作者/Sylvia Martinez
編譯/黃于馨
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自造者運動：在巨人的肩膀上創造未來
近年來，自造者運動已成為教育界的潮流，老師們運用新穎有趣的機器人、3D列印、電子紡織品等教具和教材融入教學，藉此讓學生有獨立作業的機會，深入瞭解課程目的，更提供學生理想的教育環境。
我認為所謂的『做』並不只是將所有課程實作，而是透過最簡單的方法來暸解複雜的學術概念，此外，我們更應當不斷提高水準、挑戰自我，並創造具有學術價值的過程。為了達成這些理想，運用電腦科技會是最好的方法，因為透過電腦軟體我們可以進行模擬設計、精準計算、傳感回報、數據程序等作業，甚至大大提升運作的可能性。雖然數位與物理界的相互作用會變得更加複雜，但卻能讓學習者對兩方面有更深入的暸解。
有意義的學習
Seymour Papert是提倡電腦輔助教學的先驅，他將教育理論定義為『建構主義』，主張學習是知識重建而不是知識傳達，所以我們發展實作教材，讓學習者透過操作經驗創造有效結果。即使學問只會在頭腦裡產生，但只要學習者自身投入實作活動，學習會變得更加真實，更能透過建構共享激發機器人、樂曲、混凝紙漿火山、詩詞、會談技巧或全新學說等創作。
而建構主義最有意義部分在於學習者並非受到外界脅迫而學習，而是透過自身對事物的好奇或衝動產生做中學力量，並從中連結本有的知識，拓展新學問，以跳脫對傳統知識傳授的依賴，自主學習。
製作與轉型
近代的自造者運動主打結合傳統手工藝與新式素材，建立網路社群讓解決問題全球化。實作工作坊以及點子工作坊也在全球各地紛紛成立，各國圖書館及博物館更開放工作坊進駐，主要讓人們聚在一起分享經驗並共同解決問題。而教育機構則應當注意外界教育變革，與世界接軌，保有與年輕人有關的議題。
哈佛大學的教育轉型技術研發中心（TLT）正致力於電腦建模、機器人學、數位形構、快速成型等尖端教育科技，創造做中學環境讓孩子能自主進行精密的規劃。此外，哈佛大學設計中心也進行另一項與做中學習者未來展望、實作經驗和教育方法相關的研究，研究發現做中學教育法可以激發社群合作精神，促成教育跨界及教學應對的調整。
人力資產
當孩子能有意識發展自我解決問題的能力，他們將會是自己和家人最大的資產，也會是全球社會的菁英人才。我相信將創新教具、尖端科技以及自造者精神融入課程不但得宜，也會獲得全球最好研究機構的支持。
【作者介紹】
Sylvia Martinez 加州大學洛杉磯分校電機系、派普丁大學教育科技系碩士畢業
曾任美國教育非營利組織Generation Yes執行長，合著有Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering the Classroom。該書被譽為「校園自造者運動聖經」。
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The Maker Movement: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants to Own the Future
OCTOBER 1, 2014 Sylvia Martinez M.A. Education Technology
Many teachers know that children learn best by doing. In recent years, the Maker movement has generated anew following in education with many teachers adding interesting new tools and materials like robots, 3D printing, e-textiles, and more. The idea that interesting materials and opportunities for students to work independently on in-depth projects dovetails nicely into what we know about creating optimal learning environments for children.
Should we worry that making in the classroom is just the new-new thing, soon to be replaced by some other newer new-new thing? Should we worry that lots of schools will run out and buy 3D printers without thinking about what they will do with them? Yes, I think we should worry, but not give up! To prevent this, I like to combine the work of education pioneers and giants with the new work of scholars to show that this is more than just a fad or a chance for a shopping spree.
I also think that “making” shouldn’t be just making anything. Schools have a tendency to cherry-pick the easiest parts of implementing complex ideas. When we talk about making in the classroom, we have to continually raise the bar and challenge ourselves to create an academically worthy process. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to add computational technology to the making.
A computer with appropriate software means that opportunities for design, simulation, precision, accuracy, measurement, feedback, sensors, data, and programming are not just possible, but greatly enhanced. Interaction between the digital and physical world adds a level of complexity that results in greater understanding of both.
Meaningful Learning
One of the first people to understand the potential of computers in education was Seymour Papert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert),a mathematician who worked with Piaget and helped found the MIT Media Lab. In our book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom (http://www.inventtolearn.com/), we make the case that Seymour Papert could be considered one of the founders of the Maker movement.
