00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;07 Matthew Johnson I think a makerspace is a is a wonderful place for them to be a little more human, and they always seem open to being asked a question like, if this goes the way you guys think it will, what benefit or good do you really hope it would bring? So I try to think about encouraging their courage, because I know it takes courage to be in a maker space, even if it's inviting and inclusive. There's some measure of learning curve and you've got to do it. And so you're going to have a measure of courage. And I want to recognize that and try to find a way to encourage that in them. 00;00;29;10 - 00;00;44;29 Molly Buckley-Marudas Welcome to Chalk Talk with CLETeaching. We're coming to you live from Cleveland State University. I am Molly Buckley-Marudas, co-host of Chalk Talk and Associate Professor of Adolescent and Young Adult Literacy in the Levin College of Public Affairs and Education. 00;00;45;02 - 00;01;21;06 Shelley Rose And I'm Shelley Rose, Associate Professor of History and Women's and Gender Studies in the College of Arts, Sciences at Cleveland State University. Chalk Talk is a production of the Cleveland Teaching Collaborative. We founded the collaborative in May 2020, and it is now an award winning working group for research, reflection and support for pre-kindergarten through higher education instructors in Northeast Ohio. Today's guests are Sarah Wallace, Manager of the CTE engineering and the CMSD fab Lab, Matthew Johnson, Manager of the Dan T. Moore Makerspace at Cleveland State University, and Vicki Turner, Director of Technology for K through 12 in the Berea City School District. 00;01;21;11 - 00;01;28;02 Molly Buckley-Marudas You're going to love this conversation. 00;01;28;04 - 00;01;39;05 Shelley Rose Thanks so much for joining us today. We look forward to talking the chalk with you. First, can one of you give us a very brief description of what maker education means, or what a makerspace is? 00;01;39;08 - 00;02;46;08 Sarah Wallace It's like $100,000 question. Oh. Thank you. Thank you for the chicken. Yes. we have a crocheted chicken here that we are going to pass around and be cute with. Maker education is tricky, I think. I, it's hard to describe sometimes. If you walk into a classroom, you know it when you see it. And you really know it if it's good. But it's really hard to put a, put a finger on. It's definitely not crafting. it's not woodshop. It's, it's not hard. It's something special. It's something unique. But maker education to me is, students learning with their hands through different means. So, for me, it's really focused on transdisciplinary learning experiences where kids create an artifact of their learning. And that artifact could be something as simple as a tower made out of Legos. Or it could be a, you know, giant robot that climbs a wall that's been 3D printed and wired. So it really can span that pre-K to 12 or even, obviously pre-K to 99. Anybody can be a maker. But making something to show what you've learned. 00;02;46;11 - 00;03;06;02 Vicki Turner Yeah, that's a good definition. I've always said it's an area of high tech and low tech innovation that embraces those forces that we always talk about creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication, but most of all, it's an area of exploration. 00;03;06;04 - 00;03;39;24 Matthew Johnson I see it as oftentimes taking the abstract and making it real because, oftentimes the type of people come into our maker space are engineering focused. And they're used to sitting in classes that are trying to offer them a lot of abstract mathematics and science, principles. And it's quite possible for them to go all four years. And if they don't have a makerspace experience, they understand things in the abstract, but they need an opportunity to understand the physical replication or creation of those things. 00;03;39;26 - 00;04;15;08 Sarah Wallace I think makerspaces are also a little messy. So all the things that we describe can also happen in like a computer science lab or a tech lab, but makerspaces have that messy component. And also like a safety net to make more mistakes or to just try new things. I think by design, the, iterative design process that comes into so many of our makerspace projects and learning experiences make us want kids to make mistakes. So it gets a little messy along the way. There's a giant pile of, you know, messed up projects, and there's so much cardboard you don't know what to do with, but that's just learning and making. 00;04;15;11 - 00;04;21;22 Matthew Johnson Yeah. That's good. And we often say in the makerspace, it's the one of the few places on campus where it's good to fail. 00;04;21;24 - 00;04;26;14 Sarah Wallace Yeah, great. First, give it a try. Yeah, it's silly, but it's really true. 00;04;26;16 - 00;04;27;06 Matthew Johnson Yeah. 00;04;27;08 - 00;04;28;08 Shelley Rose That's awesome. 00;04;28;10 - 00;04;55;27 Molly Buckley-Marudas So this is great. And I love how you all elaborated on some of the characteristics that really capture a little bit of the mindset that goes into it. It's more than a space because you talked about the creativity, the collaboration, the messiness. So how did each of you get into this? Like, was there a moment in your own childhood or maybe later in your career path or professional life that brought you into this space? and if so, could you share with us? 00;04;56;00 - 00;05;26;17 Vicki Turner I think for me, it was over ten years ago, and I read, Invent to Learn, and that was kind of the hook. But, I was a former high school English teacher. I actually got my master's in English here at Cleveland State. And then I moved into the tech world so that integration of curriculum and pedagogy and technology makerspace like, hits all those areas. and it was something I always thought, this is what I would have wanted to do when I was in school. This is what I would have wanted for my children. And this is what I want for my grandchildren. 