Sunday, April 26, 2015

Photo at Conner Prairie

A spontaneous photo from Conner Prairie, the local, interactive, outdoor museum that partners with our 1st Maker Space program for schools.

I was walking down the hall from our exhibit and saw these young Amish women peering over the mezzanine wall down to the first floor.  It seemed like a paradox of old and new frozen for a moment in time.  Had to share.


Saturday, April 11, 2015

Quality control or political power grab?

As a member of the manufacturing community I've learned that Quality Control is a Science.  Lots of math, lots of documentation, lots of training and lots of measurement.  But we don't measure EVERY part.  It's called statistical quality control because we use statistical sampling to asses the quality of our process.

High stakes testing of students hasn't seemed to figure this out.  This intrusive, expensive, impractical and meaningless methodology has created a financial windfall for test vendors, income for a test-prep ecosystem surrounding it, untold stress and anxiety for students and their parents and a political football for incompetent legislators.  What could possibly go wrong!!??

I found this show on CSPAN describing the rising tide of dissent against this insanity.  I thought you'd want to watch it.  Fascinating!



Saturday, April 04, 2015

1st Maker Space Making Progress!

IPS and Ivy Tech have committed to hosting 1st Maker Space summer programs. Those 1st Maker Space partners represent the largest school district in the state and the largest commmunity college in the USA.
The Arsenal Technical High School 1st Maker Space is under construction. We've already had a stream of 'maker space tourists' come through and leave very impressed.
Pre-registration for our summer camp programs, now hosted at over 20 locations, have accelerated. 
We will be exhibiting at the Indiana Afterschool Network 2015 Summit 4/13-15. We are constructing a maker space in the center of the exhibit atrium at the J W Marriott. Typical attendance exceeds 700 educators and includes school decision makers throughout the state.
The keynote speaker is Don Wettrick, Innovation Specialist at Noblesville Schools and author of Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level. He was instrumental in arranging for 1st Maker Space being selected by Noblesville Schools to build a maker space at their high school. We will be hosting camps there this summer.
And this week we'll be cheer leading for Cardinal Ritter HS at the NCAA Final Four. They were one of four Indiana schools picked by the NCAA to receive an award at their Team Works Celebration. Ritter invited us to be a part of the ceremony in appreciation for the support we provided them in the construction of the artificial hand they provided to the little girl in Toronto as part of the Enabling the Future program.