Category Archives: Conferences

WGSC 2024 Presentation

Marcy Quiason of the Gender Studies program and Angela Vanden Elzen from the library and makerspace had the opportunity to present at the 2024 Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium conference. We discussed the how and why of including maker-based assignments into gender studies classrooms, followed by a workshop in which participants built out a maker assignment for one of their courses. Resources we used at the presentation are available below.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Angela or Marcy

PLAY MAKE LEARN: Making and Gaming in the Liberal Arts

Poster that includes a venn diagram in the center with a circle for library, makerspace, and game studies, with access to resources, critical media literacy, and technology literacy in the overlaps. Tools to understand the world is in the middle where all circles overlap.
Click on the image to zoom in Flickr, or click here to view a high resolution version.

I (Angela) recently had the opportunity to attend PLAY MAKE LEARN on the UW-Madison campus. It is an excellent annual conference that represents the intersection of a lot of what I do here at Lawrence University- with library instruction, teaching in the makerspace, and teaching game studies. This prompted me to submit a poster to visualize how all of these intersect and share some common themes that are crucial skills for today’s learners. The idea of seemingly different areas of study coming together reminded me of the goal of liberal arts education- so I named my poster “Making and Gaming in the Liberal Arts.” It was wonderful to talk with so many technologists, librarians, K-12 educators, professors, game designers, and graduate students during the poster session (and throughout the conference). While looking at this poster, one librarian pointed out that the library often plays a large role in technology literacy. While those are not connected on the diagram in the poster, I certainly agreed with her. Another librarian commented that perhaps the library on the top could be seen as an umbrella- which I decided was intentional. 🙂

PLAY MAKE LEARN was a rewarding and engaging conference, and I look forward to returning next year!

What Happens After You’ve Set Up an Academic Makerspace?

Thinking of setting up an academic makerspace?  Back in March, we presented on just that at LibTech: The Library Technology Conference at Macalester College. Take a look at our slides and notes– it’ll be almost like you’re there!

A very abbreviated version of this presentation was delivered at the WAAL 2017 conference lightning round.

ACM Maker Workshop

As part of the generous Faculty Career Enhancement Grant we received from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) to get our makerspace up and running, we also had funding to host a 3D printing workshop for interested participants from fellow ACM schools. This workshop took place on the Lawrence University campus on August 4-5, 2016.

Bryan Alexander discusses 3D printing in liberal arts education.

The purpose of this workshop was to introduce 3D printing pedagogy to educators who may be interested in integrating it into their teaching and work. The workshop began with an informative and engaging presentation by Bryan Alexander, entitled, “3d Printing Across the Curriculum: From Liberal Education to the Replicator” (slides available in Lux or see the recording.) Other activities included a discussion of experiences with pedagogical applications of 3D printing, as well as hands-on design time to become acclimated to the technologies of 3D printing. The entire schedule is available at the workshop page.

Participants discuss pedagogical applications of 3D printing.

Participants came from eight different schools and a wide range of academic disciplines. Areas represented included, museum studies, education, art, English, chemistry, library, music, theatre, administration, and more! While the participants had differing academic backgrounds, there were many overlapping interests and concerns that led to some very enriching discussions.

Participants get hands-on experience with 3D modeling.

Photos from the event can be found in our workshop Flickr album. Some workshop highlights and more photos can be found at #ACMMAkers16 on Twitter. This workshop was a wonderful opportunity for educators to come together to share knowledge, to become comfortable with exciting technologies, and to make some new connections. Those of us who planned the conference are grateful to everyone involved for making it such a great experience!