Time Nurturing
It is easy as a youth to want to "kill TIME." It is pretty easy. Just unplug, disengage, and drop out of the main stream. Yet, it is a pretty disturbing phrase, "kill TIME." Pink Floyd's TIME, made an impression in my brain way back in undergrad. I was never a fan of the band through my high school years. Mainly because I wrongfully attributed the band to "non conforming youth." During college, a frame of reference shifted and as a married college student, this song and others connected. What I would like to tie together during this month's blog post is the opposite of how to nurture TIME. It seems a bit strange, but I believe we can grow it, by changing our attitudes and habits. What initially seems foreign, becomes commonplace. What is a struggle to start because it is a new process, can be mastered. I would like to connect this to the lens of making after our weekend visit to the World Maker Faire in NYC.
What is the significance of 208 and 416? Yes 416 is twice the amount of 208. But there is something more importance in that these represent the number of weeks in each of the middle school and high school Years. 4 years = 208 weeks. It really doesn’t seem like a lot. In the world of education, no matter the subject, the Weekly Lesson Plans are extremely helpful to keep the big picture in view. Our own personal weekly planners allows us the opportunity to map out goals and objects, and we keep moving forward. TIME does not stop. The intent of this focus developed as I was reading through Reggie Joiner and Kristen Ivy’s double book combination, Playing For Keeps/Losing Your Marbles.
In the view of a Foundry Fellow, we are in tune to the 42 week cycle of a school year (approximately 9 or 10 weeks of each Marking Period.) 42 is the specific number of weeks in the classroom for the transfer knowledge to students. It is approximately 80.7% of the 52 week year.
One thing that might not be clear to students, as I know it wasn’t during my own education, is the relationship a student shares in their own education. If this is realized in the early years of middle school or high school, the easier it can be to see the value of knowledge as it applies to life after graduation. Another realization is that our learning is taking place every single week of the year. We should place value on both the formal learning in school and the informal learning all around us.
My role within the Foundry Makerspace is at the high school level. I have been working with the STEAM Makerspace Team at the SciTech and John Harris Campuses. I have met a couple of the current seniors and the 208 week focus is important. Having this one my mind, next Monday, October 2, 2017 will be the start of the 37th weeks left until the end of school. Seniors only have 17.7% of their High School academic TIME left for K-12 formal learning.
This week in the SciBots Robotics Club I mapped out that there are 28 Working Days until our first Scrimmage and 32 Working Days until our first Qualifier.
I did this last year as a means to help students better manage their TIME. The focus on weeks, seemed like too large of a scale for the effort. It also becomes a visual guide for students to cross of each day that passes. I encouraged students participating in the Robotics Club to consider hourly mapping. While this isn’t a one and only solution, it is a means to understand how one uses their TIME. A good reference for this is Laura Vanderkam’s website, which provides paper and Excel tools to map out the 168 hours we have available in one week.
World Maker Faire:
Recently a group from the Foundry Makerspace had the privilege to attend this year’s World Maker Faire in NYC. This is the 8th time this has been hosted in Flushing Queens. I had attended last year, and enjoyed the broad range of the maker spectrum. We found many different passions of which people have spent a large amount of TIME learning and creating. There are so many themes that I could speak on and I hope to pull them together over the next couple of blog posts as themes that connect to local issues of making in Harrisburg.
In the big picture, we saw all levels of experience from NOVICE TO EXPERT. Kids that are in the modes of wistful play, enjoying TIME to soak in the tangible. This was in the making of air rockets, marshmallow shooters, soldering electronics, building blocks, making art, playing with electronics and of course robots. Older kids were showing their competencies in various school subjects. Adults were enjoying the TIME sharing what they have created. Everyone seemed to be dwelling in an area of Third Space/Place (Ray Oldenburg) to celebrate MAKING. Yes this is an overused word today, but in the 8 years of the celebration, much has gained in expanding the "tent of makers."
