Panning for Gold (Part 3)

As my prospecting efforts come to an end for the summer, two more glittering specks of 3D gold (and one speck of silver) are visible in my virtual gold pan:

3D Printing

3D printing companies started to make a splash at various conferences this past summer. 3D printing is just another way for students working with rendered or stereo 3D design to bring their creations into the physical world. These systems are expensive, but their increased presence at conferences speaks to an interesting growth phenomenon.

The Korean Factor

A most refreshing customer experience during my gold panning efforts this summer occurred at InfoComm at the Korean Pavilion. In a 3D-dedicated area, they featured some of the finest 3D educational content (cultural and historical documentaries) I have ever seen. They were good. Very good. Visually compelling, not 3D dribble. I am not sure they know how good this content really is. I want to locate some of this content. Remember, 3D as a medium can only be explained, sold, or advanced well if we have great content in hand. I know we have many readers from Korea who frequent this blog. Can you help us identify this content? Can our Korean readers help reveal this content to the world?

DisplayNote

Okay, this is not 3D. I know that. That’s why I said there was a speck of silver in my gold pan. (Yes, it is quite possible to pan for silver.) This software is so promising, that I must tell educators about it. DisplayNote is an Irish startup with a product designed to share, annotate, and communicate student displays across platforms and across devices. I can share my laptop screen to each device, share a device’s screen to my classroom projector so all students can see, see what students are working on when using their own devices, annotate non-destructively on top of my screen or theirs, and so on.

At various conferences, I saw large-district CIOs, major thought and opinion leaders, and journalists quietly interviewing the DisplayNote staff in one-off discussions. I haven’t seen so many power players quietly drawn to one booth in a very, very long time. Here is a video explanation of their product. The flexibility and potential of this product in the classroom—given its ability to support multiple platforms, multiple devices (think iPads and tablets), and even enhance the role of the traditional classroom projector and preferred pedagogical styles of teachers at the primary, secondary or higher education level—is noteworthy. A fleck of silver.