Version 3.3.0
Published:
- Renamed. This reference is now published as MakerSpace by DreamSpace Academy, under the name of the thing it describes. No content changed with the name.
- New: questions — 27 questions in eight groups, on joining, subjects, assessment, certificates, safety, outcomes and getting involved.
- New diagrams on programmes (the four axes along which a level deepens), enterprise (how a local problem becomes a tested solution) and replication (the five-phase sequence, with our current position marked).
- The four growth axes — depth, independence, complexity and impact — are now stated on the site and defined in the glossary.
- Wording corrected in several places where the site claimed more than the evidence supports. “The evidence does not exist” is now “we found no strong causal evidence in the settings and outcomes reviewed”. “No age anywhere” now states the actual policy: age does not determine placement, and is still used for safeguarding, legal duty of care and supervision.
- Shorter, less repetitive pages. Each structural fact is now explained on one page and stated briefly elsewhere with a link.
Corrections across the education pages
The same review was applied to the learning journey, facilitation, assessment and programmes. About forty statements were rewritten. The substantive ones:
- Certificate evidence is three functions, not three fixed media. The explanation and reflection may be spoken, written, signed, drawn, recorded or given through supported communication. Requiring a spoken talk-through and a written reflection would have excluded people for reasons unrelated to their capability.
- Each stage now shows a characteristic emphasis, not an exclusive method. Instruction, projects, tinkering, peer learning and co-creation appear at more than one stage.
- Milestones are judged, but never graded. “Recorded, never graded” could be read as saying quality is never assessed; it means a milestone is not turned into a level or combined into a mark.
- A domain and a programme have different publication thresholds. A practice area may be named while still in development; a structured programme is published only when its outcomes and assessment evidence are settled. The page had been stating one rule and listing two exceptions to it.
- Innovator work no longer requires a problem “nobody has already solved”. Adapting a known solution to a different language, material, price or setting is innovation.
- Enterprise capability is separated from commercialisation. It runs across the portfolio; no learner, artwork or community project is required to become a business, and selling is voluntary.
- The age wording now matches the approach page — age does not determine placement, and the things it does govern are named.
Corrections: rules that were written as blanket prohibitions
Several sound principles were phrased as total bans, which ruled out ordinary and sometimes necessary teaching practice. Each now states what it is actually meant to prevent.
- “No in-the-moment correction” during Explorer work. Explorer work is unassessed — it was never meant to be unguided. Facilitators keep the work safe, answer questions and give feedback when it is wanted; none of it counts toward certification.
- “No sequence is taught.” The system imposes no single making sequence. A facilitator may still teach or demonstrate a process; what is assessed is the evidence, not the route.
- Open-ended work was “reserved for Innovator and above.” Open-endedness is present at every stage. What the later stages add is consequence, not openness.
- Entry, progression and placement now distinguish what capability governs from what places, programme dates and supervision govern — and the placement check no longer claims to measure every aspect of readiness.
- Agency no longer implies the learner must supply the starting point. A project may begin with a facilitator, a community or a brief, so long as the learner has real room to shape it.
Correction: the first Changemaker test
The site stated that a grassroots innovation fails if the problem came from “a mentor’s suggestion”. That was wrong. The test asks where the problem came from, not who introduced the learner to it — and mentoring, lab support and visiting specialists are the normal route into this work rather than a disqualification.
The test fails on a problem set for the occasion: a competition brief, a funder’s theme, a lab exercise, or the maker’s own curiosity. The site had also dropped two of those four while adding the false one; all are now stated. Corrected on the learning journey, the venture pathway, the article and the glossary.
The domain list reads as a portfolio now, not a structure
The site described “seven domains” as though the number were part of the design, and split them into technical and non-technical. Both have been corrected. The list is what is currently documented — domains may be added, combined or retired — and the page now says what has to be true before a new one is published.
The technical split is gone because it does not survive contact with the work: music here is production, media is editing, and the anchor for sport is chess. A domain describes what someone is learning and making; technology is used across domains wherever it improves the work.
Reading and navigation
- A dark theme, with a toggle in the header. It follows your system setting until you choose otherwise.
- Search across every page, article, glossary term and question — press / from anywhere.
- Contents moved to the right of each page, so the text starts at the left margin.
A note on the maker loop
Earlier DreamSpace material shows a six-step “maker loop” drawn as a repeating cycle. It is not used here. The current standard is the Definition of Done: the same six kinds of evidence, required in any order rather than as a sequence, because a learner may begin from a material, a sound or an accident as readily as from a problem.
Version 3.2.0
Published:
- New: 27 definitional reviews — for each term this work is built on, a survey of how the published literature defines it, where the sources agree and where they diverge, each with its own bibliography. Two of the terms reviewed have no authoritative definition in the literature at all.
- Seven further glossary terms, so that every review has a short definition to sit against. The glossary now holds 100 terms.
- Corrected: the citation for national computer-literacy statistics now names the current edition of the bulletin. No figure was carried across from the superseded edition, because the two report different numbers.