00;05;26;19 - 00;05;49;07 Shelley Rose Yeah. And it's interesting to hear you say this, because we just did a, cohort of essays on our blog and student success, and almost every single author mentioned, you know, this is how people model teaching to me, but I'm going to change it because that's how I want people in the future to learn. And it's really powerful, right? Motivation. Matthew, how about you? How did you get into this? 00;05;49;10 - 00;06;37;04 Matthew Johnson I needed a job. [laughter] I, when I saw that, this position was available at Cleveland State, it brought together a lot of things. In a strange way, from my background, having been a K-12 principal, but then also been in corporate engineering, and they wanted somebody that understood K-12, it could work with college students, corporate connections. And, honestly, I didn't know what makerspace is. My wife is the educator, and I had to ask, what is this term? And she's like, oh, yeah, it's kind of on the rise and explained it to me. So, I learned a lot by just stepping into the space and then was fortunate to, find that we are in quite a good ecosystem around here of other maker spaces that have kind of blazed a trail. 00;06;37;06 - 00;06;41;03 Molly Buckley-Marudas You made it happen. How about you, Sarah? 00;06;41;05 - 00;08;35;02 Sarah Wallace I taught at a really cool high school in New York City when I was, that all my classroom teaching was in New York. It was called the NYC iSchool. Still is. It's great place. And I was a math teacher. And their their model is a little different in that you, the kids take regular core classes, but then they also take these classes called modules, which are elective. But they have to take one each quarter. And teachers are encouraged to teach a class that they're passionate about but isn't necessarily within their curriculum area. So I taught a class on origami because origami is cool and it's kind of mathy and interesting and all that stuff, which is great documentary if you haven't seen it. It's called Between the, Behind the Folds or Between the Folds, changed my life. It's amazeballs. And it's about math and art and how those intersect. So I watch this documentary; I teach this class. One thing leads to another. I, take a summer institute at NYU's ITP program, which is their kind of version of, like MIT Center, Center of Bits and Atoms or, you know, like their cool abstract engineering, funky kind of, college. And that's where I learned how to 3D print and laser cut and vinyl cut and, you know, make paper circuits. And all of a sudden I went from being a math teacher who taught this one class to all of a sudden, I was the weird teacher who's teaching strange classes in bridge building and paper engineering and pop-up book design. and then I, you know, I had like two sections of algebra. And then similarly to what Matthew said, I, so I grew up here in Willoughby, and I saw a posting for the Cleveland Fab Lab coordinator and I thought, that's cute. It's a cute little name. It must be their like nickname for a makerspace. Not knowing that a fab lab was a thing of it in itself. so I quickly did some googling and somehow landed the job. And here I am. 00;08;35;04 - 00;08;36;16 Molly Buckley-Marudas Wow. And what year was that? 00;08;36;18 - 00;08;38;23 Sarah Wallace I came back to Cleveland in 2016. 00;08;38;24 - 00;08;59;25 Molly Buckley-Marudas Okay, right. So great. I was thinking, actually, because our three guests today are all working in slightly different spaces, it occurred to me that it might be helpful for you to describe for our listeners what your space looks like, what kind of we know it's not just about the tools, but what kinds of tools you do have available. And if people are going to come use it, how they would do that. 00;08;59;28 - 00;09;42;29 Matthew Johnson So, here at Cleveland State, the makerspace we offer does sit in the College of Engineering, but it's not exclusively for those students. It's available to students, alumni, faculty and staff of Cleveland State. That's who we serve. And it really has three spaces in it. One is, we call it the open space. And it would have like typical makerspace things like laser engraving and 3D printing. Also tables to meet at rooms, that are kind of separated for people to have, whiteboard meetings if they want. And then we have two secured spaces, which would be a woodshop and a metal shop. And of course, we, have trainings to be able to allow people access to those spaces. 00;09;43;02 - 00;09;45;02 Molly Buckley-Marudas Thanks, Matthew. You want to share Vicki? 