Why the Maker Movement is important for Schools: Outside the Skinner Box

I liked Gary Stager’s argument in the post below about what’s important about the Maker Movement for schools: it’s authentic in a physical way, and it contextualizes mathematics and computing in an artistic setting.

For too long, models, simulations, and rhetoric limited schools to abstraction. Schools embracing the energy, tools, and passion of the Maker Movement recognize that, for the first time in history, kids can make real things – and, as a result, their learning is that much more authentic. Best of all, these new technologies carry the seeds of education reform dreamed of for a century. Seymour Papert said that John Dewey’s educational vision was sound but impossible with the technology of his day. In the early- to mid-20th century, the humanities could be taught in a ­project-based, hands-on fashion, but the technology would not afford similarly authentic opportunities in mathematics, science, and engineering. This is no longer the case.

Increasingly affordable 3-D printers, laser cutters, and computer numerical control (CNC) machines allow laypeople to design and produce real objects on their computers. The revolution is not in having seventh-graders 3-D print identical Yoda key chains, but in providing children with access to the Z-axis for the first time. Usable 3-D design software allows students to engage with powerful mathematical ideas while producing an aesthetically pleasing artifact. Most important, the emerging fabrication technologies point to a day when we will use technology to produce the objects we need to solve specific problems.

via Outside the Skinner Box.