- Corrected: the 3.0.0 entry below recorded the reference library as 58 works; the count at that release was 60.
Version 3.1.0
Published:
Adds a glossary — the controlled vocabulary this reference runs on, covering the education system and the innovation and enterprise material alike.
What is new
- 92 defined terms across seven groups: the learning journey, teaching and delivery, assessment and evidence, the MakerSpace, innovation and enterprise, purpose and community, and measurement and reporting. Each entry states what the term means and, where it matters more, what it excludes.
- A published list of the words we do not use, and what we write instead. This half of a controlled vocabulary is normally kept internal; it is published because it explains much of what is deliberately absent elsewhere on the site.
- The narrower definitions are flagged as narrower. Where our use of a word is stricter than the sector's — changemaker above all, but also grassroots innovation, impact venture and capability — the entry says so, because the difference changes what a published number means.
- One reference added, for the sector definition of changemaker, bringing the library to 61 works.
One correction
The 3.0.0 entry below recorded the reference library as 58 works. The count at that release was 60; the entry has been corrected rather than left standing.
Version 3.0.0
Published:
This reference now covers both DreamSpace Academy’s education system and MakerSpace by DreamSpace Academy, the model the education runs in. They were briefly drafted as two separate publications; that was the wrong shape, because a reader cannot evaluate the learning system without the space it happens in, or the space without the learning system it exists to deliver.
What is new
- A MakerSpace section — the model and its positioning, the innovation and enterprise strand, the venture pathway, replication, and measurement.
- Five further articles, on shared physical infrastructure, multidisciplinary design, teaching enterprise through selling, what counts as a solved local problem, and measuring a claim that is not yet evidenced.
- Six further diagrams, including the ecosystem model, the enterprise strand across the stages, the venture pathway, the innovation ladder and the results hierarchy.
- The reference library has grown to 60 works, adding entrepreneurship, grassroots innovation, social franchising, measurement and Sri Lanka national statistics.
What was merged rather than duplicated
Four pages existed in both drafts and describe the same thing once. They have been combined rather than published twice:
- The learning journey and the Maker Journey are one journey — now on learning journey, with the Changemaker gate and its three tests stated in full.
- The making standard and assessment are one standard — on assessment.
- The pedagogy sequence and quality and safety are on facilitation.
- Curriculum areas and the domains documented in that release are one page — programmes & domains.
One substantive correction
The regional employment framing has been corrected. The case rests on the digital access gap and the skills-to-work mismatch, not on a claim of the country’s highest youth unemployment — which the national Labour Force Survey does not support for this region. The reasoning is stated openly on the MakerSpace model page.
Version 2.0.0
Published:
A substantial expansion. The previous release established the structure; this one fills it in to the depth a reader actually needs to evaluate the system.
What is new
- A facilitation page. The site previously described what is taught and how it is assessed, but not how teaching runs. It now covers the pedagogy sequence across the stages, the two delivery modes, the three facilitator roles, and mixed groups.
- Diagrams throughout — the learning journey, the six evidence states, the pedagogy sequence, the anatomy of a level, and the three sources of certificate evidence — as inline vector graphics that scale and print.
- Two further articles: what a level actually means, and placement instead of age.
- The reference library has roughly quadrupled and is grouped by topic. Citation numbers are now generated from a single list rather than written by hand, so a broken citation fails the build instead of shipping.
What changed in substance
- The strongest objection to this approach is now stated on the approach page, with sources, along with how the system accommodates it. Leaving a well-known critique unmentioned reads as not having encountered it.
- Judging quality is separated from judging completeness. The completion standard is deliberately binary; quality is described against published frameworks rather than an invented scale.
- Leaving early is described as a route rather than an absence. Every stage records leavers and their reasons.
- Progression rates are stated as an observation, not an expectation — the system does not claim learners must travel the whole ladder in order.
- The costs of removing age bands are published alongside the reasons.
Version 1.1.0
Published:
Established the education reference as the authoritative public presentation of the current system. Added persistent sidebar navigation and removed unconfirmed programme or process language.
Version 1.0.0
Published:
Initial public release. Introduced the education approach, the learning journey, the assessment standard, the confirmed technical areas, explanatory articles and the external reference library.
Versioning policy
- Patch releases correct wording, citations, links or presentation without changing the approach.
- Minor releases add substantial content, articles or programme documentation.
- Major releases represent a material change to the education framework.
Page-specific dates can differ from the site version where a page changes independently. Older entries stay here so readers can see when and how the public guidance changed.
How this reference is kept consistent
This site uses a controlled vocabulary: one term per concept, one meaning, used the same way on every page. Where a definition here is narrower than the sector’s, the glossary says so, and it also publishes the terms we do not use and what we write instead.
A terminology change is treated as a substantive edit rather than a matter of style. When a word is retired, the release note above records what replaced it, so that anyone holding an earlier version of a document can tell whether the meaning moved or only the wording did.