Anytime I try to organize and re-organize items in the Makerspace, I always create a bigger mess before the order starts to appear. But that's just part of it! Sometimes you have to embrace the chaos to and get things out of order to recreate a better system. Here's a super short video I took mid-process and posted to Instagram. So in a previous post I had wrote about starting to repurpose some old, powered laptop/technology carts, so one of the things I needed to tackle this past Monday was trying to pick up where I left off with those two carts and finish that, and the other was to completely revamp the organization of our Strawbees. Sometimes you have to embrace the chaos to and get things out of order to recreate a better system. Repurposing carts part 2VR Cart Last year we got in 10 phones to use for VR. These had already been barcoded and numbered. I had put the VR headsets in the cart and numbered them at the end of last school year. So the first step I needed to do for this was to get out the phones and chargers that I had locked away elsewhere for summer and set up the chargers in the cart and the phones. Then I added labels to the front of the shelves that said which phone numbers were in which slot (1-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-10). Then I added labels for which headsets are in which row on the other side. Then I put the IAP (it's a mobile internet access point to help with Google Expeditions) and an internet cable in the bottom shelf with labels. The only thing left to do for that cart is to type up and probably laminate some getting started instructions when I have time. Last year teachers could check out these headsets and phones, but they weren't all in one convenient location bundled together, and I didn't have an easy way to charge all of them. This cart takes care of all of that! I'm hoping that bundling it all together will encourage more folks to check it out and use it in their classrooms! Ozobots Cart In the other technology cart, I put our 18 Evo Ozobots that we got in at the end of last year. The first thing I needed to do with the Ozobots was put the rubber skins on all of them that came with the set. I then decided to put a small number with Sharpie on each side of the skin near the wheel to not interfere with the sensors. Then I opened the Ozobots charging hubs and cords and plugged them into the cart. I put in 18 boxes of Ozobot markers and numbered the bottoms of them 1-18. I put labels at the front of shelves and put the same number of Ozobots and markers on each level. On the level beneath the last Ozobots, I will put the teacher guide, color sensor guides, and such. I am hoping to not need to type up instructions for this since it came with an instruction manual, but we will see how things go. These also hadn't been entered in Destiny (our online library catalog) yet, so I took care of that as well. I entered them as a set instead of individually. As that is how I foresee classes using them and checking them out as a whole set. Strawbees Next up I needed to work on organizing my Strawbees kit. I have written before some about how I do labeling and barcoding. Students really got into making things out of the straws and connectors in this kit in the spring. But after lots of use, the plastic sleeves the straws came in were starting to tear, so I knew I needed a different solution before students started using them this year. I had gotten an idea earlier in the summer about using cereal containers. But at the store, the cereal containers cost more than I anticipated, and they didn't have the number I needed available on the shelves. However, they had bread keepers cheap and available in the needed quantity. So I got 6 bread keepers and 1 large clear storage container to hold everything.
As I started seperating colors and putting them in the bread keepers, I was quickly reminded that the bread keepers have holes in the bottom to let the bread breathe and a few straws slipped out. So I took the pink straws back out, got some clear spine label protectors and set to work on using those to cover the holes. (You'd want to apply the labels, tape, etc. on the inside. If you do on the outside, you'll have straws stick to it.) You can't even really see them in the picture of them! They blend right in. Then after putting those labels over the holes in each container, I continued sorting the straws by colors. I kept out one package of each color. I'll hang on to them as extras for the future, but the containers were overfull with them in there. Then I stacked everything back in the large container. I put in the connectors in the bags they came in, and the guide and cards that came with the kit. Then it just needed a barcode and a label and was ready to go into the hands of builders! I know that it's always helpful for me to see how others are organizing their makerspace items. So I hope this helps some of you!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |