Toward Better VR Content

In a previous post (Is educational VRcontent ready for prime time) I tackled the notion of educational content categories for both 3D and virtual reality. I wrote: “…3D educational content came in a diversity of approaches and design--six flavors, if you will,” adding that “contemporary VR content for the education market today still fits clearly into these same lanes.” See my original thinking in the chart below.

Upon further reflection, I knew I was wrong—or at least missing something in my taxonomy.  I refined my thinking and developed this new, improved taxonomy, one specific to educational virtual reality content:

Come back next week for a careful drill down on this new taxonomy.

Panel Feted

The ISTE 3D Network’s annual panel presentation at the upcoming ISTE 2017 conference in San Antonio, Texas promises to be a jaw dropper.

At this [always] well-attended panel, Payod Panda will speak about content creation in VR and why we need more people (especially kids) to create for VR.  He will look at how VR creation can help students learn certain topics and help educators teach them. He will also highlight the Panoform tool for VR creation. Michael Fricano II from Hawaii will explore VR creation with tools like Thinglink VR and CoSpaces, with plenty of student examples to share with attendees. Joy Schwartz will explain how students not only learn to use CAD and 3d printing as tools but they also can learn to stretch their heart muscles, as she demonstrates how 3d printed prosthetics for children has changed the lives of her students, including how she modified American Girl dolls to have a matching 3d printed prosthetic.  Finally, Len Scrogan will close out the session by offering seven practical go-to resources for moving forward with VR learning experiences in your classroom.

The panel will run from 2:45-3:45 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27 in the HBGCC Hemisfair Ballroom 

New Tools

Here are two tools for your consideration:

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Bubbli                           WhooshVR

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Enjoy!

Constructing 3D (2)

Tools for Stereo 3D Video Production

I am often asked the question "What software can I have my students use to make video content in stereo 3D?" There are many options, but here is my short list: 

CyberDirector

http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/overview_en_US.html

Final Cut Pro

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

Adobe  Premiere Pro and Cineform Neo3D

http://3droundabout.com/showcase-adobe-stereoscopic-3d-production

Houdini offers a free apprentice/educator version of this tool used to make most Hollywood movies! http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_download&Itemid=208&task=apprentice

Feel free to post a comment highlighting other tools not listed.

On a side topic, if you want to get started now and don’t have 3D projectors and glasses, you can start with what I call a precursor 3D experience in stitched rendered 3D through Microsoft PhotoSynth

http://photosynth.net/

Constructing 3D (1)

Tools for Stereo 3D Authoring 

I am often asked the question "What tools can I have my students use to construct images and content in stereo 3D?" There are many options, but here is my short list. Feel free to post a comment highlighting other tools not listed.

Unity offers a free version for educators. Used in heavily in North Carolina schools unity3d.com

Blender is a free open-source tool for educators. Used in heavily in Iowa and VREP schools http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Reallusion offers iClone V, a low-cost design tool reallusion.com

Houdini offers a free apprentice/educator version of this tool used to make most Hollywood movies! http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_download&Itemid=208&task=apprentice

Maya (just google maya stereoscopic 3d for more resources; the word stereoscopic is important) http://usa.autodesk.com/maya/

Eon Reality offers Eon Creator, a commercial tool

http://www.eonexperience.com/eon-creator/eon-creator.aspx

Sculptris is a tool some of the schools in the VREP program are using to great effect. http://pixologic.com/sculptris/

Students in Charge

There are good things happening with educational 3D across the country, yet most of the great stories about 3D in classrooms somehow seem to fly under the radar. No one knows about them. That’s because educators rarely toot their own horn; it’s also because the education industry is highly isolated and successful programs are often geographically pigeonholed. Rarely do successes get the broad recognition they deserve.  Here is another 3D School Success Story

In a Fort Collins middle school late last spring, eighteen students gave 3D presentations, making the case to the school faculty that 3D should be used more in teaching throughout the school. Dennis Cafiero, the president of Presente3D—a 3D plug in for PowerPoint—attended the student presentations, and a day later, I joined him to sit down with the students in a roundtable discussion. The lead teachers—and magnificent teachers they were indeed—facilitated the robust discussion. During the roundtable, students asked a flurry of questions about 3D, tapping into both the industry insights of Cafiero and my own perspectives.

Preston Middle School, Fort Collins, CO

First, let’s take a brief look at the school. Preston Middle School is a neighborhood STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) school serving roughly nine hundred and twenty students from 6^th to 8^th grade.  Cutting edge technology implementation drives learning throughout the building.   Most classrooms have interactive SMART Boards.  Many hundreds of netbooks are available for student use.  A video conferencing system allows students to interact with experts around world.  Two years ago, Preston received a grant for a 3D passive system.  A group of staff members researched, interviewed 3D experts and built a 3D room. 

