Antony, a 12-year-old seventh grader at Conwell Middle School in Port Richmond, has encountered a few unexpected barriers in testing his hypothesis.

“There are several flaws,” he says about the experiment he just built, a full water bottle with two straws hot glued into it, one of which is topped with a cardboard square. Read the rest »

Cyber schooling was not among my top choices for the dream high school experience. It was the last resort after my mother and I discovered we could not afford to return to Orlando, Florida, and it was too late to enroll in Pittsburgh-area schools. Read the rest »

Creating and starting a makerspace is an exciting venture; you build a team and purchase new equipment. There are a lot of resources (people and articles) that describe how emergent makerspaces can get off the ground. Once your makerspace has been open for a few years, you begin to experience challenges that are distinctly different from those start-up challenges, and there are very few, if any, resources that describe what this new, “post-emergent” phase entails. Read the rest »

In an effort to reach more patrons and spread innovation, librarians are taking their digital learning and staff development programs on the road.

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh offers everything you would expect at a library: books, computers, story time for the little ones. Read the rest »

At the Millvale Community Library in Pennsylvania, toddlers and kids gather weekly to work on creative projects. On those days the library morphs into a “makerspace,” overflowing with sewing supplies, circuitry, yarn, and electronics. The young visitors are encouraged to tinker with the materials and create anything they dream up, be it an animated video or a collage. Read the rest »