MakerSpace Badges

Craig Dunlap's 2017-2018 school year was a year of change. His classroom was transformed from a computer lab to a makerspace. Not only did the room go through some major physical changes, but he brought in new equipment that he needed to learn in order to teach it to the kids. That was a year of chaos as he figured out his new role in the school and his colleagues tried to figure out how to use him.

In the summer of 2018, he dreamed up a badge system to help curricularize the makerspace tools available in his room. You can view the badge website here.

If you equate robotics and coding to a new literacy, you need to teach it like you are teaching kids to read and write. The first step is teaching the ABCs and slowly build up from there. Likewise, you will see that Badge 1 is always low-hanging fruit and each badge builds on complexity. Also, learning Scratch coding is the key to higher level badges.

Craig has presented on the badges at KySTE19 and KySTE2020. You can click the links to see his presentations. Cubelets has written about the badges here as well.