I attended the 3D printing Future Ready session hosted by the IRC and its amazing staff on Tuesday, September 24th! The purpose of the workshop was to introduce teacher candidates to 3D printing, show us resources where we can access premade 3D printing files or where we can create our own, and give us examples of how to implement 3D printing into our teaching practices.
I am so happy to have attended this future ready workshop because I was not at all familiar with 3D printing beforehand, but now I feel like I learned so much and have many resources at my disposal to try and implement it with students! I learned about the basics of 3D printing at Brock such as the IRC and Gibson Library have 3D printers that teacher candidates can use, 3D printers use PLC plastic made from corn or beets, and that the plastic goes comes in spools of filament before being used by the machine. I also discovered that there are 3D doodler pens for younger students to use. Did you know that a typical 3D printing project takes several hours to complete!?!? Lastly, I learned about valuable resources for 3D printing like TinkerCAD where you can create your own designs and thingiverse.com which provides you with ready-made designs and lesson plans.
3D printing is important for students because it allows them to create and design their own ideas from scratch and then actually see those ideas manifested and in real life. It allows them to be the creator of things and not just the end user. Design learning and pedagogy on making and hands-on activity is very prominent right now which fits in exactly with 3D printing. In my teaching practice, I could see myself creating a science or math lesson around having students plan and design an item to 3D printed. An example that we saw during the workshop was bubble wands where students had to plan for the strength of their design so that it would not break, thus making connections to the science curriculum. In my opinion, this and many other creative ideas with 3D printing could be implemented in teaching practices and I am excited for a future where every student gets the opportunity to exercise creativity through 3D printing!!