Administrator’s Corner by Kristen Seeger

The purpose of the Mobile Makerspace initiative in ​the elementary schools is to provide students and teachers with tools that encourage collaboration, creativity and computational thinking, as well as to teach computer science and coding skills.

Materials available in the Mobile Makerspace collections are both unplugged and plugged in, meaning some materials are electronic and some are not. The materials are used during media lessons where media specialists and teachers co-teach lessons based on media literacy, technology and other content standards, and they’re also available for teachers to check-out to use on their own with their students.

Many teachers have used the materials during morning meeting activities and indoor recess, but are now starting to expand the use of materials to lessons involving specific content area standards.

The goal of the Mobile Makerspace project is to encourage teachers to use the materials available to them to integrate content area standards in engaging ways that foster 21st-century skills.

Students enjoy the Mobile Makerspace materials and look forward to lessons and activities that encourage them to problem solve in collaborative teams.

Some of the materials included in the Mobile Makerspace collections are magnetic tiles, IO Blocks, Legos, Blue Bots, Ozobots, Spheros, Code & Go Robot Mouse games, Makey Makeys, Squishy Circuit sets, QuBits, K’Nex kits and Little Bits.

Kristen Seeger is the media specialist at Lakeview and Sibley elementary schools.