My Portfolio - Fab Learning Academy¶
I’m Laura Sanders, and I am the Head Librarian at an independent K-12 school in Canada. Although I manage the primary and secondary libraries, my day-to-day work is in the secondary library, where I teach information literacy skills to students in Grades 7-12. I am fortunate that our school has an excellent Fab Lab where students can study design thinking. As the library and the Fab Lab are adjacent to each other, I’ve long wanted to find a way to integrate the two spaces together more seamlessly.
My students have a great deal of access to tech, but after nearly twenty years in education I am seeing that a growing lack of opportunity to interact with physical objects during childhood is leading to increased difficulty with troubleshooting and problem-solving. I believe that makerspaces are uniquely positioned to address this issue.
I am a Canadian still working at a Canadian school, but I did teach English Literature and Drama at an international school in Korea for several years, and I still bring that experience into my current work.
At the moment, my level of experience with digital fabrication in education is limited. Although I have completed some projects, such as vinyl signage for the library, they were not pedagogically oriented.
I am still not certain what I will do for my first Field Activity, but I expect that it will have something to do with wayfinding in the library. I would also like to attempt some wood engraving, so my project may involve that.