00;09;45;02 - 00;10;56;05 Vicki Turner I've been fortunate to be able to implement makerspaces in two districts throughout all the buildings. So, I always was a firm believer in the equity piece so that all of the students had access. So all of our elementaries, middle school and high school have a makerspace located in the media center. But then we also do mobile makerspace carts and we push out into the classrooms. So the goal is always to have all students can have access. There's no gatekeeping. It doesn't matter what your grades are or anything like that. At the elementary levels, they're a little bit more structured and they have special days the kids go and special challenges and things they're working on at the high school tomorrow, open ended. But then teachers sign up and also bring whole classes into the makerspace. We have laser engravers. We have 3D printers at all levels. So even our elementary, they have sewing machines and 3D printers. So and of course we have like Ozobots and Makey Makey, all of the standards. But it's always been very important that there's equity there so that all students have access and then there's a progression. So like there's Makey Makeys at all different levels. But the students are all using them in different ways. 00;10;56;07 - 00;13;48;02 Sarah Wallace So Cleveland has a couple of different, Cleveland Metro Schools, CMSD. We have a few different fab lab spaces. It started off, with MC2 High School, which has a campus here at Cleveland State. They were the first high school to have a fab lab in it. And, shortly after they opened in 2013, they started the mobile Fab Lab, which I know Nick DiGiorgio was one of your guests. And he started that. And essentially, I'm the new Nick, right? Like Nick blazed the way in Cleveland for Fab Labs. And I came after, but so we have a mobile fab lab. It's a 28ft long tractor trailer with two laser cutters, a CNC machine, 3 or 4 3D printers, however many I feel like putting on there. We have a whole electronics bench, got vinyl cutters. All, all the things. And it's smooshed into a trailer. So when I started, with Cleveland, I started, I drove that thing around with Bessie and Bertha is what I named the truck and the trailer. And we go to different schools. So it's kind of that, that equity part of it, that at the time, the district couldn't put a makerspace or train enough teachers to put one in each school. So we had this mobile trailer that would go around and work with kids all over the district. Since then, in 2017, we partnered with Cavs and Goodyear, and they gave the district half a million dollars to promote STEM. So with that we, the first thing we did was build the CMSD Fab Lab, which is our stationary fab lab in our professional center building. It's a space for teachers. So we've had kids there. It's not like I'm going to say no if kids want to come. We don't, like, host, field trips regularly, but that's just a capacity issue. If I had a team of 20 people, we'd have kids in there every day. But it's a space for teachers to come and to do workshops and to learn how to do these kinds of things. What we found in Cleveland, where given our, our teachers and how, how much work they need to do and how many things are already on their plate, some of them were really excited to get into this work, and others were like, this is too much. Or, you know, I'm some of them are still trying to figure out how to work their email. So the thought of having to figure out a 3D printer is way too much for them. So we kind of did this, a grassroots model. So with that funding from the Cavs, we were able to purchase a ton of equipment. Teachers can come in and take a class on 3D printing or laser cutting and then borrow those machines through our lending library. Right now, because we still have that partnership with the Cavs, we haven't asked for any of those borrowed materials to come back, because I can keep putting them out there. So we have, a little under 100 3D printers that are around the district right now across our, 97 schools or so. So we have, it's, we have a mobile lab, we have a stationary lab. And then we, we have a few, like what you would call a school based lab, but really we just have these teachers who are doing really great work within their classrooms. 00;13;48;04 - 00;13;57;13 Molly Buckley-Marudas Cool. How would you request the trailer, the mobile lab. So I'm just do you have a special license? 00;13;57;15 - 00;14;51;19 Sarah Wallace Oh, that's a great question. So, when I interviewed for the job, they asked, so can you drive this thing around? And I joked and I said, no, I've never driven a truck, but I can parallel park in Manhattan. And that that was enough to give me the job. You don't have to have a special license. It's an F-350 super duty. So it's just like driving a big, big truck. Towing a big, big trailer. It's the biggest combination you can drive, actually, without a special license. That's what somebody told me at some point. So, yeah, the CMSDfablab.org is the website that where all of my cool stuff lives, where teachers can see what's available on our lending library. They can go through asynchronous trainings or sign up for upcoming workshops. They can request the mobile Fab Lab to come. Right now I'm currently a team of one. So when there's a team of 2 or 2, a team of three, then we can get more folks to, get the trailer out to go to the schools. But for now, it's, it's tricky. 00;14;51;21 - 00;14;52;23 Molly Buckley-Marudas Got it. Thanks. 00;14;52;25 - 00;15;16;28 Shelley Rose Cool. Good question. I was going to say right before that was perfect segue into the next question. It still is. And what we'd like to know is, if you can tell us about a specific projects that you or teachers you've worked with have, done in your makerspaces, and, you know, what were the outcomes or the expected outcomes, the unexpected outcomes. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Maybe we'll start with Matthew. 