3D Printing Lore #5 - The Teacher is Aware

We've been looking at some basic facts about 3D Printing that might be discussion or talking points for individuals (teachers) or adults or groups who might dip their toes into 3D Printing from a practical stand point and considering some of the obstacles.   Every school has a different situation a different set of circumstances that dictate how projects might work which could be simple as resources or ongoing funding for something as basic as PLA.   We have a focus on creation and innovation at our school and are incredibly lucky that we can use the technology in a way that we do.   

Previously with regards to lore or challenges:

#1. You don't need more than a single printer to print in a school environment.

#2 You don't need to 3D Print all of your students 3D Printing projects

#3 3D Print using glow-i-the-dark or other filament is easy

#4 Juniors can 3D Print just as well as seniors

Each of these four points has a small post about examples of how you might approach the concept or the challenge that it could face.   The fifth 'lore' concept for 2026 is 'The teacher is aware'.

The skill set that a teacher needs to create or encourage 3D Printing needs to be an awareness but not a mastery or experience to any particular level.   While teaching and encouraging creativity are incredibly important in teaching any part of the curriculum the practical terms is that the teacher in this case is not particularly skilled in designing or creation.  Over time an awareness of what might work or what might not work has become a bit more obvious (although as the technology improves drastically as the machines improve as shown from what the students were doing in 2014 compared to what students have been completing in 2025

One main reasons for this site is to encourage the use of technology within classroom and school environments and locations.    Hence examples like this slideshow below - it is intended to allow a teacher with minimum experience to complete the process of creating ear rings with a class of students, in this example the class who worked on this project was seven and eight year olds however it is quite possible that this could work on a variety of levels.   It was intended as a basic 101 project for someone who might be working on 3D printing with students for the first time:

 

 Note from the author of the blog:

This site was always intended as a way to share the use of technology - it was originally just a 3D Printing site but as the technology has evolved over time (yes we really did start posting in 2014) other options have become available to the point now even the name of the site is in question.   Originally it was only ever going to be a 'blog' as this teacher had previously worked on successful class blogs in the past (this archive clsas blog for example has now had 1.3 million page views and is more popular now when active) however recent events have meant that we are preparing to launch on several other formats in the near future, although the intention is for this site to remain more or less the same, at least at the time of writing this (January 2026).