Next Saturday, September 17th at 1pm, on the Main Stage at World Maker Faire New York, the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Tom Kalil, will participate in an all-star panel about the impact that making and the maker movement can have on education in the United States.
Making, Education, and Innovation will be led by Dale Dougherty, Editor and Publisher of MAKE magazine, and will also include Francisco D’Souza, CEO of Cognizant (and board member at the NY Hall of Science), and Margaret Honey, CEO of the NY Hall of Science. They will talk about how making can inspire children, spark interest, and develop proficiency in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines — and how making fosters creativity, collaboration, and self-confidence.
Two other presentations on education at Maker Faire New York address how the core principles of DIY not only challenge the norms of curriculum, but also challenge the business model of higher education.
DIY U: Designing Self Organized Education, a presentation by Anya Kamenetz and Caroline Woolard, goes deep on the question of how we teach, learn, and credential each other outside the logic (and expense) of traditional educational institutions.
Anya is a senior writer for Fast Company magazine and author of Generation Debt and DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. Caroline is the co-founder of Trade School, a non-traditional learning environment where students barter with teachers for instruction, and also a co-founder of OurGoods.org, a barter network for creative people. Both will be on the Main Stage on Sunday at 3pm.
A similar thread will be explored on the Make: Live stage Sunday morning at 11am with a panel on Hackerspaces: Schools of the Future. A panel of founders (Mitch Altman, Willow Brugh, Jimmie Rodgers) of these alternative learning and working spaces from across the US will share their experiences about how people are creating online and face-to-face communities to promote learning that is more sustainable, accessible, affordable, relevant, and/or democratic than that offered by official institutions.
Take a moment to prepare for these conversations by watching the recent segment from PBS News Hour, Can the DIY Movement Fix a Crisis in Science Education? about Maker Faire, MAKE, and the state of science education in the US.
For more information on the complete lineup of presentations at Maker Faire New York, check the schedule page.
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