Fellow
Okay, we're not really "making code." But, we are working to add in a coding aspect to our Invention Convention exhibition. This exhibition currently allows families to make and tinker with common objects in order to solve challenges as well as learn and apply techniques in a more focused setting in our Inventors' Workshop and Maker Annex spaces.
Fellow
I HATE using the term "New Year's Resolution." It carries so much baggage with it and it tends to be some BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal - for those who read certain business books) that feels seemingly impossible come January 1 and so ends up being dropped within the first few weeks. That's not to say I haven't tackled some BHAGs. For example, at the start of 2013, this is what I looked like (technically, I shot this video in late 2012, but you get the idea):
Fellow
Last week, I helped fill in on the floor in one of our making spaces - the Inventors Workshop. When I arrived, the staff member I was relieving was helping a girl to build a small, tabletop catapult (our theme for the week was the Turkey-pult in honor of Thanksgiving). But, I noticed something - almost everyone in the workshop was creating a very similar catapult design.
Fellow
I and many of my fellow educators at the Children's Museum of Houston have long held a belief that children need to be provided with a free-choice learning environment that stimulates hands-on, minds-on, open-ended explorations into phenomena to help them construct their understanding of topics that interest them. We believe that what we and other children's museums and science centers provide is access to application of ideas and phenomenological explorations that often fly in the face of "common sense understanding."