At the Foundry, we discuss these varying degrees of skill building. Sometimes students vacillate between the phases, depending on the Knowledge, Skills or Abilities that one has acquired. To be specific they are fairly well described in the 5 Stages of the “Dreyfus Model of Skills Acquisition”:
Novice
Advanced Beginner
Competent
Proficient
Expert
This was developed by Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus in 1980 at University of California, Berkeley. This scale is important for determining how one is advancing in any skill, whether it be making an item, playing a sport, or providing a service. It allows for the building of 4Cs of 21st Century Lifelong Learning and Hard and Soft Skills in both formal and informal ways. This is the area of lifelong learning. What happens after graduation. Moving forward. Moving along with TIME. Being better than you were yesterday.
One final tie in to the Maker Faire is in the discussion of early adopters. In the Tech world, there is a graph that helps you visualize the groups involved in technological adoptions. This was originally called the Diffusion of Innovations, created by Everett Rogers in 1962.
Innovators (2.5%)
Early Adopters (13.5%)
Early Majority (34%)
Late Majority (34%)
Laggards (16%)
Then in 1995, Geoffrey Moore took that model and expanded upon it in the book Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers. The core idea is that in marketing and selling there exists a great disconnect between the products and consumer. He understood it as the concept of “The Chasm” between the Innovators & Early Adopters and the rest of the Groups. There are two good Blogs about Moore's idea of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle (TALC), which are here at the Crossing The Chasm Review and Stratechery.
1. Innovators (2.5%)
2. Early Adopters (13.5%)
THE CHASM
3. Early Majority (34%)
4. Late Majority (34%)
5. Laggards (16%)
This is extremely interesting to me because I see this form and chasm between the groups connected to the
process of making. When we have a group of Experts, who are makers, they are the ones who are pushing the trends and they operate with special knowledge. They are the high users. Sometimes they are operating in high technology, or probably better defined as high specialization. Those in the Skills Acquisition of Novice, are really Laggards. So we could look at the connections, with a few modifications. I propose this diagram as being:
Novice = Skeptics (Laggards)
Advanced Beginner = Conservatives (Early Majority)
Competent = Pragmatists (Late Majority)
Proficient = Full Adopters (Visionaries)
Experts = Innovators (Tech Enthusiasts)
There are two important things about making this connection to this "MODEL MASHUP." First, this is how I see the makers all around me. Those who aren't EXPERTS should never be considered outsiders, they are only operating out in the fringe, watching how things develop. Everyone should be fine with this. Sadly, our society pushes competition and that tends to put things into a Win / Lose situation, instead of a Win / Win relationship of collaboration together. In that we should also recognize that we are all unique and have differences in our likes and dislikes.
Second, there is a great leveling from making these connections. It is that the vast amount of technology allows for the Dreyfus Model of Skills Acquisition to flatten a bit. Someone could become an expert in most making endeavors by watching videos, reading information off the internet (forums / blogs) and by gaining access to technology. It should be recognized that some ventures involve the purchasing of equipment, which can be a strict upfront cost. All of this is a tricky subject, because, for example, no matter how much I will it to be, I could never become a Brain Surgeon at this point in my life. This is where Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 Hour Rule" from the book Outliers: The Story of Success, needs some clarification. As Kevin Loria describes it in his August 27, 2017 Buisness Insider article, "The '10,000-hour rule' about becoming an expert is wrong - here's why."
"Yes, great performers spend a lot of TIME practicing ... but there are a lot of people who spend a lot of TIME practicing who never reach world class or even national class levels," said Stulberg. "What separates the great performers from those that don't meet that high bar is not necessarily TIME spent practicing, but again, what they do as they're practicing."
This is an important discussion at all levels of Academia. We are taking some of the things of past that have been forgotten and bringing them back into the forefront. This is why the Maker Faire is an exciting event, especially when the discussion focuses on education and skills acquisition at the MakerEd Tent. This was the real takeaway I had from last year to this year. The word all around was in equity and access, making sure that the making process involved all types and all interests. I look forward to the continued discussion within our Foundry Staff Meetings and our own connection to Maker Shift on Saturday, May 5th, 2018. Please be sure to mark your calendars for this event.
As with last year I returned from the Maker Faire, extremely exhausted, but with a clearer, more urgent grasp on TIME and why we exist to facilitate the nurturing of the next generation of makers.