00;15;17;00 - 00;17;25;08 Matthew Johnson Yeah. So I get the fortunate benefit of working with students who come in under pressure. A lot of times, the makerspace serves senior engineering design students who have been given a corporate sponsored project, and they have their own timelines and ingenuity to bring and, that, that has taught me a lot. I like to tell people I don't mind being the expert, but I really just want to share experience. And so often, these students end up leading me. And I resource them. We have tried in the Dan T. Moore Makerspace to take a holistic approach. I like to think of it as head, hearts and hands. Where most of the time people are coming in and they're thinking about something with their head and they need to create it. But, on numerous levels, I like to ask them, how is this affecting your heart? I know you're working with your hands. And students, especially at the college level, they're not they don't get pressured that much to do that. They're just thinking, I've got to get this done. I've got this deadline. Is it going to meet the requirements that have been offered to me? What kind of grade am I going to get? and I think a makerspace is a, is a wonderful place for them to be a little more human. And they always seem open to being asked a question like, if this goes the way you guys think it will, what benefit or good do you really hope it would bring to others who might use it? And that starts to get to their heart and gives them, hopefully a sense of encouragement. I've seen many a team hit walls and just feel discouraged, and we're not going to make it. And I want to see them not only find the tools they need in the makerspace, but maybe the spirit and the encouragement they might have not been looking for. So I try to think about encouraging their courage because I know it takes courage to be in a makerspace, even if it's inviting and inclusive. There's just some stuff you're going, there's some measure of learning curve, and you've got to do it. And so you're going to have a measure of courage. And I want to recognize that and try to find a way to encourage that, and them. 00;17;25;10 - 00;17;32;05 Molly Buckley-Marudas Love how you put that encouraging courage, and recognizing that there's heart in all the projects, too. 00;17;32;07 - 00;18;42;00 Vicki Turner We've had so many projects and all different content areas. But, what comes to mind? We had one of our teachers who we gave him two 3D printers for his classroom because he was using them so much, but he had he has a special effects class and we have airbrush also. So he had a student who had some motor dexterity issues, and so they 3D printed something that he would help him be able to hold the brush and he can control it. Those are always, kind of stories that, you know, touch the heart. Another thing is, no matter what they're doing, we've had so many students who have anxiety issues or have special needs, and they have found the makerspace to be a place that where they can work. And it's very encouraging, as you said. And we've had, quite a few students in our in school suspension rooms who we put yarn and crochet hooks and, the people that were in there have worked with them to crochet. And we had like one student told the others. He said, this makes my brain happy. 00;18;42;03 - 00;19;10;26 Sarah Wallace It's also so nice to hear those kids who might have behavior issues or just, you know, they're not good at school, but they find something that they are good with, and good at, but in this like nontraditional space. Right? We've got those kids who, you know, don't listen to their teachers, don't, don't do homework. And then all of a sudden you put code.org in front of them and they've finished it before you've even got until like the second week of it. So finding that little spark, maybe it's a chicken, maybe it's Code.org. 00;19;10;29 - 00;19;11;20 Vicki Turner Yeah. 00;19;11;22 - 00;22;17;21 Sarah Wallace The projects that we do at, CMSD Fab Lab are a little different than those kind of, like, bigger, open ended projects. And it's because in Cleveland we have, we've been lucky to get things like the partnership with the Cavs where we can buy technology and stuff, but it's hard to, to get the people. Right? We can't get more teachers. So we have all our schools have the math teachers and the science teacher and all the things. But we can't put, another, you know, a makerspace manager in there or hire, not all schools can have a special STEM teacher, a computer science teacher. So a lot of the projects that I work with, teachers, all I have available for them are they're definitely fab lab projects, but they're really rooted in two things. And it's core content and it's social emotional learning. So giving those teachers who, like you said, that one teacher who's just using the 3D printer so much that they need one for their own classroom, they don't need to be going down to the makerspace every day. So just, you know, Miss Johnson, a fourth grade teacher over at AB Hart or whatever they need that they want to do, maker education or fab lab stuff in their own classroom. So we need to have projects for them that hit on their core math and science standards, but also allow kids to explore those 21st century Fab Lab makerspace skills. So my favorite one share because it is. It is my favorite project. Yes. It's called they're called alebrijes. So alebrijes are adorable little sculptures. They're from the Oaxaca district of Mexico. They were in the movie Coco. So if you've seen the movie Coco that, like, giant leopard with wings, it's an artist. His name is Pedro Linares. And he had a fever dream and dreamt up all these crazy