Blog 8

I had a lot of fun in the Make, Hack Play group, and I enjoyed this activity as a whole.  I enjoyed watching the other groups present their findings on their respective topics.  Through our presentation, I learned about this whole subculture of people who love to make things and to tinker with gadgets and stuff.  I have always loved making things as well as the idea of recycling and re-purposing items to make a new gadget or toy.  I got to teach a group to make Robo-fingers, which were fun to make as well as fun to teach.  The future teachers in the class are able to take what they learned about maker culture and use it in their future classrooms to foster creativity in our participatory culture.  The idea of hacking, conceptualized in a new and exciting way is fascinating to me.  To hack no longer just means to gain access to bank accounts and online firewalls, but to hack into the original way of doing things and make it your own. To use existing technologies in new, distinct ways to fit your needs.  I really enjoyed the Hip Hop and literacy group’s presentation.  I like that teachers are using hip hop to teach subjects that are usually boring to young students.  The rap about Watson and Crick was really funny, and accurate too. This class made group work fun and laid back, and I enjoyed that aspect of it most.