To influence the population through the use of information and knowledge is the main force of social transformation (UNESCO, 2005).
A few years ago, computers were conceived and developed as large objects which were complex to understand and difficult to assimilate by anyone in our society, relegating their use to a very select group of experts. Their use in learning and for personal purposes was not conceivable as citizen rights. However, computers today are part of our daily life, as an indispensable tool for the development of different everyday activities and capacities and as generators of new experiences. In our present day, we live an era / digital revolution which is a phenomenon very similar to that of computers in its early years, but with a marked difference in the speed and immediacy in which these skills are shared and assimilated by our society, allowing to reduce the gap between what can be conceived and what can be produced.
However, although we are surrounded by digital elements, their use and exploitation are uneven. The 2005 UNESCO World Report noted that, in addition to a tangible digital gap, there is something still more disturbing: the cognitive gap, which separates the most favored countries from developing countries. While in the former development and dissemination of science is promoted and supported, which implies: imagining, searching, modeling, simulating, testing, verifying and demonstrating, in the latter the uncritical reproduction of the abundant information available online is generalized, which implies copying, cutting and pasting. And this will only help to deepen the gaps, broadening the deep pre-existing inequalities.
For all of the above, the conclusion has been reached that our society is advancing at two speeds, a concept coming to reflect the difference between those who have the capacity to understand, anticipate and respond to the requirements of the new millennium, and those who have not developed such capacity.
In addition to a quantified absence of vocational and technical training in science and technology, there is a marked cognitive gap in our learning environments, it is important to note the generational transition we are living, marked by a visible change in the times; the so-called Digital Natives by Prensky (2001), users with technological affinity, who allow the implementation of new models of learning, working and playing with greater ease than the so-called Digital Immigrants, people who did not have access to technology and Internet in their early education processes.
Within this marked digital era, a revolution marked by "digital manufacturing" is being generated, which is reflected in the exponential development of shared knowledge and technological development, becoming more than a set of tools for advanced industry and, on the contrary, they are every day more accessible to ordinary people and they are being distributed all over the world. This creates great opportunities for restructuring the relationship between citizens, cities, countries and their public-private institutions.
Teaching and learning within digital manufacturing allows the conscious relationship between computer-assisted design (CAD) and its involvement in the production from the digital object to a physical object by means of machine computer-assisted numerical control (CNC). All of this in conjunction with material management, electronics, and programming.
Encouraging the creation of customized objects and promoting scientific, engineering and creative experimentation through rapid prototyping. Ideologically, it promotes collaborative work, shared information and invention. Innovation and entrepreneurship will happen as a consequence of the above.
Published 30th May 2019, La República Newspaper, Costa Rica 👈 (spanish version)