✉️ Postcard from Play Make Learn
A couple weeks ago some of our project team attended the Play Make Learn conference in Madison, WI. We had a blast meeting new friends, engaging in great discussions, and learning more about how our colleagues in many different spaces (schools, museums, libraries, universities, and more) are creating playful opportunities for learning.
We were also thrilled to be able to share some of the things that we’re working on. In our workshop, “Facilitating Computational Tinkering: Engaging youth and families to create with code” we shared two emerging activities our team has been developing: Light Layers and Making Faces. In each activity, we explore how code can be used along with physical materials, such as paper, string, and lights to extend what learners can do and how they can express themselves.
We loved seeing how workshop participants took the materials and prompts we provided and crafted unique and playful creations.
In another session, “Facilitating Facilitators: Supporting Informal Learning Educators to Engage Youth and Families in Making and Tinkering with Computing,“ we shared a sneak peek of our zine, “What Equity Means to Me.” We created this zine to support educators and their peers to reflect and discuss how they think about equity and what it looks like in their practice. You can read more about how and why we made this zine here. We’re almost ready to share this resource!
We also shared another resource for educators: our Facilitating Facilitators comics, which are visual stories of facilitators supporting families to create together with code and the challenges and dilemmas they encounter in practice.
Finally, we want to share a resource draft for the Making Faces activity we facilitated at Play Make Learn. We also plan to share more information about the Light Layers activity soon. As we work towards refining this guide, creating more resources, and preparing our project website, we’d love to know what you think about the Making Faces guide. You can find a link to share your thoughts with us here (there’s a link to this feedback form in the guide too).