You are third...

Very hot off the press, Tinkercad is closing down.  Now you may never have heard of Tinkercad but it is (or soon to be 'was') a browser based cad program.  You design and develop your idea in 3D without needing a powerful computer because the grunt work is done online.  I knew of it but didn't use it but countless millions do, including many schools.

Schools only have one shot, due to limited curriculum time, to teach specific skills.  Though some graphic packages make it easier to understand the basics and then move onto a bigger better version, Ms Paint to a more powerful editing Program for example, 3D is not really one of them.  3D graphic program's tend to embed a workflow, almost a philosophy, that influences your thinking because each step is often built upon previous steps in many many layers of work.   This is seen most clearly in packages that allow you to go back and edit sizes in a script later on.  Fine detail work can happen later in the design process.  Other packages need you to define these sizes at the start or risk having to redraw from scratch.

Tinkercad is an example of what appears to be a bargain in education.  A free program ( for limited but still school friendly use) that allows you to save and store models, but when the owners of the program pull the plug, your lesson plans, guides, worksheets and videos are compost.  With traditional program's installed on your computer you cam use them for years after every one else has moved onto the next great version, witness the wide use of Office 2007 in many homes, with online editing and creation packages, if they pull the plug, your work dies.

So clearly there is.a lesson to be learned here.  I would suggest it could be 'don't put all your eggs in one basket' but sadly in education we often only have one basket that we can introduce students to in the limited time and attention span we have.  Perhaps the best lesson is this.  Use these online tools.  dip in and show them, but think carefully about building hours of your time into projects built around something built on the shifting sand of the web.

So why is this article titled 'You are Third'?  Because with web based free ( or even paid for program's like some levels of Tinkercad are /were) , Once something gets successful enough, somebody outside will choose to buy/invest.  Then the owner starts looking to make them happy, not you.  The Tinkercad developers have hinted at a new online system they will be launching.  Presumably now they have a serious investor on board, Tinkercad had to go as it could tread on the toes of the new business model.

So where should you look for the next  free 3D modelling system?  I think Autocads 123D is a strong contender, and there is always Sketchup, but all these firms look towards their investor and their own ambitions first and at any point in the future, like today, we may wake up and find the whole structure of our lesson plans, guides and storage ripped away.  123D and Sketchup don't require a network connection to work once installed, but it would be easy to add this at a future date if a investor put forward a compelling business model, them you and I and all the users, despite the marketing and PR proclamations, would be third...