I was originally worried about attacking our two big questions for the course. What I did not realize was with all of the interaction and discourse over the last few weeks I have been given a great deal of material to work with. I sat down to write this post with the intention of addressing these questions but think I would like to talk about my thoughts and learnings from the past week.
I must admit that I went into the topic 3D printing a bit half-heartedly. I knew I wanted to work with Laura and Marieke and it only made sense to tackle this topic as we had recently purchased a printer through the ENTER program at NIdes. What I have learned it that most people are somewhat blown away once they realize the scope and nature of this topic.
Probably the most impactful of all our articles, to me anyway, was the one posted by Laura entitled: Click, Print, Gun: The Inside Story of the 3D-Printed Gun Movement. This article features Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student from Texas who has been promoting the creation of semi-automatic rifles on 3D printers. The scary part, as Laura and I were discussing, is that he is well spoken, enthusiastic and actually makes some good points - many not so good points as well - but you can see how many would be tempted to follow his line of thinking. My favourite part is when he is talking about that ‘Global Canada’ team that came up and were completely freaked out. This is an issue that we are just so far apart on. I am a classic fence-sitter and can normally see both sides of an argument. I just don’t get the NRA mentality and the thinking behind statements such as, “The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun,” as stated in this video. But that is a conversation for another day.
Next, I would like to talk about the success of this Google+ community. I think that this format has sparked some of the best conversations that we have had to-date. There has been no lack of content to respond to in the bigger 509 community. Within our 3D Printing community I loved that people outside of our seminar were able to join in if they felt so inclined. We even had several people join us in our 3D seminar that were not part of our crew. It has made me think very strongly about where else I would like to incorporate google+. Unfortunately I cannot use it with my grade 6’s and seven’s (you have to be 13 in our district), however, I think it would be a great spot for our district’s tech junkies to share and collaborate.
On Monday night we had Roger Vernon present as a guest speaker to our small 3D printing cohort. Roger runs the ENTER (Robotics and Engineering) program for NIDES out of the Aspen Park school here in the Comox Valley. Any worries I had about him being done in ten minutes and people being bored were obviously unwarranted. Even though I have spoken to Roger about the topic several times, I was fascinated by everything he had to say and was constantly reminded of all of the ‘behind-the-scene’ work that he has gone through to get to where he is today. It fit very well with the plethora of comments that our OLTD group has been making regarding the many hours, and many frustrations, it takes in order to pioneer a new technology. Roger was obviously excited to share his work, and we were very hard pressed to keep up with all of the chat comments and questions. In all, I thought it brought our topic to a more personal and relevant level.
OK, maybe just a bit on my philosophy. One thing that I have demanded from from my lessons (well maybe not all lessons) from the beginning be it paper planes or website creation is a sound pedagogical purpose at its core. I think of teaching Photostory 3 not just because its great for students to take home and create family projects, not just due to its file management requisites, but also because it teaches students to look for the flow, the focus and the lines of any given photo. I love when a lesson can hit students, and adults for that matter, at multiple levels. The thing that hit me most with 3D printing was the concept that on top of many other issues and required knowledge, once the student was creating, they had to really think about whether or not their particular creation would ‘work’. Would it stand? (Avi’s Monster) Would it crack? (Roger’s student’s failed cube) What purpose does it serve? (sometimes as simple as a soup pot lid) I have had many projects created in Google SketchUp, but to this point they have never had to really think about the reality of that structure.
Ok. I guess I should save some philosophy for the final project:)
Andrew
I must admit that I went into the topic 3D printing a bit half-heartedly. I knew I wanted to work with Laura and Marieke and it only made sense to tackle this topic as we had recently purchased a printer through the ENTER program at NIdes. What I have learned it that most people are somewhat blown away once they realize the scope and nature of this topic.
Probably the most impactful of all our articles, to me anyway, was the one posted by Laura entitled: Click, Print, Gun: The Inside Story of the 3D-Printed Gun Movement. This article features Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student from Texas who has been promoting the creation of semi-automatic rifles on 3D printers. The scary part, as Laura and I were discussing, is that he is well spoken, enthusiastic and actually makes some good points - many not so good points as well - but you can see how many would be tempted to follow his line of thinking. My favourite part is when he is talking about that ‘Global Canada’ team that came up and were completely freaked out. This is an issue that we are just so far apart on. I am a classic fence-sitter and can normally see both sides of an argument. I just don’t get the NRA mentality and the thinking behind statements such as, “The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun,” as stated in this video. But that is a conversation for another day.
Next, I would like to talk about the success of this Google+ community. I think that this format has sparked some of the best conversations that we have had to-date. There has been no lack of content to respond to in the bigger 509 community. Within our 3D Printing community I loved that people outside of our seminar were able to join in if they felt so inclined. We even had several people join us in our 3D seminar that were not part of our crew. It has made me think very strongly about where else I would like to incorporate google+. Unfortunately I cannot use it with my grade 6’s and seven’s (you have to be 13 in our district), however, I think it would be a great spot for our district’s tech junkies to share and collaborate.
On Monday night we had Roger Vernon present as a guest speaker to our small 3D printing cohort. Roger runs the ENTER (Robotics and Engineering) program for NIDES out of the Aspen Park school here in the Comox Valley. Any worries I had about him being done in ten minutes and people being bored were obviously unwarranted. Even though I have spoken to Roger about the topic several times, I was fascinated by everything he had to say and was constantly reminded of all of the ‘behind-the-scene’ work that he has gone through to get to where he is today. It fit very well with the plethora of comments that our OLTD group has been making regarding the many hours, and many frustrations, it takes in order to pioneer a new technology. Roger was obviously excited to share his work, and we were very hard pressed to keep up with all of the chat comments and questions. In all, I thought it brought our topic to a more personal and relevant level.
OK, maybe just a bit on my philosophy. One thing that I have demanded from from my lessons (well maybe not all lessons) from the beginning be it paper planes or website creation is a sound pedagogical purpose at its core. I think of teaching Photostory 3 not just because its great for students to take home and create family projects, not just due to its file management requisites, but also because it teaches students to look for the flow, the focus and the lines of any given photo. I love when a lesson can hit students, and adults for that matter, at multiple levels. The thing that hit me most with 3D printing was the concept that on top of many other issues and required knowledge, once the student was creating, they had to really think about whether or not their particular creation would ‘work’. Would it stand? (Avi’s Monster) Would it crack? (Roger’s student’s failed cube) What purpose does it serve? (sometimes as simple as a soup pot lid) I have had many projects created in Google SketchUp, but to this point they have never had to really think about the reality of that structure.
Ok. I guess I should save some philosophy for the final project:)
Andrew