 Please Hi, I'm Monique and this is Peter and we thought it might be a good idea to join together for the educational meeting And talk a bit about what's going on in the area of education. So I'm gonna talk a bit about what I've been doing I think two years ago. I started B3D 101 A website with tutorials for young students. I'm not allowed to call them kids anymore. H10 plus and Basically it came from the idea that Currently in the Netherlands. There is a lot of intention for teaching kids technology programming and a lot of these initiatives Were asking me hey Monique Do you have something with blender because all the kids are asking for blender and my first thing was why are these kids? asking for blender their 10 11 12 Well, it seems that they are so I Created my first tutorial put it online and more people started asking hey, can I we want them as well? That's why I said, okay. I'm not gonna email it around. I'm gonna put it on a website online and That worked so many people said hey, this is cool. Do you have more? It's like do I have more? And that's basically when I send an email out to the BF education me emailing list that's how I met Peter who said hey, we're doing the same in the UK and I got somebody in Taiwan Responsing like hey, I'm doing the same in Taiwan and sort of a community started with people creating tutorials Peter from Everybody knows Peter from Blende Kurska also joined so we started forming a community creating tutorials for young students age 10 plus and I Don't know time is doing this this this to me. So I was like I have no idea what he's doing. Okay And this is basically how we started so I started doing code events last year and Basically asking the kids. Okay. You're 10 years old. Well, what am I saying? You're nine. I got kids from eight years old It's like Blender. It's too difficult for you No Okay, I want to learn I was like, okay. Okay. Fine. So I asked the kids How did you come to Blender? So either they had a father or a mother that was doing Blender and they got motivated and wanted to learn Blender so that they could be better than their parents and That was one reason the other reason and strangely Most of them were coming from the gaming communities It seems that Blender is very popular in gaming communities, especially unity communities and Blender is mentioned a lot So many kids picked up Blender from their gaming communities and wanted to learn Blender and Once they've learned Blender they did some of our tutorials, especially the girls They came back. Oh, this is cool because I used to be nobody in my community and now I'm so cool in my community This is really cool So this kind of has been happening in the Netherlands. So last year I did a lot of tutorials and I said, okay, we need to go more into schools But even in the Netherlands we have a lot of bureaucracy a lot of things happening So how do you get into the Dutch schools? Well, you kind of don't and The only way I found to get into the Dutch schools if I can get the crazy Computer science teachers who are also crazy about Blender and 3d who are really willing to teach this and there are some of them So I met these teachers at a conference and they said, okay, we need to do this So what I've been doing this year basically Working on more tutorials because that's the next thing they ask. I want more tutorials. I want to do VR It's like VR. Come on. Yes. We want to do virtual reality. Yes. We want to do a bit more advanced modeling So they've been asking for those kind of things. We've been working on a few of those tutorials Attended a few of those teachers conferences where we met those teachers and They're really crazy and they're starting to do Blender at their schools Challenged I I really came up there. I ran into Doing this I had a lot of teachers asking me how do I sell this to my school? I Need the hours for this. I need a budget for this. Do you have? something that can tell me how I can get the budget and the hours for my school and This is something. I'm not sure what your experiences are But this is something I really ran into that teacher asking me how they could sell Doing Blender tutorials at their school all day. They want to they do see the necessity of it But it's apparently difficult to sell it to ahead of the school that this is important for kids As long as you can show that There is a lot of opportunity in the market. Yeah, there is a market gap So any school will take it up if there is a market gap So there needs to be analysis and a report which should be supporting that and then one can take it to the school saying okay There's a major market gap. Yeah, and if the skills are provided to the students, they will get the job easily Yeah, and that's that's the way we can sell it. It's true and To be honest, this is an ongoing discussion in the Netherlands Where the kids should have technical skills, etc. And this is currently a Discussion that's going on Well, we also picked up for B3 101 Is translation so last year we started with Dutch and English and this year we also have Latin Spanish and Portuguese Yes, Latin Spanish South America and We also have German And we see quite some requests coming from in the Portuguese countries and from Spanish speakers as well And in Germany also So we worked on making the tutorials available multiple languages so that they become available for kids young students in those In different countries where English is not the mother tongue for instance for Dutch kids One of the biggest complaint I had is they want to know blender they go online everything is in English and They can't understand