3-D printing in your libraries and classrooms
Heather Michele Moorefield-Lang · NC Digital Online Collection of Knowledge and Scholarship (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) · 2014
3-D printing creates physical items or objects from digital data. This type of printing starts with an electronic file and turns it into a physical item through the use of a 3-D printer, making the imagined real--or, at least, real via built-up layers of plastic (Kaur 2012). Multiple 3-D printer brands are available, but the most popular among schools and libraries is the MakerBot Replicator 2, mainly because of its ease of use, size, and overall print capabilities. If you wonder what 3-D printers can do, the answer is just about anything. If a student, librarian, or teacher can design it, the 3-D printer can make it. The printer may be limited by size or scale, but 3-D printers allow users to print the physical world that surrounds us (Kaur 2012). 3~D printers can play a large role in the lives of our students' research and education by creating models of thoughts and ideas as well as supporting invention (Kurt and Colegrove 2012). In this Technology Quest column I focus on two educators, an art teacher and a middle/high school librarian, who have recently introduced 3-D printers into their learning spaces.