iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

WHEN YOU THINK about 3-D printing, chances are you think of little plastic doodads created by desktop devices like those made by MakerBot. Computing and printer giant HP wants you to think about metal.

Today the company announced the Metal Jet printer, an industrial-scale 3-D printer that builds items not of plastic but of steel.

I was 13 years old when I fell in love with programming. My school had just become one of the first in the country to get a computer terminal. The machine was huge and slow, and it didn’t even have a screen—but I was hooked. My friends and I would spend hours creating new programs and plugging away in BASIC.

That introduction to computer science changed the course of my life. I recently visited a high school that hopes to do the same for young people in New York.