Maktivists, Hacktivists or a Combination of Both?

One thing that particularly struck me during this week’s readings for my #EDUC5199 course was Steve Mann’s makivists definition: people who “are authentic and committed to making things for social change” (Mann, 2014) and how this relates to the current craze in adopting makerspaces in our schools.

I follow Laura Flemming on Twitter - she’s been running a makerspace in her high school learning commons in New Jersey for several years. She is also the author of Worlds of Making. A lot of people, (myself included) have incorporated makerspaces in their learning spaces that allow students to explore different tools that interest them and that they are passionate about.

This tweet really changed my thinking about our makerspace and what it provided our students.

When our makerspace first opened, instead of honouring our students voices - we set up challenges for them to complete. How do challenges honour their voice and creativity and allow them to authentically commit to the learning process? I would argue that it doesn’t and doesn’t honour Mann’s “learn by being” which I interpret as learning about things by being fully engaged and immersed in the learning process - it’s almost like you ARE the process. Students should be able to make mistakes and guesses without the burden of worrying about whether or not “challenge requirements” are being met. Learn by being means being free to make, mistake, and re-make. And the result? Something wonderful that might not have been discovered before. Our makerspace now focuses on true open exploration, inquiry and tinkering which Mann says that a makerspace “should all be about”.

I found the differentiation between maktivism (the making of physical objects) and hacktivism (the making of digital objects) intriguing. As making evolves, I see these two worlds converging even more in the future so that one will eventually become the making process of the other.

We are beginning to see this approach to blending both maktivism and hacktivism in our learning commons. The Raspberry Pi and Arduino lend themselves quite nicely to this. Students have to actually create circuits, attach wires, cameras, sensors and the like but also have to code a program in order to make their invention work. While only at the beginning stage of our e-textile exploration, we could be soon blending physical making and coding when using the Arduino LilyPad and LED lights as well. (Right now we are only building basic circuits using conductive thread, LED lights and 3 volt batteries)

Imagine if were are able to provide our students opportunities to learn not only maktivism but hacktivism skills? 21st century competencies? What inventions we might see!