animals. so it's part jaguar, part chicken, part dragon. All these things, they're super colorful. So we teach the kids about what these shapes are, who this artist is, what, where Oaxaca is. So they learn about what an alebrije, alebrije is. Some kids get to watch the movie Coco if it's appropriate for them. and then the kids get to design their own alebrije so some teachers have them do, like, what is your spirit animal quiz? So they get to think a little bit about their own, like, oh, my spirit animal is a bear. What does that say about me? And then they design their own alebrije. I'll the body of a lion and the head of a turkey or, you know, whatever. then we use the laser cutter to cut those pieces out. The kids assemble their, their alebrije and then paint it in that traditional Oaxacan, color scheme. Then there's like that. Cool. How else can I keep learning here? So third grade students need to learn in science. They need to learn about, adaptations and environments. So if you have a part whale, part giraffe, where is that animal going to live? What is it going to eat? Is it a, is it a, fish or is it a mammal? Like, where does this fall? They can also break down the, the like taxidermic layers and that or maybe not taxidermy is not the right word at all. Taxonomy. Taxonomy. There we go. Yeah. We're not stuffing any animals. Renaming them. 00;22;17;27 - 00;22;21;15 Molly Buckley-Marudas We are urging lots of. Yeah. So I think you're creating a new term. 00;22;21;15 - 00;22;23;14 Sarah Wallace I'm sure that's exactly what we're doing. 00;22;23;16 - 00;22;24;16 Molly Buckley-Marudas Transdisciplinary. 00;22;24;18 - 00;23;06;04 Sarah Wallace Right. It's a transdisciplinary. So all these projects that I present to teachers have these, these transdisciplinary webs that I've created where you can take one little project. And maybe you used to be an English teacher. Here's something you could focus on, but maybe you're going to partner with the history teacher. And this is what they could do in their classroom. So the kids are working on the same project, and then maybe they're going down to the Fab Lab if you have one to make it there. So a way to kind of check a bunch of boxes, get a lot of people involved. It it helps those teachers who normally might be doing work by themselves because they're the, the weird 3D printer one, want be able to say, oh hey, come do this project with me. And it gives them ways to incorporate the content that they know they need to hit. 00;23;06;06 - 00;23;07;29 Vicki Turner That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. 00;23;08;05 - 00;23;09;04 Sarah Wallace And they're very, very cute. 00;23;09;07 - 00;23;11;27 Molly Buckley-Marudas I bet we will post pictures. Yeah. 00;23;12;03 - 00;23;33;16 Shelley Rose I was just going to show you with like pictures of all the things. I know you have a question, but I did want to. I wanted to say that it's really cool to hear from the three of you. We always think of maker spaces as spaces filled with tools and machines and these types of inanimate things, really. But what you have all emphasized is the humanity of maker spaces, and I think that's really cool. 00;23;33;19 - 00;23;34;02 Vicki Turner 00;23;34;06 - 00;23;58;00 Matthew Johnson Marty Culpepper, it's a guy leaned on early and he said, if you focus too much on the equipment, you're creating a machine mausoleum where people stand outside and think, I probably don't know how to use that equipment, so I probably shouldn't go in there. And I think that, yeah, it's the wrong thing to do. Yeah. I'd rather see people in there with little equipment than a lot of equipment and very few people. 00;23;58;00 - 00;23;58;19 Vicki Turner Yeah. 00;23;58;21 - 00;24;26;12 Molly Buckley-Marudas Yeah. It's interesting to think, you know Sarah and I talked about the core content and SEL. And Matthew you really hit on this like the corporate sponsorships are driving a lot of the projects and you have to be aware of it. Right. Students may be an intern and they've been hired to do something. And I'm wondering, Vicki, in your instance, in your case in Berea, how do you interact with teachers around the standards or content, or how much pressure do you feel to help support teachers with that? 00;24;26;14 - 00;26;02;09 Vicki Turner First, I just want to give a shout out to, speaking of corporate or donations, we did get $100,000 from our Berea City Club to put the high school makerspace in. So that really, really jumpstarted that. And currently we have an instructional coach who is at the high school, so she is available to help. She really helps with that curriculum piece with the teachers. it's very important that our staff be able to use the makerspace and be comfortable in it. So our philosophy has always sort of been the, come on in. What are you interested in? We'll show you some stuff. It doesn't even have to be aligned to anything at first, because that comes later. They, you know, so then we get teachers who will then bring in their whole class and we'll do an orientation for them. So they don't they feel comfortable. They don't have to explain the makerspace. We do what we tell all of them about the equipment, what we have, and then the teacher can develop like a choice board and come back and say, okay, now I know. So an English teacher. we've had English teachers. They had all the students had a 4x4 piece of cardboard, and they had to take the novel they were reading and come up with some abstract visual that they were going to laser engrave on that cardboard. So we've had we've had classes come in where they just made buttons. And their buttons had to have something to do with the novel they were reading. so we get the teachers in there and then they start to really think about, how can I use this with my class in my curriculum? And we have ideas, of course, for them, but it's nice to get them in there doing what they want to do first. And then they become comfortable and then they start, oh, you know what? I can do this with my class. 