After students began developing, using and enjoying 3D PowerPoint presentations in class, they decided to propose expanding its use to the entire school. The entire experience was remarkable and rejuvenating. I left with even higher confidence in our future generations and the talented, hard-working teachers that form relationships with them. I wanted to share this remarkable experience with you. The funniest story was how one student turned his presentation into 4D--by throwing a live snake into the audience during his 3D presentation on snakes!

3D student presentations at Preston Middle School

Cafiero answering student questions at Preston

Kids Make the Coolest Things

It’s funny how the 3D educational world works: good things are in fact happening, but often no one knows about them. That’s because educators rarely toot their own horn; it’s also because the education industry is highly isolated and successful programs are often geographically pigeonholed. Rarely do successes get the broad recognition they deserve.  One such success story takes place in Iowa. It involves the Virtual Reality Educational Pathfinders program or VREP.  Check out their VREP website.

In previous columns, I've mentioned that we see seven types of 3D content at play in education settings:

It is the last category—the constructivist notion of student-created content—that is exampled in this article. 

How It Works

The VREP program, underway for six years, enables students to take control of their own learning by designing  3D landscapes, objects, games, or simulations. (Examples include models of cells, DNA, ships, and etc.)

The VREP initiative is flexible. The VREP experience can be embedded in its own class; in other cases, it is offered as an after school activity. Students will often extend their new 3D expertise to other classrooms, collaborating with students and teachers to create an educational project that can be used directly in social studies, science or world language classes.  Similarly, students are able to use these student-designed 3D projects in fulfillment of their own course requirements in the same core content areas. Students are provided with opportunities to share their work with engineers and design experts in the work force, many of whom offer constructive feedback to the students. 

It should be noted that students begin their work in rendered 3D using the Blender freeware product, but often present their results in stereoscopic 3D. Stay tuned for part two of this three part series coming next week...

Whither eS3D?

Predictions for Educational 3D in 2013

Most prognosticators deal with predictions earlier in the year, say, in January. Unfortunately, my editorial schedule did not permit such a luxury. Under the “better late than never” rule, please allow me to humbly offer my informed predictions for the educational use of 3D in 2013:

• The recession will continue to have a hampering impact upon the growth of 3D in K-12 education. (The way funding for education works is that schools lag the economy by a full year, so don’t expect much improvement until the year following any improvements in the economy.)
• International use of 3D in K-12 education will continue to outpace the spread of 3D in U.S. schools.
• The new SIG 3D formed by ISTE will double its membership and establish a growing foothold in educational technology.
• Some surprise “big players” will jump on the 3D bandwagon in education.
• Post-secondary education will see stronger 3D sales than K-12 schools as they continue to deploy 3D demonstration classrooms in some universities and community colleges.  (Post-secondary education, with the ability to charge tuition and fees, seems to experience nowhere near the same level of financial meltdown seen in the K-12 sector.)
• Half of the universities or post-secondary institutions deploying 3D demonstration sites will create their own content, employing students in that effort; the remaining schools will buy or commission any needed content.
• Medical education (medical schools, teaching hospitals, hospital education services) will see increased growth in 3D usage.
• New and pioneering educational content providers will continue to appear on the scene, strengthening the quality and quantity of stereo content for education.
• New innovations will emerge on the scene in 2013, strengthening the case for 3D (such as web delivery and viewing options beyond the active/passive debate).
• Brain research (neuroscience) will weigh in, helping to build the use case for 3D in education.
• 3D math content will increase significantly and science collections will continue to expand in topical coverage. There will not be enough 3D content to support most other subject areas, however.
• User-generated content will continue to expand and represent a reasonable niche market.
• 3D will become easier to use as some hardware barriers melt away.
• Software copy protection schemes on software will continue to frustrate end users and make 3D difficult to implement. (Grow up developers—you’re not the CIA!)
• The vision health issue will struggle to receive the attention it deserves. Still, slow and steady progress will be made
• The persistent struggle we face in inoculating against 3D mythologies (3D is bad for you, it makes everyone sick, it hurts children) won’t go away. We’ll still have to wrestle with those unfortunate media-generated sound bites for some time to come. But we will win the arguments. Science and medicine support us.

What is your prediction? Please comment below. Resist the urge to stay silent. Blow the lid off this blog. Please.

3D in the Cloud

NextGen 3D Educational Content Series [Part 4]
Another entry in our sweepstakes for the future of great educational 3D content is a stout and familiar player, Sweden’s Eon Reality. Eon Reality offers a crowdsourced vision of cloud- and social media-based 3D educational content development and distribution: Eon Creator and the Eon Experience. Both are well integrated and offer a distinct social-media look, with easy user search, access, or upstream contribution, as well as user-generated content ratings.

Eon Creator, explains Brendon Reilly, the business development manager for Eon’s U.S. operations, “a tool for educators or users to easily generate 3D content and store it in the cloud.” He continues: “It has the scalability to design something as small as the human blood cell to something as expansive as the Taj Majal.”

