Start Making! is a program developed by the Clubhouse Network to engage young people all over the world in Maker-inspired activities. With this guide, you will discover how to plan and coordinate Start Making! projects in your home, school, library, community center, after-school club, or makerspace. You'll learn strategies for engaging young people in creative thinking, developing individual and team projects, and sharing and reflecting on their creations. Each session includes a list of the supplies you'll need, step-by-step instructions for completing the projects, and prompts for stimulating discussion, curiosity, and confidence. These fun do-it-yourself (and do-it-together) projects teach fundamental STEAM concepts -- science, technology, engineering, art, and math -- while introducing young people to the basics of circuitry, design, coding, crafting, and construction. They'll make paper cards and creations that light up, play music using a MaKey MaKey keyboard and Scratch programming, join together to make paintings with light, design and construct 3D sculptures, build a vibrating art-bot that makes drawings, and sew fabric creations with wearable circuits. Dip into the activities once a week, run them as a week-long summer activity, or go through the guide in any way that works for you. By offering your own Start Making! program, you can inspire young people in your community to develop creative ideas, learn new skills, and share their creations. The Clubhouse Network is a global network of community-based centers led by Boston's Museum of Science in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab.

This book is about the computer clubhouse, both the idea and the place that inspires youth to think about themselves as competent, creative, and critical learners. So much of the social life of young people has moved online and participation in the digital public has become an essential part of youth identities. The clubhouse makes an important contribution not just in local urban communities but also as a model for after-school learning environments globally. The book includes a scalable model for providing at-risk youth an array of media design and computing experiences. It also includes examples of media created in the clubhouse, ranging from digital stories, video games, interface designs, and digital art projects.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) needs little introduction as the central figure in Romantic poetry and a crucial influence in the development of poetry generally. This broad-ranging survey redefines the variety of his writing by showing how it incorporates contemporary concepts of language difference and the ways in which popular and serious literature were compared and distinguished during this period. It discusses many of Wordsworth's later poems, comparing his work with that of his regional contemporaries as well as major writers such as Scott. The key theme of relationship, both between characters within poems and between poet and reader, is explored through Wordsworth's construction of community and his use of power relationships. A serious discussion of the place of sexual feeling in his writing is also included.

Understanding and overcoming the gender gap in computer science education. The information technology revolution is transforming almost every aspect of society, but girls and women are largely out of the loop. Although women surf the Web in equal numbers to men and make a majority of online purchases, few are involved in the design and creation of new technology. It is mostly men whose perspectives and priorities inform the development of computing innovations and who reap the lion's share of the financial rewards. As only a small fraction of high school and college computer science students are female, the field is likely to remain a "male clubhouse," absent major changes. In Unlocking the Clubhouse, social scientist Jane Margolis and computer scientist and educator Allan Fisher examine the many influences contributing to the gender gap in computing. The book is based on interviews with more than 100 computer science students of both sexes from Carnegie Mellon University, a major center of computer science research, over a period of four years, as well as classroom observations and conversations with hundreds of college and high school faculty. The interviews capture the dynamic details of the female computing experience, from the family computer kept in a brother's bedroom to women's feelings of alienation in college computing classes. The authors investigate the familial, educational, and institutional origins of the computing gender gap. They also describe educational reforms that have made a dramatic difference at Carnegie Mellon—where the percentage of women entering the School of Computer Science rose from 7% in 1995 to 42% in 2000—and at high schools around the country.

How will low-income communities be affected by the waves of social, economic, political, and cultural change that surround the new information technologies? How can we influence the outcome? This action-oriented book identifies the key issues, explores the evidence, and suggests some answers. Avoiding both utopianism and despair, the book presents the voices of technology enthusiasts and skeptics, as well as social activists. The book is organized into three parts. Part I examines the issues in their socio-technical, economic, and historical contexts. Part II--the core of the book--proposes five initiatives for using computers and electronic communications to benefit low-income urban communities: - to provide access to the new technologies in ways that enable low-income people to become active producers rather than passive users;- to use the new technologies to improve the dialogue between public agencies and low-income neighborhoods;- to help low-income youth to exploit the entrepreneurial potential of information technologies;- to develop approaches to education that take advantage of the educational capabilities of the computer;- to promote the community computer: applications of computers and communications technology that foster community development. Part III presents a synthesis of the various topics. Its main questions are, What are the prospects and problems of initiatives to enable the poor to benefit from the new technologies? and What federal, state, and municipal policies would enhance the prospects for success? Contributors Alice Amsden, Jeanne Bamberger, Anne Beamish, Manuel Castells, Joseph Ferreira, Peter Hall, Leo Marx, William J. Mitchell, Mitchel Resnick, Bish Sanyal, Donald A. Schön, Alan and Michelle Shaw, Michael Shiffer, Bruno Tardieu, Sherry Turkle, Julian Wolpert

This book highlights the latest in educational technology. Here are ideas that are not only intellectually intriguing but also practical and practice-building, inspiring educators to move beyond traditional teaching roles toward learning design.