What's the best way to teach someone to code?
Have them build a killer death robot, of course.
Andrew Theobald of the Edmonton Public Library's makerspace program had a fully armed and operational one at the University of Alberta's Maker Day conference Tuesday. Built from Lego, drone parts and a Nerf machine gun, he demonstrated how he could move and fire the tank-like robot using a remote control.
"EPL is weaponized!" he joked, as it chattered through its thankfully empty ammo belt.
Some 400 student educators came to Tuesday's free event to learn more about how they could use makerspaces in their classrooms.
Makerspaces are places with a variety of tools, toys and objects that people can tinker with to craft projects and explore concepts. The emphasis is on self-directed, project-based learning.
"There's more change in our environment today than there ever was, and adapting to those changes takes new ways of thinking," said Maker Day co-ordinator Colleen Starchuk.
Instead of setting them up as users of technology, the makerspace movement helps students become creators with it.
"It's about teaching students to think like designers," she said, and to think about how to solve problems instead of waiting for someone to tell them the answer.
"It's a really creative and innovative thinking process."
Learn by doing
The central idea behind makerspaces and the maker movement is that we learn more by doing things than by listening to lessons, said Kirsten Ng, digital services librarian at the St. Albert Public Library and speaker at the conference.
"It's through experience that we learn."
One example is the ball-like Dot and Dash robots Ng uses during the library's learn-to-code camps. By having the students figure out how to get the robots to complete different tasks (such as making noises when they see someone or navigating a maze), Ng has them learn the basics of computer programming.
"Coding is 21st century literacy," she said, in that it teaches kids how to think logically, be creative and collaborative, and to solve problems.
"The world has changed so much that just reading is not enough anymore."
Makerspaces emphasize self-directed learning. Ng teaches students the basics of how to program with Scratch, for example (a free computer language that represents commands as blocks that snap together like Lego), then turns them loose to make whatever they want. Some create animated stories about hungry dragons cooking knights, while others craft political statements with "Dodge the Donald (Trump)" games.
"When something strikes their interest, they can be coding for hours."
Makerspace advocates say that lessons become more memorable when applied to a physical project.
"How do you double the speed of an electric motor?" Theobald asked as an example.
While everyone knows that the answer lies within Ohm's Law, the equation for voltage, it's not immediately obvious that said answer is "double the voltage," he said. If you instead play with an actual electric motor in a makerspace, you'll discover this answer and learn that other changes to the motor are also necessary.
Likewise, applying computer programming to a physical object like a robot is a great way to learn the subject, Theobald said.
"You write code and it's tangible. If you write, 'forward forward left' and (the robot) goes 'forward forward right,' you know your code is doing something wrong."
Makerspaces can help teachers cover multiple subject areas at the same time, Theobald said. The killer robot your student makes in a makerspace not only teaches them about programming, but can also prompt discussions about the ethics of military robots.
Ng encouraged teachers to integrate coding into their lessons instead of teaching it separately. Have students make animated skits to talk about history lessons, for example, or interactive demos to explore math and simple machines.
"Kids are into all of these technologies these days," she said, so educators might as well make use of them in their lessons.
"As educators and libraries, we really have to meet them where they're hanging out."
