We teach e-books, handing out PDF, report on spreadsheets and checking how long students work on their homework through the school network. Not to mention interactive white-boards, iPads and the plenty of programs designed to develop specific skills. Before we could breath a bit there is already a new tool for our magic box. 3D printing. OK. You don't have to sign up for a CAD (Computer Assisted Design) course this summer just yet. It isn't rolling out to every school next September. However, it may arrive sooner to our daily life as we could have expected. FAB lab which stands for Fabrication Laboratory is supporting young talents all around the globe who are ready for the next big thing.

The challenge for Fab Labs, is to harness the "inventive power of the world" and to apply it to "design and produce solutions to local problems".

There are around 200 Fab Labs all around the globe in 40 countries with the aim to bring together businesses and education to work together on projects. It isn't only for the chosen ones.

“Pieter Scholtz and Gerhard de Clercq, 15-year-old students at Menlopark High School in Pretoria, South Africa, built their own 3D printer with a mobile phone app”

In Africa there is a school where students built their own 3D printer which uses plastic bottles as the raw material to work with. If this weren't enough to digest once, there is already a 3D doodler which doesn't require any knowledge of CAD software at all. It comes with a pen with what you draw in the air comes to reality in the printer.

The Digital Generation by Thomas Swan Published on Miss T. ESL