Maker Jawn Archive
The following incomplete recap is skewed by my own thoughts and feelings on the subject. I only have written this as a recap of the life of the program for my own records. If you wish to add anything, let me know!
Genesis, Summer 2013
The Maker Corps Summer of Making
Grant funded programs run at 4 Free Library of Philadelphia Computer Hot-Spots in North Philadelphia and 1 in West Philadelphia. link
Kept afloat by workstudy students until 2014 when Teen Programming city positions were procured to hire staff for 9 libraries.
Peak, Plateau, and Projects, Summer 2014
Workstudy to City Position Transition
Maker Jawn had much success after the 2013 summer of making exhibiting at Maker Faire World 2013. Maker Jawn reached it’s peak in the summer of 2014 when it was awarded a multi-year half million dollar grant to implement programs for all ages. This was also after successfully prototyping a Digital Badging Program and a summer collaboration with FLPs College Prep Program.
Library As Incubator
Connected Messages
Maker Faire
Maker Corps Community Resource
Badging Program
Youth Films at Kensington and Lehigh Ave Branches
E-Textiles with the Franklin and UPenn GSE
IMLS Grant
Many webinars, workshops, and conference presentations
Post Emergent Sustainability Crisis, Winter 2015
GRID Article
Co-founder leaves
City positions issues
Immediately after city funded Maker Mentor positions are seasonal with a mandatory month off. Some makers cannot afford this break or are not able to keep their position. The Office of Public Service and Support put a College Prep Specialist with little knowledge of program direction in charge as director of the program. The library’s office of Strategic Initiatives provided no direct support of the Maker Mentors or the Initiative.
Decline, Summer 2015
Brain Drain
As the program went into it’s second year several other co-founders left the Initiative. Conflict began to arise within the bureaucratic system between management and the mentors. [Deb Lui has a great white paper that touches on the span of time from the crisis to the decline, link at bottom.
Current Day
2017
Makerjawn.org and resources lapse and become defunct.
2018
Supposedly all remaining makers are now programming specialists as part of T.O.P.P.S. after school homework help programs.
2019
- Make: Magazine abruptly shutters, Maker Ed’s future looks okay.
- Seems like the Digital Badging Program is now back in the hands of the College Prep Program.
Digital Archives
I do really wish the remaining program mentors the best if they’re still at FLP. I have started find ways to digitally archive the good work people did at the initiative below:
Links
- Wayback Machine It seems like an ok way to get the site back, but most blog posts are not archived. I have copied some of my own articles to this Jekyll blog, but subsequently lost the rich media for them in 2019.
- Youtube Channel
- Flickr
Curriculum
Each link should take you to a PDF archive of each activity listed lesson plan. Originally stored on the Maker Jawn site as shared Google Docs:
- Balance: A great art activity that incorporates basic physics and engineering.
- Cardboard: Practice engineering and creative problem solving skills.
- Wind Powered Cars: A design challenge that utilizes recycled materials.
- Body Tracing Self-Portraits: This cheap, low-impact activity can yield many hours of color, decorating, and discovery!
- Bracelet Weaving: A simple introduction to weaving.
- Finger Puppets: Great intro to sewing.
- Intro to Design Concepts: A simple start to getting youth to think about decision making in design.
- LED Magic Lantern: A project that combines traditional crafting with copper tape circuitry and storytelling.
- One Page Zine: Design, draw, and share a one page zine.
- Paper Mache Giant Head: This project uses almost all recycled material, works great with large groups, and is sure to draw attention and new participants to your Maker program.
- Slime: A science experiment that makes a great movie prop.
- Opening Movement Patterns: A short easy way to get into your body and start firing up your brain!
- Closing Movement Pattern: A yoga based stretching exercise to cool down and focus after an activity.
- One Idea: A fun activity for dancing, creative movement, and cooperation.
- Relief Prints: Learn a traditional form of printmaking.
- LED Kaleidoscope: Spark creative thinking through designing and building an LED kaleidoscope.
- Audiobooks: Great way to expose participants to story writing with no consumable materials and free software.
- Highlight Reel Making with Animoto: Learn about managing your online content and produce highlight reels using a free cloud-based service.
- Mozilla PopcornMaker: Mashup your favorite YouTube videos and other media! A great hook into video and music editing.
- Stop Motion Animation: Get started with animating using a tablet or smartphone.
- Guidelines for Making Movies in Libraries
- Narrative Development
- Skit Workshop
- Set and Scenic Design
- Shot Types and Storyboarding
- Video Editing
- Artbots: Hack apart electric toothbrushes to create a robot that scribbles, scrapes, sings, or splatters.
- Jawn-o-Graphy: A simple twist on finding your way.
- Light in the Window: Teaches the basics of copper tape circuits with switches.
- MaKey MaKey High 5 Game: A fun physical game that uses the MaKey MaKey.
- MaKey MaKey Musical Markers: Create sounds whilst drawing with Magic Markers.
- Squishy Circuits: Learn about circuits with some Play-Doh and LEDs – an instructional comic.
- Soldering: An intro to mini welding! Soldering iron skill test to get two wires to stick together.
- Microphone/Recorder (Zoom H4next Handy Recorder)
- Sewing Machine (Brother XL2600)
- Video Camera (Canon VIXIA HF R500)
Grants Awarded
- MakerED
- LSTA
- IMLS
- 2015, Foundation Grant
Press
- Philadelphia’s Maker Jawn Program (Grid Magazine)
- 3-D Printing: Worth the Hype? (School Library Journal)
- Making Room For Informal Learning (American Libraries)
- Maker Jawn Initiative at Free Library of Philadelphia to Expand to Adults with IMLS Grant (Library Journal)
- The Future of Libraries and Nontraditional Staffing Models (YALS)
- Making as Celebration: Increasing Access to Creative Technology at the Free Library of Philadelphia (Maker Ed Blog)
- Emerging Best Practices for Maker Programing in Libraries (Library as Incubator Project)
- Connected Messages (Library as Incubator Project)
- Developing a Maker Program (Library as Incubator Project)
- Community-Embedded Design: Connected Messages at the Free Library of Philadelphia (HASTAC Blog)
- Crafty Students Show Off New Tech Skills at Free Library of Philadelphia (CBS Philly)
- Learning Lab: Philadelphia Free Library Foundation (YALSA Blog)
- Putting the “A” in STEM: Creativity and Making at the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP Blog)
- Connected Messages: Youth-Created Interactive Murals at the Free Library (FLP Blog)
- The Maker Movement at the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP Blog)
- CLMOOC MAKE CYCLE #5: STORYTELLING WITH LIGHT (Educator Innovator)
- Free Library gets $500K federal grant to expand ‘Maker Jawn’ program
- Jawn - it’s the new ‘Yo’
- Here’s what the Free Library’s ‘Maker Jawn’ showed off at the Capitol Hill Maker Faire
- FAIL AND TRY AGAIN
- THIS INNOVATIVE LIBRARY PROGRAM IS HELPING UNDERSERVED KIDS TAP INTO THEIR CREATIVE POTENTIAL
- Maker Jawn Initiative at Free Library of Philadelphia to Expand to Adults with IMLS Grant
- Post Emergent Libray Makerspaces YALSA
- Connected Messages (Medium)
- PHILLY TEENS PREP FOR COLLEGE THROUGH MAKING AND BADGING
- IMLS Blog
Webinars
- Make Youtube Collection at some point