Most people have heard of Cafe Press, a website for selling custom t-shirts and other garb. After reading A Whole New Mind this last summer I have been thinking quite a bit about education through design. I wonder if anyone is using Cafe Press as part of project based learning, where students design t-shirts and/or other items and sell them. This would create a tie into the so-called real world that would get kids interested in learning. How cool would it be if they designed and sold real merchandise? I think we too often demonize anything to do with money in schools. Odd being that we are training them to operate in a capitalist society.
Anyways, this idea was clicked up a notch when I saw the website Ponoko in this months Wired. Ponoko gives the everyone access to professional designers. You come up with the idea for an object, submit it to their website, and they turn your idea into a real product you can sell. This goes well beyond the t-shirt building you can do on Cafe Press. Imagine students coming up with a brand new product that has never been made. So many opportunities to learn something. Now I just need to come up with an idea myself.
