#CreateCon18

CreateCon is a small (~100 people) local conference put on by Anthony Wayne Local School in Whitehouse, Ohio and Bowling Green University. Its goal is to promote creativity, technology and education. It was a good time to meet up with some of my NW Ohio peeps and have some #MakerSpaces discussions.

Mark Suter (@Garlicsuter) was the opening keynote. Amongst the many things he talked about that the idea of joining “psychological safety” and Daniel Pink’s ideas of Purpose Autonomy and Mastery is when you will get people to take risks.  He shared some examples of risk taking for teachers and students. He also mentioned the triad of “content, skill, will” and how too often we lose the “will” part and focus too much on “content”

Jason Hubbard @jsnhubbard presented about his students Board Game Design project. It is an excellent idea that they take through all the design stages of researching good game design, brainstorming ideas, prototyping, getting feedback from peers, revision, and final creation with a variety of more permanent materials (3D prints, laser cut wood, cardboard). Jason also brought some students (“The Secret Society of Tinkerers”) that wanted to work on and show off their “Musical Hallway” project. This is done with Makey Makey, cardboard, foil, alligator clips, wire. They worked on it for almost 5 hours and were able to present to many teachers.

John Mansel-Pleydell (@theohiobloke ) presented on “Designing a MakerSpace”. This is always my favorite topic. He had good ideas for participants to get started and a list of some possible materials to begin with or take the next step.

Chris Malanga and NWOCA  (North West Ohio Computer Association - @NWOCA ) had a overview presentation about STEAM and Maker tools, then had a hands on session with some of those tools (merge cubes, ozobots, makey makey, Lego, code.org, sphero).

It was a good day to meet some people face to face and share some ideas. Thanks to @chamady for organizing a nice day.