Last summer, at the ISTE 2010 conference in Denver, I was sitting in the sparsely-attended session of a well-known featured speaker. In his talk, he was criticizing many of the aspects of educational technology that are more marketing than substance. Much to my surprise, his topic switched briefly to 3D in schools, and he showed the following slides on the large screen behind him:
There you have it! 3D zombies in the making. All joking aside, this respected technologist was actually sincere with his concern. Those who have known me over my lengthy career in education know that I think in much the same way. Is 3D in schools fad or substance? Do we only see marketing here, or do we see actual educational value?
In order to directly address those questions, I am starting my first series on our Future-Talk 3D blog. Over the next 6-8 posts, I will carefully review past research in this field, examine the international case studies now under way, highlight the preliminary results from our own case study, interview notable researchers, and provide insight into the results we are seeing. In late June, we hope to discuss the findings from our current University-conducted study of 3D in the classroom. If you know me well, I wouldn't be involved in 3D at all if I didn't recognize promising educational value. Come along for the series journey...
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