Rob's World Maker Faire Highlights Saturday 9/23:
Rob's World Maker Faire Highlights Sunday 9/24:
10:45A = Measuring Your Making: Chicago Youth Center - ZONE 4: MakerEd
11:15A = Things: Diversity, Opportunity & 3D Printing - ZONE 4: MakerEd
1:00P = Making Makers @ MIT: The View from Admissions - ZONE 1: Center Stage
2:00P = Power of the Plant - Stephen Ritz of Green Bronx Machine - ZONE 1: Center Stage
4:00P = In Schools, It's the Problem, Not the Project - ZONE 4: MakerEd
Epilogue:
It is extremely important to put into context something, which I found as extremely profound about the location of the Maker Faire in Flushing Queens (Flushing Remonstrance - 1657, named after the town Vlissingen in the Netherlands.) I walked the streets early Sunday morning and while drinking my DD coffee I saw the Freedom Mile Trail Kiosk. At first I dismissed it as a way-finding object for locals to celebrate place because it was labeled Flushing Queens. However, as I examined the content I saw that this area was extremely historic. Julie Schwietert Collazo, has a good article about the trail called Overlooked New York: Flushing Freedom Trail. There were 4 take aways that should have been connected to the Maker Faire, with the last two being extremely important. The next generation of makers from our underserved communities should have a solid grasp of the making right in there own cities & towns. Unfortunately, many times those histories lie dormant and inspiration is disconnected. At the Maker Faire the connections should be made and celebrated, echoing back into the school classrooms for ALL.
George Fox (1624-1691) - George Fox Stone was the location where George Fox gave a sermon. He was was the Founder of the Religious Society of Friends, known as the Quakers.
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) - had visited the area and spoke at the Town Hall in 1865. Douglass spoke in Harrisburg in 1847. See this wonderful account by Ira V. Brown (Penn State University), An Antislavery Journey: Garrison and Douglass in Pennsylvania, 1847.
Samuel Parsons, Sr (1771-1841), Samuel Brown Parsons, Jr. (1844-1923) - founded the Parsons Nursery in 1838. This location served at a place where many of the trees for Central Park sprouted.
Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) - Inventor who worked with Alexander Graham Bell (telephone) and Hiram Maxim & Thomas Edison (incandescent lighting).
Map of the Freedom Mile in Flushing, Queens.
Walking north on Main Street in Flushing, Queens.
Spray Paint Message on a building along Main Street in Flushing, Queens.
Lewis Latimer House, 34-41 137th St, Flushing, NY 11354
Unconquered and Unconquerable
by Lewis Howard Latimer
What tho' I suffer through the years
Unnumbered wrongs, unnumbered fears
My soul doth still forbid me tears
Unconquered and unconquerable
What tho' my bed of thorns be made
What tho' my onward cruise be stayed
My soul soars upward undismayed
Unconquered and unconquerable
What tho' by chains confirmed I lie
What tho' by brutal hands I die
My soul will upward ever fly
Unconquered and unconquerable
I scorn the hand that did me wrong
Tho' suffering days and years be long
My soul still charts that deathless song
Unconquered and unconquerable
STEAM Making @ SciTech Campus High School
TECHNOLOGY:
SciBOTS Robotics Team
On Monday, 9/11/17 the SciTech SciBots Robotics Club officially started. The students finished the competition field in just one week. They are going through the 4 Phases of Design It, Build It, Program It, and Drive It as outlined by the FIRST Tech Challenge Model.
Oxford Area High School Gymnasium
705 Waterway Rd Oxford, PA 19363 Saturday Nov 18
Montgomery County Community College Physical Education Center
340 DeKalb Pike Blue Bell, PA 19422
Oxford Area High School Gymnasium
705 Waterway Rd Oxford, PA 19363
Penn State York Joe and Rosie Ruhl Student Community Center
1031 Edgecomb Ave York, PA 17403
Dallastown Intermediate School Gymnasium
94 Beck Rd York, PA 17403
STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School
This last week of September I was able to visit the STEM Lab and A/V Studio at the John Harris Campus. It looks exciting to see what they are planning to do working with the students in a couple of different school periods. Stay tuned to my Blog Post next month, which should have some input on the happenings at the John Harris Campus.