what's being being told. It's being explained there So having it in their own language at least reduces the language barrier in this sense One thing we also talked about Last year was the road map We had a blender B3 one meeting here and we talked about a road map and I Think the discussion went in all directions And we're still discussing who the good roadmap is. This is something that schools are looking into Like I said, we started with events and now we're trying to move more into schools So you could see schools asking back. Okay. What is the roadmap? I'm currently working with a coda class Sorry, I can finish That's me, yeah, yes That's in the UK use the mic so yes, yes I'm going to talk about that a bit in a second. Yeah, and so the road map that's something that's constantly being asked for And like I said, we're moving more into school curricula in the Netherlands We have a computer science curricula and I'm currently working together with a few skills To see how blender fits in the curricula and basically the conclusion with it fits well We just need to know how to sell it to the government and to the ministry and And that's currently what we're working on We've been also working on a bit of funding. I think Peter can tell a bit more about that so through the animation seems to be quite Well quite popular at the moment with funders. We've been quite successful with securing some funding for school-aged Research school age development of resources and actually we've now been awarded two Google funds in the last couple of years to develop resources to teach children and as you can see there I work at the University of Hampton. I also run an organization called through the army and We've got funding twice now to develop resources with the current focus on a on a learning platform Which we're going to talk a little bit about in a second Though we and also we've had some funding In for teacher training and creating schemes of work and you know talking about the case for teaching this in schools Well unless there's a curriculum for it British schools aren't very interested in it not even the As was the the economic argument because it if it's not attached to results It's not attached to league tables. I'm not going to teach it So just creating resources which will allow school to deliver it as part of their curriculum That seems to be quite useful And we've been doing a bit of teacher training because we can go into as many schools as we want to and we are Doing lots of work like that at the moment But there's only two of us and the more teachers we can train to deliver this the better So we we've got a bit of funding at the moment which we we are going to teach training providers We are going to local groups of teachers the community at school network and we're working with them to train teachers to deliver this in Mainly after-school clubs at the moment. It's not being hugely successful in schools after-school clubs much better and I'm also Currently working on engaging some other universities in terms of getting their students to go into the local community to go and teach this as well Because the students want to do this But we do have a problem here in terms of people skilled to do it if you want to go and teach The basics of Python anybody who's got any kind of vague programming background can do that quite easily But if you want to teach the basics of 3d animation you need to have a bit of knowledge here Which means we do need more work put into training students and teachers to go and deliver it in schools Then we've had a couple of other successes I don't know if any of you are aware there's a new magazine produced by the Raspberry Pi foundation called hello world We featured in that in their first edition So we had tutorials on how to make a little snowman that was in the very first edition of the hello world magazine we worked on that and We're talking at the moment with the Raspberry Pi foundation and co-club Potentially about getting them not just to deliver Python and JavaScript and assembly code and all the sort of things They're doing with co-club Because it's about code but also to be doing some work in terms of 3d animation So trying to get Blender into the delivery of co-club and co-club in the UK They're looking I think at the moment about 500 Different clubs in secondary schools and there's there's more of these things happening around the world got coded dojos With we're trying to get in without the moment That's that's very early stages when negotiations to see if we can make that happen But obviously the more people who do this than the more likely are to come study it at university and to make informed choices about studying at university Sorry for interrupting you. Are you guys aware that currently Google the Raspberry Pi foundation and Facebook are Setting up platforms to teach Young students about technology. You have co.org. I think County Cannaby is also jumping into it Currently the Raspberry Pi foundation as well They acquired the coder dojo, which was an independent organization, but worldwide also in the Netherlands But they the Raspberry Pi foundation acquired them. So there is something going on there and there is a lot of attention and that's why The our P2D1 website with some of our tutorials They're so interested in them because we're moving more to virtual reality augmented reality And you've got these firms selling this stuff. So children get to use it They get to be consumers, but we're trying to make them create it Which of course if you're in education, that's what you're trying to do get people to