Pick problems worth solving!

~Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, ASU-GSV summit, April 2015

Just like it's easy for end users to use technology as a distraction, instead of for discovery, we as developers have to be careful, too, that we're creating and marketing ed tech tools that are "discovery" worthy, both in that they are attractive to end users and push them outside the envelop to ask those "what if" discovery questions. Check out these ASU-GSV (Gobal Silicon Valley) summit conference materials full of thought leader discussion about moving beyond simply digitizing traditional classroom practices.

And to this end, in my preparation to teach 3D printing, I want to blend a tinker approach (just make something, anything) with a practical need for why you'd make a 3D piece in the first place and to introduce this to K-5 kids in a 5 week, 10 hr total session. Which, I firmly believe will be common place in our every day lives by 2017, where classrooms and households will have basic 3D printers for every day lives (kinda like microwaves!). The Savannah College of Design already offers public use 3D printers, where they have technicians that "gate-keep" requests, as in they review the stl files created to ensure successful print jobs. It's this gate-keeping I want to teach kids in my 3D class.

One of my favorite quotes reviewing the ASU-GSV summit presentations is from Richard Culatta, who directs the office of education technology and led the development of the handbook for developers:

"One of things that drives me crazy is when people say, 'We have to make learning fun!' Learning is fun," ... But "We do a lot of stuff that makes learning not fun!...So what I'd love to have these new technology apps do is ask: How do you keep learning fun?"