The Role of 3D Printing in Transforming the Education in Mexico
If you’ve read our coverage on the AM Europe 2016 and seen our latest BIG THING, you will probably know, that recently we have been so much into expanding, enlarging and making things really big, in both senses. We found it really great that one of our resellers seems to keep up with our pace and extended the learning in one of Mexico’s universities in a really impressive way.
Let’s move now to Latin America, precisely to Mexico where teachers of the Tabasco-based university together with Ideas Disruptivas showed us their unique approach towards learning.
The Cause and Solution
To provide you with some of the information concerning the level of education in Mexico, the country is currently at the development stage. Both the government and the local authorities are trying to fight the problem of inequality when it comes to the access to quality education and currently trying to reach the higher standards of teaching. They were also aware of the fact that also technological advancement is an inevitable factor that contributes to the overall educational transformation. The great support in this area came from the companies who represent different branches, at the first sight not connected to the education sector.
The reality shows that the commitment and successful strategy can make the changes happen. Just like in the case of Ideas Disruptivas who set the clear goals and put the ideas into action:” At Ideas Disruptivas we strongly believe in the empowering nature of technology. We also believe in childhood as a magical and unique stage of learning and discovery. Thus, it was only natural to merge both concepts into a single idea. And that is how Academia de la Innovación (Academy for Innovation) was born”.
21st Century Education
The whole project was in fact the idea of one of our Mexican resellers Ideas Disruptivas that came along with the initiative of creating Academia de la Innovacion (Academy for Innovation) to help provide equal learning possibilities and bring the latest technology to the children from the south-eastern region of Mexico. Having the access to Zortrax M200 3D printers they put the idea into life and started a course that took place at the University of Tabasco. The initiative received also a great support from the UNESCO and nongovernmental organization – the American School Foundation based in Mexico City. Such cooperation appeared to be really efficient as up to now, they’ve manage to provide the course to 250 children from the south-eastern region of Mexico.
The Core of the Course
The series of classes that started with the beginning of the school year involved many students along with their parents and were in fact the first experience of the students with the 3D printing technology. Thanks to the Ideas Disruptivas who provided the university with Zortrax 3D printers the children were introduced not only to the 3D printing process but also learned the basic knowledge about designing and preparing the models for printing in Z-SUITE. Kids found this dedicated software extra easy and after practicing they were able to make the whole process from designing to 3D printing by themselves. The course was technology-oriented, so apart from the 3D printing and designing, the children also have classes where issues like Internet of Things, drone building or web applications development were covered.
Out of the Box and Ready to Go
The main equipment of the workshops for children consisted of Zortrax M200 3D printers. Apart from the main reason that these are the tools that are reliable and high quality ones, they are also characterized by ease of use and user friendliness, which makes them perfect tools also for the learning purposes. Children found them really attractive and the experience where they could actually see their concepts becoming tangible was without doubt more valuable and encouraged their curiosity about the subject. Acquiring the new skills was also most convenient because of the fact that all the Zortrax elements are integral parts of the Zortrax Ecosystem. This simply means that all the products like Z-SUITE software, printers and materials operate with each other well and there is no need for adjusting them.
The Approaching Technology
If you think about the future of learning and the times when electronic devices will be present in every classroom, you should be aware that this is already happening in some of the schools and the process of technological advancement in education is rather unstoppable. Because of that the only option is to adjust to the standards and obviously the earlier you do it, the quicker you will get the results. Happy to see that our friends from Mexico are fully aware of the fact that the present education requires changes to meet the requirements of the current job market and the necessity of transformation of the old system of teaching. The greatest thing here is not only the ability to learn the latest but also the very children focused approach and providing kids with lots of benefits that the new technology surely brings. As a 3D printing manufacturer we would also like to educate many about the utility of this technology, so we strongly support such initiatives and are really happy that we can contribute, maybe to the part of a bigger transformation of the education in Mexico.
Mexico – You’re Doing It Right!
We keep our thumbs up for more initiatives of this kind as providing the youngsters with the skills that are among many of the most desired and universal qualifications of the modern job market like team working, technological skills and application development. Due to the forward-thinking of the users of the 3D printing technology and its growing application we can surely add 3D printing skill to this list. If you want to see how Zortrax is taking the education to a whole new level, you should definitely check out the articles about the Children University and Providing the Masovian Region with 3D Printers.