create things not just to consume it And then very briefly the end. I've been here before talking about another organization that I that I've on which Is this 3d. Ami we we get groups of it was this year 11 to 18 year olds making Two-minute films so two-minute short films through the whole process with their own render farms and several hundred thousand million pounds worth of Hardware to to make this happen And we've been getting a bit more funding behind that as well. That's that's been growing in the UK But we we're struggling as I'm sure many of you are we just securing funding to make these things happen now We've got one more slide on this, but we looking at the time We want to give you a bit of time in this session talk about where you're coming from because we're talking very much at a Pre-university level here in terms of most of our work and there were many people in here From university level and we want to give you the opportunity to meet similar people Doing similar jobs and talk about what works and what doesn't work for you But we're just going to very quickly skip on to this learning platform, which Manik's kind of touched on already And I'll just do a quick introduction if you don't mind. So yeah, this is the the forum That's the Google this the Google sponsoring we received and basically Google said, okay You have a wonderful platform with a lot of teaching material. Please continue go on But you have to create a community as well. Yeah, you need to Show what kids are creating and The thing is that this aligns with a discussion that's currently also going on in the Netherlands Which is kids having a portfolio One of the the problems that schools came up. It said, okay kits to do they create a lot of things at schools, but If they do something like Blender when they leave the school, I can't give it to them Especially schools in the Netherlands. They just Maybe keep the documents for six months Maybe sometimes a year and then it's gone. So they were also asking for a platform where students can upload their work And which would stay there for years so that after years a student can keep on working on his profile, but that the work at least would be there and This aligns with Google funding we received for creating a forum where Students can start creating a portfolio and if any of you are familiar with the scratch website It's an online learning community around basic computer programming We're trying to create something very similar for 3d animation So we're going to get students around the world uploading work But more importantly seeing each other's work being able to download each other's work It's not just them looking at the finished movie or the finished image. They can download the model They can see how the model is made. They can look at the topology. They can see how the textures were put together them Looking at downloading remixing other people's work and that's really fundamental to putting this community together Also, we think we we are in the process of building this right now And let's talk about teacher resources We want to make it as easy as possible for after-school clubs or teachers to deliver To deliver sessions so they will be teaching resources on here so teachers can use this as part of their delivery of of a course in their school or after school Okay, sure Shall we yeah, so it's like that So we set this up only a couple of weeks ago Because we think it's important to get educators talking together. We've discussed a lot today about what we're doing and I say we have a very Very narrow focus in the sense that it's pre-university and many of you are in other areas of of education and We just want to really Get you just find out a bit more about what people do in the community So we've got ten minutes left and I said two minutes per person that seems a little bit long actually So we might even restrict you just to if you want to introduce yourself what you're doing and Take a minute to do that then we'll pass around and and try and just get to know each other a little bit better Then we're going to retire upstairs where we're going to have a further discussion if you want to continue any of the Discussion that we've had in here today. So if anyone wants to introduce themselves I'm going to give you one minute to do so to describe yourself where you're from How you're working and Yeah, I'm talking too long myself. I know Hi, I am Christoph. I am a teacher for hours after-school teacher for blender for after seven years I teach Kids at the age of ten till well, we are pressed off and I got very very great experience and Likely would share them with you Hi Hi, my name is Kiran Rose. I'm from London in England I run a thing called frog design thinking and tinkering foundation where we literally let the kids design They can muck about with wood. They can muck about with metal. They design. They do interactive design. They Basically, they come along. We get a group of them together They can literally create what they want and the mentors behind the back Literally just guide them along and if we need any more help we look for sources Which can actually come in and lecture and help My background personally, I've initially trained as a graphic designer I'm a masters in interactive digital media, and I'm also currently alongside frog doing a PhD in cognitive creativity Although it's a bit autodidactic because I'm trying to find a university that will actually do it. So Okay, my name is David Gary and from France friends and I'm partly a teacher but In university and high school and the like And I would like to say that