Thinkiverse:
I really enjoyed the Thinkiverse education site, I feel it had a bunch of useful things to use as a teacher. I loved that we as teachers are able to use this technology and print things that can be helpful within the classroom that might typically cost bunches of money to pay for and you get the chance to print it for free if you have that technology available to you through the school. I feel like this is a very useful resource for teachers, or anyone really that needs extra tools to help teach.
Smithsonian:
This article was neat to me because I thought it could be very cool for teachers to use the 3D printing in classrooms that you would not think could conventionally need to use it. A history class would be cool to have this technology in because they could print artifacts from history to show a better example of what it is they are talking about. Sometimes pictures just do not do justice or its hard to visualize what it is you are actually looking at, so being able to print something that you may find in a museum that you may not be able to get your students to because of distance or financial reasons. It would be so cool to just have this available to you, and really as teachers we would only have to print it one time and we would have it for the rest of forever, and always have something the students can get their hands on and manipulate to see what history might have really been like.
3D printing in schools:
This article was good research in that it showed that while 3D printing in schools was motivating to the students and it engaged to want to learn, it also had some problems in the beginning. This technology while useful and the teachers were excited to use this they also had a learning curve and much of the first little bit with the printers were trial and error and they had to learn what they were doing. I feel like if we are going to implement this technology into our schools we have to provide plenty of training for all of the teachers and we have to have people there to help with malfunctions and understand the technology completely. This article highlighted what we need to do before we implement this technology. There are many things to think about when bringing in this technology.
Because the technology is so relatively new, the greatest impact may come via the introduction of 3D printing into public and private grade schools. The younger a person is, the easier it usually is to introduce new ideas and methodologies. This is why young children are so quick to learn new languages, when compared to their older adult counterparts. This is what makes elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools the perfect place to begin really introducing a curriculum based around 3D printing.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that if 3D printers are going to be used in schools, there should be training to know how to properly use it.
ReplyDeleteThe smithsonian article was great! Yes, it would be beneficial for a history class, as you said some pictures just do not do just.
I liked your thoughts on the 3D printers and how it motivates the children to want to learn. Though I do believe that there should be training on the printers so that they can be used correctly and can fix any trouble shooting errors.
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