A few weeks ago, I listened as Sylvia Martinez gave an inspiring keynote about Maker Education. She shared a video clip of Andrew Katz, a boy at a New York Maker Faire, who had invented his own automatic pet feeder. The boy excitedly shared how his design worked and the interviewer asked, “So are you going to sell your design to Purina?”
There was no hesitation. “No,” the boy answered. “I’m going to put the plans online and share them, to see if other people can use them or improve them.”
Photo: MakerFaire Blue Ribbon Winners. Please click to visit site.
I’m paraphrasing, and I cannot find the original video, but the message is the same. His creative plan? It wasn’t for sale. It was free. It was being shared to improve the world. His contribution. Because he believed in it.
I look around at all that I love about education. The things that inspire me most? I’ll call it open source teaching. Like Edcamp. Edcamp inspires me because it’s about open collaboration. Nobody’s charging you to get in the door, nor selling you something to sit down and share, discuss, grow, and create a new learning experience. Then there’s Twitter. Twitter engages me because people share, openly, and freely just because they have the same goal as you… to improve the world of learning. People on the other side of the world who will share with you, just because you need help. For free.
Maker Ed? It’s the same thing. Open sharing. Open learning. Together. It’s empowering to think that we are all learners. Makers. Tinkerers. Collaborators. And We? We’re all in this together. Sure, some of the equipment is expensive. But go to a Maker Faire and feel the energy of open source learning and you’ll know. Making is not about making money.
I look at websites and companies that are trying to sell learning. To put a price on sharing. To turn curriculum into dollar signs and turn sharing into a business. Sharing should be the freest of all things in education. I just know, in my heart, if the world is going to be better, then open-source teaching and learning is the way to get there. My ideas won’t change it. Maybe yours will. But together, you, me, us, we? We’ve got a chance to do something big.
What will you share today?
Disclaimer:
I’ll probably share a poster… and as always, they’ll be 100% downloadable from Flickr for free. All I ask is that you do not remake to sell. They are meant to be shared freely, because if one poster shared makes another teacher’s day, then I feel like I’ve done my tiny part to change the world and that inspires me to keep going.