00;26;02;12 - 00;26;43;19 Molly Buckley-Marudas I just remembered at the end of my I teach a young adult literature course here at Cleveland State, and I forgot about this. One of my final projects there about 4 or 5 choices, and one is creating an artifact that reflects the trajectory of the course. And the student worked at the bakery at Giant Eagle. They have an edible, you know, it's a 3D printer. And so she made cupcakes for the class with the covers of every book we read, which so we read Hunger Games and The Great Gatsby, like all, all the cover titles on top of the iced cupcake, it was so neat and I hadn't quite made that connection until this moment. I did not drive that. It was all her. 00;26;43;22 - 00;27;03;26 Shelley Rose So I guess maybe our one of our final questions is, how do you go about developing your maker skills? Like all of you have very different backgrounds. Maybe one tip that you would give someone who wants to start out in maker learning? Maybe we'll start with Sarah this time. Go to the other side. 00;27;03;29 - 00;28;25;05 Sarah Wallace Yeah, there's there are so many different places to start. And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head that we all have different backgrounds. And it, it doesn't matter where you start as long as you start. So, I, you can come into a makerspace or a fab lab and maybe you just become like the button master and you make a bazillion buttons eventually you might look over and say, well, what if I used the vinyl cutter and the button maker? And how can I kind of combine these things? or one day think I'm never going to touch a laser cutter. It's scary. And fast forward a month later and you know, the person's made a birdhouse that is perfectly modeled to the White House or something crazy. So I think that the, the best place to start is just to start, and to walk in and to look around and see what other people are doing. The internet is a super, super powerful tool there. You can learn like everything on YouTube now, I don't I'm surprised we all still have jobs, right? But I love when a teacher comes to me with a picture and says, could you make this? Can you show me how to make this? Can we make this with my kids? And most of the time I go, I don't know, let's try to figure it out. So just because we, like you said, we might be the expert, but we don't know how to do everything we can try to help and figure it out. So get your feet in there, get your hands dirty, and just try some new stuff. 00;28;25;07 - 00;29;12;24 Vicki Turner I think it feels a lot like teaching where you were one step ahead of the class, especially when you were first starting or first learning. And then I love when the students teach us the like where they just come up with these different ideas or they just figure something out. We had a milling machine that the teachers could not figure out how to get something to work. And two students sat down within an hour and figured it out. So we do a lot of learning from each other. My personal favorite machine is our ten needle embroidery machine. And the first time I used that by myself, I was terrified. We had one two hour training on it from the company we bought it from, and then I was just so scared and the thread kept breaking and I just had to keep looking the manual and looking it up. And then somewhere down the road you become the expert because you've made so many mistakes so you can help others. You know? 00;29;12;26 - 00;30;40;03 Matthew Johnson That's good. I, I think those environments that allow you to, rub shoulders and resource others. So if it's a new thing to you, I recommend just finding a makerspace to go and see if you can hang out, rub shoulders with other people. I think these are some of the most amazing spaces of diversity, whether it's expertise, life experience. One of the best woodworkers I have come into our space is from the original graduating class of Cleveland State. He has long retired his. He's done what he wanted to do in life, and he just likes to come back here and take art classes. And he comes over to the makerspace. If there's something needed with wood and says, can I do that part of it in your space? I love then being able to connect college students today and say, have you met him? Because he's like from the original class and look at this work he's doing. And just that kind of cross bridging and connecting people to me, resourcing one another. like you said, it just becomes this space where they start teaching you,. You kind of stand back and realize, my goodness, there's just such a wealth of ability here. And I'm kind of privileged to get to see this happen and to see them connect with one another, help each other. So I'd say just if it's new to you, don't worry about what you're good at. Just get in a space, start rubbing shoulders with people, and probably sparks will start happening. 