How The Maker Movement Is Moving Into Classrooms

"A new generation of inventors is surfing the tide of the Maker movement. These classrooms emphasize making, inventing, and creativity." This statement came from Vicki Davis in an article that I recently enjoyed on the topic of the Maker Movement and as I read the article, there were obvious words and phrases that continued to surface...make, invent, build, modify, create and then, a word that I hadn't heard for a while - TINKER. Yes, we are working hard to incorporate these other words into our new learning environment, but tinkering seems to be a better descriptor for where I would like to be heading. Tinkering seems to allow for us to sit down without much of anything other than a few basic ideas and have a play, or shall we say, "A tinker". I like this! Isn't this tinkering stuff what Google has been doing for some time? Twenty percent tinker time...I'm sure that I've heard that this is when great things such as gmail and google maps happened? If it's good enough for Google, then it's good enough for me. As I continue to explore creative opportunities in our MakerSpace classroom, I will be working hard to include "Tinker Time" as a means to challenge and encourage higher level thinking from my students.