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Partnerships, Makers & 3D Printing!

My school district began integrating Professional Development for CTE employees/teachers, enabling us to create partnerships. I wasn't sure where to go, since the last time I worked for/with a company, while also teaching was during my fellowship at Adobe Inc. So, I put my busy little fingers to work, after all I'm a computer teacher, right? I made contact with several organizations, all of whom couldn't meet with me on such short notice; my PD date was 1 week away, which is the same day I received the flyer introducing this new type of PD option. Districts, always doing things late, well I'm used to that as a teacher, so I kept calling. Low an behold I reached one person, but was only able to send them an email. FleetEDU was the name of the company and it seemed amazing that they had full-length buses full of tech on wheels! Cool! At least I thought so and I wanted to get in on this and also collaborate to let them know what was on my mind.
Two days later I was graced with an email and followed up with a phone call to Derrick Lee, an amazing  young man, involved in state of the art fabrication, solar and the list goes on! After he moved some things around on his schedule, we met and I was elated with his ideas, as he with mine. We kept in contact and the seed was planted to begin movement toward a fab-lab, maker-space type of environment in my classroom.
Do you know how important this is for kids in education? Allowing them to use their creativity, critical thinking skills and learn how to "make" something, perhaps a new entrepreneur in the making - no pun intended! I've always taught and integrated technology into my lessons from the stand-point of allowing students to use their talents and own ideas. 

It was during our many collaborative sessionsm that we discussed the idea of a 3D printer, which laid the foundation for this technology to grace my classroom. I mentioned this to my principal; however, we were not able to afford it at the time, so I let it pass. My principal; however, did not and a few months later told me she had funding, giving me only 15 minutes to write up a small bit about how it was important to STEAM, in education. So I did.

A few weeks later I was told that Honda funded a few tech proposals for our school and mine was one of them! I was excited but really nervous. I had to advise admin the type of printer I wanted, so I went back to the source, Derrick. He and I talked about a Type A Series 1 3D printer before, but I didn't have the specifics, so I got them. When it arrived I was nervous, I hadn't worked with a 3D printer and only knew of them because my Apple genius brother had 6 of them! Avoiding my panic mode, I called Derrick and he made a huge Event out of it. We invited several people, you can see the beginnings of these days on my site here: Beginning Days of 3D printing!

The days that lay just beyond this specific day, as seen in the video, were full of trials and tribulations of printing. Learning about so many things in the world of 3D, which nobody in my IT Department knew either! The high school teacher in our district, Tim Brown was very helpful, he got me up and running and my trouble-shooting after that was all through support tickets and YouTube videos. 

I'm not going to leave you in that state of panic, I'll be making my own listing of lessons I've used and how to videos, so stay tuned!

Technology Integration

I have created this site as a means to introduce various applications that teachers can use in their curriculum to integrate digital media. I spent the summer working as an Adobe Fellow and worked with various Adobe products. I was impressed about the new Creative Cloud and the professional visibility of all platforms with Adobe.

Upon completing my Adobe fellowship I began a week of Google Apps for Education, GAFE and was impressed by the user friendly interface, especially since I've been using many of the features already in my classroom; however, integrating the apps with Google Classroom makes for a wonderful set of applications for students.

As I prepare and ready my classroom I feel I'm equipped with the best information. As my email is inundated with the newest updates from Edsurge, Ask a Tech Teacher, eCampus, eSchoolNews, EduBlogs, and many others, I scramble to put together the best of each for use in not only my classroom but to offer as solutions for the modern teacher.

If you have any recommendations or other wonderful tech tools, let me know, I'll include your review and give you credit. :) My purpose is to support, educate and inform for better access to 21st Century tools for our students!