Makerspaces

In a post earlier this week I mentioned Fayetteville Free Library’s FabLab.
Innovation in learning space design and use is becoming an important focus for me.
I am keen to explore how developments in education can inform the kinds of spaces sport develops.
The Fayetteville FabLab is a makerspace. In other contexts this kind of space is called a hackerspace. I prefer ‘maker’ to ‘hacker’ as the descriptor of these kind of spaces.
Metalab in Vienna, is an example of an established makerspace. It supports “free exchange of information, and collaboration between technical-creative enthusiasts”. Metalab provides infrastructure for projects and “offers a physical space for interested people from the fields of IT, new media, digital art, net art and hacker culture”.
John Baichtal has provided a guide to the kind of work that emerges from these makerspaces. In his introduction he notes that:

People are working and talking together. They’re sharing information, learning about new things, asking questions and discussing mutual areas of interest. They’re building projects to meet a practical need or simply for the love of it.

I liked John’s observation that “surrounding one’s self with a large group of talented and engaged people can inspire a member to tackle great challenges”.
My sense is that makerspaces encourage us to develop transliteracy skills. For Sue Thomas and her colleagues transliteracy is “the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks”.
I believe sport makerspacers can stimulate and support a range of movement literacies that transform individual learning. I am looking forward to exploring how the interaction of space and guided discovery can change the ways we prepare for sport performance and value athletes as assets.
Photo Credit
Creative Independence
 

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