3 Challenges As Hands-On, DIY ‘Maker’ Culture Moves Into Schools : NPR Ed : NPR

Three challenges:

  1. link making to curriculum that teachers are doing in the classroom
  2. not corporatize it with tests, common core alignment, accountability, structure (BUT WHAT’S WRONG WITH STRUCTURE?)
  3. make it not only the purview of middle/upper-class white kids and white teachers whose schools can afford laser cutters, drones, 3d printers.

Creative and fun “maker spaces” are popping up in more schools. But administrators and teachers face big hurdles if they want them to be a sustainable part of the curriculum.

Source: 3 Challenges As Hands-On, DIY ‘Maker’ Culture Moves Into Schools : NPR Ed : NPR

To Make Better Predictions, Don’t Stick With The Easy Stuff : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

There’s value in recognizing and attending to the problems we struggle with; it not only provides an opportunity to learn, but also to become better calibrated in our predictions, says Tania Lombrozo.

Source: To Make Better Predictions, Don’t Stick With The Easy Stuff : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

A Kids’ Coding Expert Says We’re Making Computer Class Way Too Boring : NPR Ed : NPR

Love this. First, Mitchel Resnick is the oracle. Second, PBS Kids is partnering with MIT/Scratch to get their characters into Scratch Jr.

This week, thousands of events around the world are encouraging computer-coding literacy. “Coding is really about creative self-expression and storytelling,” says Mitchel Resnick of MIT’s Media Lab.

Source: A Kids’ Coding Expert Says We’re Making Computer Class Way Too Boring : NPR Ed : NPR