Makerspaces are a growing movement. Find out how to get going in your library and share your ideas with others.

1. MAKERSPACES IN THE
SCHOOL LIBRARY
J A C K I E C H I L D A N D M E G A N D A L E Y
Australian School Library
Association Inc.

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Australian School Library Association Inc.
Jackie Child is a Teacher Librarian in the
Junior School Library at St Aidan’s Anglican
Girls’ School. She has been teaching for 38
years and has held many positions within
schools including Deputy Principal. She is
passionate about teaching and is excited by the
possibilities which technology is bringing to
education. After spending 3 years involved in
research with the ‘Griffith Serious Play Project’,
Jackie is looking forward this year to joining
Griffith University as a sessional tutor for ICT
Primary. She has a blog documenting our
journey in developing a library ‘MakerSpace’
http://jchild.edublogs.org/
Megan Daley is a Teacher Librarian in the Junior
School Library at St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’
School. She is a former National Vice President
of the Children’s Book Council of Australia and a
judge on the Queensland Literary Awards.
Megan has a Bachelor of Early Childhood, Grad
Dip in Teacher Librarianship and a Masters of
Education and works as a sessional tutor at Qld
University of Technology. She is passionate
about literature, digital technologies and social
media, and blogs about all things literary, library
and tech at www.childrensbooksdaily.com
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3. Where we Began with Makerspaces
Australian School Library Association Inc.
 Libraries embracing makerspaces forum at The Edge, SLQ
 Literature on Makerspace movement in America, for the list of what
we have read see here http://childrensbooksdaily.com/school-
libraries-makerspace-movement/
 St Aidan’s has a strong sense of community and we immediately saw
the potential for the school library space to be a makerspace.
 Guided ‘making’ and ‘tinkering’ with Year 5/6 students as a ‘trial’
and this has extended to other year levels.
 Minds and Hands working together – makerspace covers it all.
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4. Links with the Australian Curriculum
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Inquiry based learning underpins much of the Australian Curriculum and thus the
role of the teacher librarian has never been more crucial in education in needing
to equip students with new skills, knowledge and ways of learning to cope with the
demands of today’s information overloaded society.
General Capabilities for ICT
ICT capability supports and enhances student
learning across all areas of the curriculum.
Students develop and apply ICT knowledge,
skills and appropriate social and ethical protocols
and practices to investigate, create and
communicate, as well as developing their ability
to manage and operate ICT to meet their
learning needs.

5. Links with the Australian Curriculum
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Digital Technologies Curriculum
Design and Technologies Digital Technologies
Technologies enrich and impact on the lives of people and societies globally.
A few example links are:
Collect, access and present different types of data using
simple software to create information and solve problems
(ACTDIP009)
Define simple problems, and describe and follow a sequence
of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve them
(ACTDIP010)

6. Links with the Australian Curriculum
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English Curriculum
A few example links are:
 Recognise that ideas in literary texts can be conveyed from
different viewpoints, which can lead to different kinds of
interpretations and responses (ACELT1610)
 Make connections between students’ own experiences and
those of characters and events represented in texts drawn
from different historical, social and cultural
contexts(ACELT1613)

7. Literature Supporting Makerspace Ideas
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We have searched high and low for illustrated fiction books which support the idea that failure is an
option and is as important as success and that difference is fabulous. We hope that reading these books
with all year levels will arm our students with the vocabulary to talk about making and tinkering and
encourage a growth mindset.
You can see them all here www.childrensbookdaily.com/childrens-books-about-making-failing-trying-
succeeding

8. Making it Part of our Routine
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Structure of our Library Lessons

9. Area for a Makerspace
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Making an area in the library

10. Australian School Library Association Inc. 10
• Creativity…….creating and making
• Problem solving
• Logical thinking
• Computational thinking
• Algorithms
• Structured thinking
• Designing
• Making mistakes……learning from them, persistence
• New literacy…… loop, variables, scale, repeat, branching,
• Language of the future
• Exploring and playing….best way to learn
• Project Based Learning

11. Code Club
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Coding is becoming more and more important
as we live in a digital world. Our girls know how
to use technology, but in Code Club they
discover how it works and how to build it. They
enjoy ‘unplugged’ activities as well as learning
how to program using a variety of apps and
software. It strengthens computational
thinking, problem solving, planning, designing
and collaboration as well as having plenty of
creative fun!
Unplugged activities
http://csunplugged.org/
iPad apps & software
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/cod
ing-apps-and-websites
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/7-apps-
teaching-children-coding-anna-adam

12. Robotics Club
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Our students enjoy the enthusiasm of a member of staff who creates and ‘plays’ in the world
of robots! Robotics Club involves the students in designing and creating machines which
move. The students program, operate and control their robotics with software on their
tablets.

13. Lego StoryStarter
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These kits were purchased with a grant and they provide a storytelling framework within the
context of the Lego blocks and characters. Students build their story, photograph it and
enter the photographs into the software to create comics and graphic stories.

14. #lowtech #hightech
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 Not all learning opportunities in a makerspace environment need be high tech. In fact,
some of the very best of learning experiences in a makerspace environment are created
with cardboard construction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U
 Super Awesome Sylvia is another inspiring young lady to look out for…
http://sylviashow.com/tags/maker-faire http://sylviashow.com/episodes
Pinterest board on Makerspace ideas http://pinterest.com/jackiechild/makerspaces/

15. Earth Angels
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The Earth Angels are a group of students interested in making our school environment a
better place through the development of sustainable practices such as maintaining our
school vegetable patch, worm farms and composting systems, undertaking waste audits and
managing a re-usable tuckshop bag system to reduce paper bag use. The Earth Angels use
library resources (primarily our non-fiction collection) to plan our crop planting calendar,
find recipes to use with our crops, work out sustainable crafts and learn more about our
worm farms and composting systems.

16. Stitching and Crafting
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Many of our students have enjoyed finding projects in our extensive collection of crafting,
knitting and sewing books.

17. Further Examples
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 Start with what you have and what you know.
 We started with ‘guided’ making then invited the girls to begin their own ‘making’.

18. Further Examples
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19. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://www.inventtolearn.com/

20. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://makerspace.com/

21. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/creating-makerspaces-in-schools-mary-beth-hertz

22. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://www.instructables.com/

23. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://time.com/104210/maker-faire-maker-movement/#104210/maker-faire-maker-movement/

24. Useful Makerspace Links
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 http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/calevents/general/talks/makerspaces

25. Hashtags to Follow
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#makerspace
#edumaker
#youngmaker
#makered

26. Additional information
Australian School Library Association Inc.
The PowerPoint presentation will be available at
http://www.slideshare.net/ASLAonline
Membership information is available at
http://www.asla.org.au/membership.aspx
Follow ASLA on Twitter
https://twitter.com/aslanational
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