This week’s Work In Progress has a number of ideas for articles and designs that I managed to publish before uploading this post. The time from idea to product is getting shorter. I’m approaching publishing something every day or two which is a step up from my typical post every two weeks. Sylvia Martinez’s urgings to the… Read more »
Author: Josh Ajima
Josh Ajima is a technology resource teacher at Dominion High School, a public high school, and the Loudoun Academy of Science, a magnet science program, in Sterling, Virginia, United States. He has advocated for grassroots adoption of maker based learning in the classroom. He has a particular interest in 3D printing for education and has served as a member of the Make magazine digital fabrication review team. In 2015, he helped establish a digital fabrication lab at the Loudoun Academy of Science. In 2016, he served as team lead for Dominion High School’s winning proposal for the US Department of Education’s CTE Makeover Challenge. Ajima holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Virginia.
Stuff for Cutting Cardboard
My daughter’s class is doing some sort of maker project and the teacher asked for students to bring in stacks of cardboard. To be helpful I grabbed a few shears from my personal makerspace and sent them in. The next day I was looking through a bin of odds and ends and ran into a… Read more »
What’s in Your Makerspace?
A common question I hear from fellow maker educators is, “What’s in your makerspace?” My school is one of 10 winners of the US Department of Education’s CTE Makeover Challenge so my answer is much different this year than last. In total, we won $50,000 in cash in prizes in addition to the existing hardware provided… Read more »
Giving a Makerspace
Today, my friend Nichole Thomas @MrsThomasTRT and I gave away a Super Deluxe Makerspace Starter Kit to a colleague. @DesignMakeTeach #lcpstrts helping TRTs. Maker space starter kit presentation. pic.twitter.com/51WKKErqMf — Joe Schwarz (@eLearnVL) January 11, 2017 Nichole and I hosted an Edcamp style session on makerspaces at the December meeting for Technology Resource Teachers (TRTs) in… Read more »
Mystery Artifact Lesson
What is this object? What does it do? What is its historical significance and value? You are professional appraiser brought in as an expert by shows such as Antiques Roadshow, American Pickers and Pawn Stars to determine the value of an unknown artifact. Your job is to research the object and give a 3 minute… Read more »
WIP 003: All About Sharing
Problem: How do students share their 3D designs with the world? I’m a 3D printing enthusiast in the world of education and believe me when I say I understand the challenges of classroom implementation. Design / Printing / Sharing How to have each student contribute? Screenshots, Tinkercad embeds, Sketchfab, video, renders. Edith Ackermann Tribute: FabLearn… Read more »
Designs for Diversity and Equality
Design Challenge – MLK 2017
Thingiverse recently added MLK as a Featured Collection on their front page. Designs in a featured collection received huge increases in number of views and downloads. The problem is that the collection only features 3 designs and 2 of them are mine. When I first wrote about this issue in 2014, there were 0 relevant hits… Read more »
Giving as a Core Value
Whenever I go to a conference or a maker event, I bring gifts. A small topo map of Virginia for the FabLearn conference, makerspace starter kits and business card flashlights for education conferences or personalized gifts for fellow makers at Maker Faire. I’m lucky to have access to a makerspace filled with shiny tools. The… Read more »
WIP 002: Flexy Tree
Here is another Work in Progress post. Text file is filling up with ideas. I’m using iA Writer to post a draft directly into WordPress which is pretty cool. Saves a step or two though I do need to work on learning markup. Question: What DigiFab device should I take on vacation? Answer: Othermill CNC… Read more »