Community reviews for DIY

DIY.org is a great community where students can connect with other makers, find inspiration for new projects, and share their own creations. The site is very open-ended, providing prompts (challenges) that students use to guide their project work. I like that it has been designed with young children in mind, so it helps teach digital citizenship by prompting kids to create avatars and nicknames and allows parents to see what their children are posting. I also appreciate their badge system and the fact that kids can complete a challenge in any number of ways so that every child has the opportunity to express their own vision and creativity. For young students, it can be a bit challenging to figure out how DIY.org works and how to earn a badge when they're first starting out and I would love to see more video instructions throughout for learners who struggle with text but overall I think it's a wonderful site. I'd highly recommend it as a tool to get your students engaging in making and it's a perfect tool to inspire projects for genius hour or other academic subjects.

The site is a bit confusing at first since there is not a clear "start here" section, but once I explored around a bit and created a login I got the hang of it. It seems like a good source of ideas for teachers looking for projects/demos OR for parents/families who are engaged and like to continue learning outside of school. Students would like to see their DIY creations online but will likely need significant help making that happen. FYI - when you are looking for topics many are not typical - e.g. "Cardboarder" has a wide selection of DIY projects that involve making a "prototype" of cardboard.