00;30;40;05 - 00;31;33;19 Sarah Wallace Yeah. And I think that goes to when, when we talk to teachers, we say a lot like, don't reinvent the wheel, don't reinvent the wheel. As classroom teachers, we are spread so thin, both physically and mentally. So if you can talk to the right folks and say, oh, I'm thinking about doing a project like this, someone may say, oh, do you know so-and-so over at so-and-so who's got crocheted chickens? So then you don't need to reinvent the crochet chicken project. I bet if you ask nicely, this teacher will give you the introductory slides. Or maybe she has some cool instructions for her students. And now you've just taken half the work off of yourself. So being able to be a part of any kind of community, whether it's this one or, you know, a statewide one or just on Twitter or X or whatever it's called, there's really a lot of resources out there, and making friends online can save you a lot of work. 00;31;33;21 - 00;32;05;24 Shelley Rose yeah, I hear that. I actually invaded Matthew's makerspace with, my geography class. Yeah. Last was it last semester that, because our technical director, Chris Rennison, built an augmented reality sandbox, years ago, and I've been trying to figure out how to make it work with my future teachers, basically. But another team did a sample lesson plan with 3D printing involved and thinking about outcomes, and it all came together finally. Yeah. And so it really takes a village, I think sometimes. 00;32;05;24 - 00;32;06;26 Vicki Turner Yes. 00;32;06;29 - 00;32;21;12 Matthew Johnson Yeah. And I appreciate working with people that don't want me to know how to do all of that. I'm glad that you have the Chris Rennison's and you guys that are like, we're going to bring our expertise to your space because I hope that's what it can be. These spaces be an invitation to other people's expertise to. 00;32;21;15 - 00;32;49;00 Molly Buckley-Marudas Yeah, I think I feel like the maker world is such a good representation of we all know something and let's ask others and then build it together. It really does break down a lot of the expert kind of frameworks that schools can be full of. So it allows people to try something to fail, but also to ask the other resources, you know, people around them to help them out. 00;32;49;03 - 00;33;07;08 Molly Buckley-Marudas Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us and your experiences with us. We are now going to transition to a rapid question and answer segment that we call "Chalk and Roll." We'll go ahead and start with you, Vicki. What is your favorite spot in Cleveland or Northeast Ohio? 00;33;07;10 - 00;33;18;01 Vicki Turner I would say, Little Italy. My grandmother lived there. My mother grew up there. and I like to go with my sisters and, just walk around, get some good food. 00;33;18;03 - 00;33;24;28 Molly Buckley-Marudas Great. Thank you. And what is one podcast or one book that you're loving right now? 00;33;25;00 - 00;33;27;28 Vicki Turner the Kelce brothers is the podcast. 00;33;28;01 - 00;33;31;01 Shelley Rose That's a favorite on our podcast. 00;33;31;03 - 00;33;57;19 Vicki Turner It's adorable. I just saw a new, I use a new application over the weekend, and I scanned all of my books in my home and at work, and, and I scanned 879 books into this, Libib app, which is free. It's really cool. Yes. so I can't even. I just have so many books all around my house. So I can't, I can't even pick one right now. 00;33;57;21 - 00;33;58;16 Molly Buckley-Marudas No worries. 00;33;58;17 - 00;34;01;01 Vicki Turner It's a good application if you want to keep track. 00;34;01;05 - 00;34;09;22 Shelley Rose Oh, yeah, I have that app, because when we moved, I was like, I have all these books, but where are they? It's a catalog app. 00;34;09;24 - 00;34;19;20 Molly Buckley-Marudas We'll put it in the show notes. Yep. And finally, what is your favorite resource for make or education or your favorite way to connect with other makers? 00;34;19;23 - 00;34;56;20 Vicki Turner Over the years, just going to tech conferences and presenting our makerspace at tech conferences. We've had a lot of schools come to visit, especially in the early stages. Whenever I hear of a place, I'll go visit them. And so we just have this sort of network where I can email them. We share all of our resources. Anyone who is listening to this who's interested because we have, you know, spreadsheets about how we buy our supplies, and links and things that we do. We share everything. So there's just a network of makers all around, and you just go visit their spaces and talk to them and email them and meet them at conferences and share what you know. 00;34;56;22 - 00;34;58;17 Molly Buckley-Marudas Oh that's great. Thank you. 00;34;58;19 - 00;35;06;17 Shelley Rose So, Sarah, are you ready to Chalk and Roll? All right. What's your favorite spot in Cleveland or northeast Ohio. 00;35;06;19 - 00;35;29;03 Sarah Wallace Right now I'm going to go with Shaker Lakes. I live near there. So we walk around there with my dogs and my kids. and a close second would be Shaker Rocks. I'm really into rock climbing right now. I just had another baby. She's seven months old, and during my maternity leave, I became a rock climber. Because that's what you should do with the newborn, right? yeah. So I'm spending a lot of my time at the at the Rock club these days. 00;35;29;04 - 00;35;32;29 Shelley Rose Nice. And what's one podcast you're loving right now? 00;35;33;02 - 00;35;53;02 Sarah Wallace So I do love the New Heights podcast. Those boys are just so cute. Not only are they adorable, but they're handsome and they're funny and adorable. and the, Jason, during his retirement speech, announced that he grew up, I knew he lived in Cleveland. They grew up in Cleveland Heights, but they actually