Making Makers: A Drill Press is a Girl's Best Friend (A Boy's, too) by Coco Kaleel

As someone whom is not very tech savvy, this presentation has shown me an easy, starting path into the massive world of technology. The thought of computers, coding, and actually making devices is so intimidating, but Coco did a great job of narrowing the scope of the influence that having these capabilities and knowledge holds particularly for secondary students. A big topic in my Information and Society course in my master's program is the importance of digital literacy. This presentation only reinforces that the digitally literate have more opportunities and benefits in society than those who don't or are struggling to become digitally literate. For example, Coco spoke about how she was able to fix her family's dishwasher which saved a lot of time and money that would have been spent if no one knew how. The programming and making that she has learned to do is parallel to learning new languages. Coco has adapted to modern society quite effortlessly. She naturally knows that knowing how something works and is built provides the solid foundation for solving problems and innovating new methods or devices. It is only a matter of time before teaching making (like Coco has described in her presentation) becomes incorporated into school curriculum and in turn pushes out the obsolete. This shift in academic curriculum is overdue. Personally, if I were provided the hands-on lessons that Coco sought after at her age, then I wouldn't have struggled in college as much with trivial problems like fixing a printer the night before a paper is due. In order for the collective intelligence of the general population to improve, these lessons must be made widely available.