3D Design App Inspires Creativity in this Estonian School
Adults, especially teachers and parents, often wonder … what will tomorrow look like and what should we teach children to improve our society, inspire creativity, ensure financial success, and so on? If we look at trends happening in the world of technology at the moment, two of the cornerstones of building and creativity are programming and 3D modeling.
Discovering 3D Creationist
There are some simple tools that can lead to coding or robotics, but before 3D Creationist, teaching modeling was very cumbersome. For example, if there is a need to sketch a model, you can do it on a tablet in class and see it minutes later being 3D printed. We don't need to go to the special computer labs and use big-old-computers to develop new world things! With this mobile app, we can create everywhere and anytime, like during the lunch hour or at bus-stops, etc.
3D modeling and printing gives a child the feeling of empowerment – what else can she or he develop, what is possible? If the app is educational and entertaining at the same time, it makes them feel like they are in a game … this makes it interesting and engaging for them.
Developing their own models and ideas is so fascinating that students are willing to use their free time in the afternoon or weekends to push their creativity even further. It is also important to share and work together with each other. We have some exercises where everybody has to upload their model and others have to continue working on it – sometimes turning the initial idea 180 degrees round.
Creativity in children is endless and we should give them the tools to let it blossom. We are seeing new car design, mobile cases, jewelry and all other crazy things to be developed and this is also fun for the teachers. What I have seen from working with my classes is that children are mesmerized by fast feedback that they get from the peers, and other adults all over the world.
There is a saying that when you do something for 10,000 hours then you will be an expert at it. When students spend more time every day developing and creating, they become experts in 5 years. So a student who is ten now can be a fully developed 3D designer by the age of 15, and this is truly amazing!
Someone just explained to me that a defining characteristic of millennials is that, because of when they were born, cell phones and the Internet always existed in their lives. How wonderful it must be for today’s children to grow up understanding the concepts of these new creative tools.
Gwynn Torres
The Creativity Institute