Danielle Martin

As co-author of the book Start Making! A Guide to Engaging Young People in Maker Activities, I have over 20 years of experience in instructional design, youth & workforce development, tech & media education, and community organizing. In fall 2018, I began a journey as a formal educator, as a Career Technical Ed / Makerspace teacher at Chavez Academy / Ravenswood Middle School in East Palo Alto, starting a new 8th grade makerspace classroom and elective course, aligned to STEM standards and CTE pathways. In 2019, I start co-developing a new elective high school course as part of the NOVA: K12 Strong Workforce Program grant with Foothill College at East Palo Alto Academy.  My roots in informal education and activism were seeded as a coordinator at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Charlestown Computer Clubhouse, then serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Transmission Project. I later co-created MIT’s Center for Civic Media, Department of Play, mapping mobile technologies and youth activism methodologies globally. From 2011-2015, I managed knowledge for the global Clubhouse Network, where I tested early versions of Scratch then later led Start Making!, an effort to infuse inclusive hands-on engineering in nearly 100 Clubhouses in 20 countries. My later work with Krause Center for Innovation @ Foothill College Makerspace, Maker Ed, Team4Tech, Fab Foundation SCOPES-df and Ravenswood Makerspace Collaborative focused on adapting informal STEM and maker facilitation techniques to formal K-12 career technical educational classrooms. I hold a BA in Communication Studies from URI, a Master in City Planning from MIT, as well as completing the 2018 EnCorps STEM Teaching fellowship and the KCI UniDiversity Makerspace Coordinator Certificate in 2019. More on me at https://bit.ly/mizzd43flavors. (headshot)