When I was a kid and enormous cars with long sharp tail fins ruled the road, it was said and believed by many, "If it's good for General Motors, it's good for America." Not so today with GM recently coming out of bankruptcy. But things haven't changed all that much, only the names of the mega corporations we worship. Yesteryear it was GM, today it's Google. And with good reason: GM came roaring out of the Second World War the largest, most productive business on the planet; they were doing something right! The same for Google in this era; their search engine and browser rules the Internet. Their cellphone operating system connects the globe.
With Google products dominating the new industrial age, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Google workplace practices are garnering a lot of attention--and emulation--in business and education. Chief among these much emulated practices is 20% Time.
20% Time, as defined by the Google practice, is allowing their employees 20% of their work time to work on creative projects that are unrelated to the employee’s assigned projects. The result has been the creative surge that brought Google to the forefront of its industry.
In education, 20% Time allows kids a chance to take their attention off class content and get creative. Oh, sure, you say, untethering kids from classroom routine and letting them get creative sounds great, but without structure in the classroom you soon get chaos. Good point! The way to avoid chaos is to add a touch of chaos-preventing structure. The Maker Place is a great way to add that structure.
The Maker Place isn’t simply a portion of the classroom where kids are turned loose to get into trouble. The idea is to provide a space where kids can loose their creativity with engaging projects suggested by teachers and other students . The Maker Place should also include the materials ( 3D printer ) necessary to complete the projects.
RobotsLAB’s STEM BOT 3D CLASS provides both the curriculum and the materials for a perfect Maker Place. The STEM BOT 3D CLASS teaches students how to 3D print a robot, assemble it, work on the electronics, use a 3D printer and finally program it using Scratch.Kids love robots. It doesn’t take much effort on the part of the teacher to get them interested in making one.
Educators, give some thought to freeing up time for your students creative urges--without losing control, of course. 20% Time works for Google. It might work for you.
