After developing the Makercart and taking it to the CITYLIS event for the first time, I decided to immerse myself fully into the world of Maker Education. I left my full-time job, applied for funding for the Makercart and co-founded an education start-up, which was accepted into an accelerator program. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the start-up […]
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My Maker Education Journey: Part I The beginning
My maker education journey started long time but without realising it, I’ve been involved in education for well over a decade delivering hands on and project based learning but had never come across Maker Education until 2014… On a sleepless night towards the end of the 2014 Winter I was watching the late tech news […]
Game Library Camp 2017 – games and gamification in libraries
Game Library Camp, held on Saturday at the British Library, was a library camp event all about games in libraries. It was organised by a crack team comprising Stella Wisdom (British Library Digital Scholarship team) Darren Edwards (Bournemouth Libraries) and Gary Green (Surrey Libraries). Like other kinds of Library Camps, Game Library Camp was an […]
Professional development for makers – onboarding staff
After running maker workshops in libraries and other community spaces over the last 12 months, we’ve found our approach to how we provide staff training inevitably influenced by constructionist approaches. This has helped us make staff training and other professional development opportunities more approachable and engaging (and, dare we say, fun) for staff, even the […]
Makercarts for Libraries and Museums – an update
We’ve been busy doing lots of interesting maker stuff lately and we’ve recently joined forces with Carlos Izsak to offer Makercarts for Libraries and Museums. We’ve been collaborating on various projects over the last 12 months but this means that Carlos has now joined Artefacto to lead on various maker education projects and help us […]
Creative coding for learners: tools and resources for inspiring beginner coders
Introduction – Code can be (but isn’t always) poetry We’ve talked previously about some of the different tools out there for learning to code, but a lot of these exist to teach programming as part of a Computer Science curriculum. But learning to code can also open up whole new worlds of creative opportunities. And […]
Finding your way around proximity technologies (& improving user experience)
Introduction – Usability comes before technology “The best user experiences are enchanting. They help the user enter an alternate reality, whether it’s the world of making music, writing, sharing photos, coding, or managing a project.” – Kathy Sierra Proximity technology is a term that loosely brings together location-based technologies such as Bluetooth Beacons, Geofencing, QR […]
Unusual Libraries: Talk at the British Library
Here at Artefacto we’re always inspired and delighted to talk about libraries to anyone, any day of the week. So it’s with additional delight, that one day of this week, one of our co-founders will be heading over to the British Library to take part in a panel discussion as part of the BL’s ‘Between […]
6 (and a half) tips for running awesome workshops and training events
A summary of some of the lessons learned the hard way while delivering workshops and training over the last 10 years. Make it welcoming for people of different skill levels Make all advertising and communication friendly and encouraging. Attending workshops and training, particularly technology-based ones, can be incredible intimidating for some people. Using friendly and […]
DIY digital signage for libraries, museums, galleries & archives
What is Digital signage? Digital signage, displaying content on a screen in public spaces, is a great way to promote library, gallery and museum services, list upcoming events and generally keep users up-to-date with what’s going on in your space. But beyond the information aspects of digital signage, it also has the potential to encourage […]