy as conceptual engineering. By Luciano Flroidi (Metaphilosophy, 2011) Available through Penn State’s databases – Wiley Online Journal Library.
Mapping Digital Makers: A review exploring everyday creativity, learning lives and the digital. (PDF) By Julian Sefton-Green
Learning Creative Learning (MOOC-like course). By MIT Media Lab and P2PU, supported by the MacArthur Foundation. March-May 2014, materials still available.