In Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take” he highlights how educators can be “selfless givers” who
“Feel uncomfortable recieving support… they are determined to be in the helper role, so they are reluctant to burden or inconvenience others. Selfless givers recieve far less support which proves psychologically and physically costly”
I have not met Chris Beyerle, teacher at Greenville County Schools but, based on his social media activity, I would have said he fit this profile.
He gives up at least an hour a week to co-host South Carolina’s Twitter Chat #SCed, and when a start up called EdShelf was looking for support to keep the company going he was quick to help out. At the moment he’s looking for support for his students so they can get a 3D Printer.
I shared details of Chris’ crowd fund cause on social media, I also did a little research around 3D printing and crowd funding in education. I found 186 live causes for crowdfunding totalling $328,355 with $32,000 raised (Most of which may be from teachers and parents).
Then, by happy coincidence, as I was blogging about 3D Printers I heard about this amazing 3DHubs community, and their mission to make 3D printing accessible to more people.
This led to the idea of educators putting a business case together, where the printer would be a shared community resource for anyone looking for prototyping etc, with benefits for all stakeholders
Educators: Get more contributions to their 3D printer crowd funding projects
Businesses: Contributing to a communal 3D printer at the school would save companies money
3D Hubs: The schools 3D Printer being a community resource ties in with 3D Hubs mission
Students: Not only do students get to explore the world of 3D modelling, it will see more businesses visiting the school and (hopefully) collaborating with the students.
Susan Bearden from Holy Trinity Academy in Florida is currently up for an award for collaboration with 3D printing as they made a prosthetic hand, could this idea to lead to more collaboration like this?
I have no idea what the education and 3D Hubs community will think of this, or how workable the idea might be… But given the synergy it might be worth exploring. It would be great to hear people’s views about the idea.
In the mean time I would be extremely grateful if the 3D Hubs community could share the two links below to help two hard working and innovative educators spread the word about their projects;
Rapid Prototyping crowd fund: http://www.donorschoose.org/project/rapid-prototyping/1583442/
Using 3D Printing to Give a Helping Hand to a Child in Need https://www.facebook.com/CDWGCollaboration/videos/622108447889269/?fref=nf
