Worth Reading...

Sharing some articles, posts and videos from the last couple of weeks.


1. The Case For A Campus Makerspace (Watters)- a talk that makes a case for creating a makerspace on college campus.  Certainly applies to the K-12 world where these spaces value small group discussion, collaboration, participatory, project-based, and peer-to-peer learning, experimentation, inquiry, curiosity and play.

"Making" rather than "writing" final projects for a class still demand students research and plan. But it also demands they prototype in ways that neither an essay or an exam really do. Making projects can be -- horrors! -- relevant and relevant. It can be experimental. And it can be technological -- or it can have used tech tools in its construction. It can be technological whether you're a classics or a computer science major. And arguably, these days it should be.

2.  Where I Work: Creative Serendipity (Brown)- building a space that invites serendipitous interactions

we continue to create new spaces and work arrangements that invite inspiration, collaboration, and serendipity. Our spaces are ever-evolving prototypes.

3.  Meet The Champs (Kristof)- article written about the success earned by the chess team at ISS 318 in Brooklyn.  This middle school chess team is to focus of a documentary Brooklyn Castle and has been referenced in several publications as well.  

More astounding, these aren’t even high school kids yet. In April, New York’s Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, where 70 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, became the first middle school team ever to defeat kids about four years older and win the national high school championship. The champs are kids like Carlos Tapia, a Mexican-American in the eighth grade, whose dad is a house painter and mom a maid. The parents can’t play chess and can’t afford to give Carlos his own room, but they proudly make space for his 18 chess trophies. 

4.  Self-taught African Teen Wows M.I.T.
 

5.  Internet of food: Arduino-based, urban aquaponics in Oakland 

6. Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper-  A short documentary portrait on a designer who has created a low cost solution to landmine clearance.
Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.