in France we have not only school But we have only public libraries actually there are not only books in these libraries. So we call them media tech but People and especially kids have the opportunity to spend a few days in workshops during stop motion and the like and It's really interesting also to have such Such way to to to learn and have a online content to share with them Yeah, that's a good idea. Maybe maybe Okay, my name is Pete from Germany middle of Germany. I teach blender I have the pretty crazy idea of bringing blender into 3,000 schools and you just gave me the idea to make A Dozen or more one-minute videos of How blender 3d can tie into each class so one for physics one for math one for biology one for sports one for Thank you I'm Matthew Dupont de Dinsha. I'm a teacher. I've been teaching in a school of architecture on nine university in communication Section and I founded the fab lab to a maker space where I do some activities with children and To jump on what he said about the media tech We have a lot of contenders for children. A lot of people they do teaching with a minecraft for example They do teaching with the autodesk free. Okay. No, it's not falling the autodesk free softwares and and Yes, I think there is space for blender for that, but it's It would be nice to talk about how to we can get blender and the blender tutorials also in the the media tech for instance What would be necessary for that? That would be cool. Anyone else? Okay, Andre from MCM area. I'm teaching at two high schools here in MCM nowadays used to be scientists and I'm teaching physics not a blender But I just bought a 3d printer for my school and we're going to use it in some way or another So with blender to high schools one is in Amsterdam north Domsteader and the other one is Vincent Scholl here in the Harmerstraut. So so you're welcome to to visit Hi, my name is Alex Chamberlain from Dixie State University in southern Utah you can tell my my accent and my hat that I'm a yank and I've switched our I teach the 3d modeling and the 3d animation classes at our university and I've switched them from Maya to Blender in the last couple of years Really enjoyed it But I'm also interested in just kind of how other people are teaching it and just kind of learning from a group like this So I'm glad we're meeting here Yes, I'm Mattias from Sweden teach art and history animation at the school 16 to 18 years old gymnasium level Yes In Sweden, no, no, no at all with Blender other teach history Animation Visualization I'm his colleague. So we work together Hi to everybody. I'm John Luca Vita. I am teach at the university in Milan at the polytechnic university of architecture and two at the academia de bellarty de Brea is is different is ever kind of university but more Dedicated to art and not to architecture and then I teach to professionals and so architects to use Blender and in all these architect in All this cool. I try and I work is five six year. I teach Blender in different ways obviously it's different for an architect for an artist for a professional but in all this cool the problem is ever the same that my Wish is Beginners interface when you open Blender is like to enter a in a Boeing 747 And the people look it and close it so my people I really recommend take a look at what we've been putting together So yes, yes tutorials are between three and five minutes long And they really focus on creating things rather than a 20-minute video about how the interface works So we've got stuff focused on school children, but it also works with adults We find that adults find it a nice way of introducing themselves something which looks incredibly complex at first But it's actually quite easy. So Anybody else Youngest person in the room Do you want to just into well can we you introduce yourself and I'll pass Okay, and to buy us from Germany. I'm teaching Blender to bachelor science students in computer science and I also want to start a teach Blender to younger students pupils and I would like to know when Blender 101 is Planned to to get ready it would to be ready Okay, so I'm a cool. I'm from Finland and I Study it like on my own. I learned these I've used Blender for a couple of years and now and It's pretty cool Do you mind me? Do you mind me asking how old you are? I'm 14 fantastic Okay, so we're coming up to the end of this session You've got a feel for who everyone is but before we go and we say we're going to go upstairs as a meeting I'm upstairs. We're gonna continue this conversation Can I just have a quick show of hands who's working at university level at the moment with Blender? University who's in university teaching in university? So we've got quite a bunch of you you might want to have a look around just quick again You know who are these people you might want to go and introduce yourselves to them And who's working at pre-university? So anything beneath university? So there's there's a few of us Okay, well as I say we put this into the To the schedule a couple of weeks ago. We want to make this a thing that happens every year We want to keep having this meeting because we can learn from each other We can learn an awful lot from each other so we're going to continue the conversation But hopefully continue the conversation for the rest of this weekend and and through we've got a slack group We've got the mailing list we need we you need to keep in contact because Blender Needs to be in more universities because it's it's free and it's easy and it's great and as we all know Anyway, thank you for that. We're going to move upstairs now and hopefully we'll see