Papert defined a learning theory, constructionism, that holds the key to understanding the educational potential of the Maker movement:
From constructivist theories of psychology, we take a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge. Then we extend the idea of manipulative materials to the idea that learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences is constructing a meaningful product.
Papert’s constructionism takes Piagetian constructivist theory a step further toward action. Although the learning happens inside the learner’s head, it happens most reliably when the learner is engaged in a personally meaningful activity that makes the learning real and shareable. This shareable construction may take the form of a robot, musical composition, paper-mache volcano, poem, conversation, or new hypothesis.
This is much more than hands-on learning. The “meaningful” part of constructionism is not just touchy-feely new age language. It acknowledges that the power of making something comes from the learner’s question or impulse and is not imposed from the outside. Questions like “How can my car go faster?” or “I like the way this looks, can I make it prettier?” are treated as valid, and in fact, potentially more valid than criteria imposed by anyone else, including a teacher. Constructionism empowers learners to connect with everything they know, feel, and wonder, stretching themselves into learning new things. It seeks to liberate learners from their dependency on being taught.
But you can look back even farther to find educational pioneers who taught that learning with “head, heart, and hands” is the key to uplifting all children. The phrase is attributed to Johann Pestalozzi (http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/johann-heinrich-pestalozzifather-of.html), who taught that all children were worth teaching, even the poor — and even girls! His writing influenced thousands of educators, and the schools established using his methods taught tens of thousands of children to think for themselves. One such student, Albert Einstein, said of his childhood education in a Pestalozzi school, “It made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority.”
Friedrich Froebel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fr%C3%B6bel) built upon Pestalozzi’s ideas to design the first kindergartens. Italian medical doctor Maria Montessori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori) embraced many of Froebel’s ideas, notably the deliberate use of materials for learning specific concepts, in creating her approach to educating poor preschoolers. It’s easy to find widespread support for the idea that hands-on experiences are crucial for students to develop deep understanding.
Making and Transformation
It’s not just the work of historical figures that we can use to make the case for making in the classroom.
The modern Maker movement has its roots in timeless craft traditions combined with new materials and a community approach to problem-solving spread globally by the reach of the internet. Makerspaces and hackerspaces (http://www.inventtolearn.com/resources-makerspaces-andhackerspaces/) are springing up around the world where people come together to solve problems and share solutions. Libraries and museums are opening makerspaces as well, extending hands-on discovery centers into the 21st century. Educational institutions should take notice when a learning revolution is happening outside its doors. School loses relevancy to young people when it fails to connect to the real world, to their world, and the world of the future.
The Transformative Learning Technologies Lab (https://tltl.stanford.edu/) at the Stanford Graduate School of Education focuses on how new technologies can deeply transform the learning of science, engineering, and mathematics. They are creating and researching cutting-edge educational technologies, such as computer modeling, robotics, digital fabrication, and rapid prototyping, creating hands-on learning environments in which children learn science and mathematics by building sophisticated projects and devices. Another of their projects is the FabLab@School (http://fablabatschool.org/page/about) project, adapting cutting-edge fabrication labs for schools worldwide.
It’s no coincidence that the director of the TLT Lab is Dr. Paulo Blickstein (https://tltl.stanford.edu/people/paulo-blikstein), who studied under Seymour Papert at MIT and channels his mentor when he rejects “hands-on without heads-in” and says that the lesson schools must learn is “that there can’t be making without sense-making.”
There are other research initiatives poised to provide evidence that making is not just another fad. Agency by Design (http://makingthinkinghappen.wordpress.com/) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is investigating the “promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning experiences.” They see a new kind of hands-on pedagogy emerging, one that “encourages community and collaboration (a do-it-together mentality), distributed teaching, boundary crossing, and a responsive and flexible pedagogy.”
Human Assets
I like being on the same side as Piaget, Papert, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, thousands of museums and libraries, and a global revolution. But an even better feeling is when I talk to teachers and students in maker classrooms who say things like, “I see the world differently now,” or “I can look at a complex thing, see how it works, and make it better.”
When children develop a sense of themselves as successful problem solvers who can change the world, they are assets to themselves, their families, our communities, and the world. I believe that bringing the tools, technology, and ethos of the Maker movement into classrooms is justified historically and supported by the finest research institutions in the world. Go forth and make it happen!
【Author】
Sylvia Martinez holds a Master’s in Educational Technology from Pepperdine, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UCLA. For the past ten years, she has been President of Generation YES, a non-profit organization evangelizing student leadership through modern technology. The book she coauthored “Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering the Classroom” has been called the “bible of the classroom maker”.
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圖片來源：gettyimages.com
原文刊登於edutopia.org，經作者Sylvia Martinez授權編譯，未經許可不得轉載