grew up on Coleridge Road, which is where I live. 00;35;53;05 - 00;35;54;16 Vicky Turner Oh, yeah. 00;35;54;23 - 00;35;57;06 Molly Buckley-Marudas Are you on Coleridge? I'm near Coleridge. See. 00;35;57;08 - 00;36;20;17 Sarah Wallace It's to Cleveland Heights, man. It's like the weirdest small town ever. Yeah, but I while I love that podcast, I'm a crime junkie. Like that crime junkie. I could just listen to these terrible stories all the time. I think it's so different than my regular life that it's like, oh, you know, I can. It's not makerspace. It's not toddlers. It's. It's murder. True crime. Yeah. So Crime Junkie is a great one. 00;36;20;24 - 00;36;23;05 Molly Buckley-Marudas Crime junkie. Yeah. 00;36;23;08 - 00;36;30;01 Shelley Rose and finally, what is your favorite resource for maker education or a way to connect with other makers? 00;36;30;01 - 00;37;00;14 Sarah Wallace ScopesDF.org, which is the, Fab Foundation's teacher K12 platform. it's just a giant plethora of lessons that have been tagged by standard and by machine type and all that stuff. I was on the group of teachers who helped build it. So I'm a little self-promotion there, but it's still it's just a really, really good resource. it can be it has a lot of stuff on there. So I, I think it's just a good place to go peruse or it's a place to go get a lesson if you're in need of one. 00;37;00;16 - 00;37;11;10 Molly Buckley-Marudas Guys. We will definitely link that in the show notes. All right. Matthew, are you ready to Chalk and Roll? I'm ready. Okay. So first what's your favorite spot in Cleveland or Northeast Ohio. 00;37;11;13 - 00;37;33;05 Matthew Johnson Favoring the East Side as we've done in this podcast, I'm going to go with the Culture Gardens. All right I love that space. And I think actually here at Cleveland State, April 10th, we're having an author over at the library that's written a new book explaining it, looking at it. Yeah. So I saw that. I got to go to that. It interests me all that, different nationalities that are represented there. I think that's really cool. 00;37;33;07 - 00;37;38;17 Molly Buckley-Marudas Yeah, absolutely. And what is one podcast or one book that you're loving right now? 00;37;38;19 - 00;37;57;13 Matthew Johnson So I frequently like to listen to Hidden Brain and I like to yes, I don't I've never put that up against anybody that would either tell me that it's junk science or good. So I try to take everything with a grain of salt. But I do like, hearing about the different ways people think about things and approach life, and it's always fascinating. 00;37;57;15 - 00;38;05;14 Molly Buckley-Marudas Yeah, I like that one, too. And finally, what's your favorite resource for maker education or your favorite way to connect with other makers? 00;38;05;17 - 00;39;06;06 Matthew Johnson Yeah, definitely some of those that have already been mentioned reach out to those who are around you. Go visit their spaces, ask them those kind of functional questions like how are you, you know, getting your stuff? How are you training people? What are your processes? I have found the community at large is very sharing, to the point of saying, here's even our documents and just take our name off of it if they work for you. And it's been very helpful, at a college level, the International Symposium of Academic Makerspaces, Case, down the road from us, is a leader in that they host an annual conference. And I found them to just be a great, source for just how to work with, not only the students at a college level, but professors who may also be intimidated by maker spaces and aren't sure. Maybe they're under the pressure of, I do need to get that makerspace into my curriculum, but I don't know any and just how to build those partnerships. So isam, isam.org I think is their website, where you can find out more info from them. 00;39;06;08 - 00;39;18;21 Molly Buckley-Marudas Well thank you. Before we close, we always like to give you the chance to share something you wanted to share that you haven't had a chance to share yet. So if there's anything you didn't say or shout out you want to give, now's your chance. 00;39;18;23 - 00;39;28;07 Vicki Turner Shout out to the administrators and board members and community members that provide the funding for us, so that this can happen. 00;39;28;09 - 00;39;56;16 Matthew Johnson I'd say here at Cleveland State a shout out to the Washkewicz College of Engineering. And them having a vision for a makerspace that would not just serve the College of Engineering, but be open to the broader campus. And I think I'm on my third dean of that college that just continues to bring better vision. And I'm grateful to share that within that, we're open and can partner with other departments and students and benefit each other. 00;39;56;18 - 00;40;06;28 Molly Buckley-Marudas Absolutely. Thank you, Matthew, Sarah and Vicki for being with us today. And thank you, Chalk Talk listeners for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. 00;40;07;01 - 00;40;13;06 Shelley Rose For links related to this episode and guest bios, visit the show notes at podcast.CLEteaching.org. 00;40;13;07 - 00;40;19;01 Molly Buckley-Marudas We also hope you will join us for our next episode. Episode three: "Podcasting in the Classroom" 00;40;19;01 - 00;40;29;26 Shelley Rose The Chalk Talk Podcast is made possible by a grant funded by the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation. If you want to learn more about the Jennings Foundation or about the Cleveland Teaching Collaborative, please visit CLEteaching.org.