The Magic of Making: Engaging Students as Makers

Education

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

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@dalepd

June 14th, 2013

Here is a video of my 2013 Distinguished Speaker talk at SXSW EDU in Austin, TX. In this talk, I wanted to contrast formal and informal learning, and point out that informal learning is a kind of magic. We see it but we really don’t know how it works and we don’t understand its value. It’s IFFY, which is to say, Informal, engaging Family and Friends, and centered on You. Making is IFFY, centered on you and your interests, and it is something you typically share with family and friends.