Eon Creator is tightly integrated with the Eon Experience platform, enabling users 

to download commercial or user-generated 3D content or publish their own content.

The Eon Experience is a platform that permits search, access, downloading, uploading, and rating of user- or industry-generated  stereo 3D content. Some content is free, some is for sale, and I imagine a strong barter economy will eventually arise. The content is organized into three categories: Avatars, 3D Components or 3D Scenes. Reilly notes that the Eon Experience is “cloud based, multiple-device friendly, and offers great possibilities for education.” 

Now this is the point where I am forced to chime in: “You betcha!” Eon Creator was designed for non-professional content producers (a.k.a., students and teachers). The advantages are obvious. The Eon Experience platform creates a friendly space where the 3D educator can become a consumer, producer, or both. More importantly, both tools were evidently created with the school educator or industry “human performance improvement” professional in mind.

After learning resources are attached to a 3D model in a walk-through gallery, 

the learner can access those learning support resources by simply clicking 

on one the icons layered in a pyramid above the 3D object.

For example, 3D objects can be placed within a 3D gallery or exhibit hall scene for casual or in-depth exploration.  A trainer can also insert or embed learning resources into the 3D objects he/she has designed. This enables the creation of richly layered, hypermedia-based learning experiences that can stand on their own. The trainer/instructional designer can associate many different types of “learning objects” with the 3D model or object, including short video segments; personalized text or audio annotation; a PowerPoint presentation; a wiki, blog, or discussion board; or a hyperlink to a website or simulation activity. Folks, this is designed for great teaching, learning, and instructional design!

Depth by PowerPoint

[NextGen 3D Content Series, Part 3]

Bringing the 3D Advantage to Presentations

I teach some very popular workshops on how to do teaching (or sales presentations) differently, based on how our minds work. Based on brain research, the techniques I employ cleverly draw the attention of the audience, while sustaining their focused attention on the learning at hand. Done well, these techniques can even go so far as to visually ‘delight’ the viewer. It’s all part of my personal campaign—my intentional effort—to utterly destroy the old notion of “death by PowerPoint,” the notion of tiresome, unimaginative, overly lengthy, and utterly boring PowerPoint presentations. Of course, the notion of “death by PowerPoint” is forever immortalized in such Dilbert cartoons as the PowerPoint Coma, the PowerPoint Chimp, and PowerPoint Poisoning. 

In the stereoscopic 3D world, many have tried to provide a way to convert traditional presentations into stereo 3D, hoping to capture the illusive golden goose ‘wow’ factor.  Our third entry in the field of  Next Generation Educational 3D content is Presente3D. This new startup aims to become nothing less than a game-changer for educators. What these folks are up to is so promising, I playfully call it Depth by PowerPoint, and I assure you it is a good thing, and for quite a number of very practical reasons. First, Presente3D enables 3D content creation through a truly easy-to-use and extremely flexible ribbon bar add-on to PowerPoint 2010. " It enables the educator, e-trainer, or student to turn their presentations into a 3D format, but more importantly, to turn any graphic or chart within a PowerPoint into a 3D object that can be manipulated in space and depth. Any object or text can be individually extruded and the z-depth adjusted, as well. Presente3D, with offices in New Jersey and a talented technical team in the Ukraine, offers the potential for some very creative and immersive presentations. Their easy and flexible process for designing 3D presentations also offers a stiff advantage: it’s easy enough to use that you can construct effective stereo 3D PowerPoint presentations the night before your presentation. Here an overview video and here is a video showing how their interface works. In addition, this tool is quite extensible. It runs on most portable devices, including Apple and Android operating systems, the iPad2, and all 3D TVs and projectors.

Yet, the significance of this effective new 3D tool lies with content creation. Perhaps 95% of educational 3D content currently available supports science instruction. Math content is well on its way toward a solid presence this year. But this tool opens up the floodgates of immediate amateur content creation for all the other subject areas, such as English, world languages, social studies, and the arts—to name a few. Think about it. There are over 500 million PowerPoint users worldwide. Currently, over 50 million PowerPoint presentations are made every day. Now, anyone can be able to create 3D content. It is simply content creation for the rest of us. 

A 3D Ladibug

Ground-breaking news in the educational 3D world. Lumens recently released their new 3D Ladibug document camera. This high-definition document camera comes 3D-ready for both 3D DLP projectors and 3D TVs. And don't worry, educators!  The 3D Ladibug easily can function as a 2D visualizer, as well! Lumens is a power player in the document camera industry, so this product release is not a trivial matter.

The context of this product release is not trivial within the education market either. A 3D document camera can be used by teachers to showcase immersive science experiments or model math skills through the visual display of manipulatives, tiny ‘blocks’ or shapes that teach place value, fractions, measurement, or geometry—with depth.  More importantly, the 3D document camera becomes another stout tool for content creation. Imagine student dioramas, stick or finger puppet shows, or model displays—again, with depth. And even primary children can ‘design’ the content. To learn more, take a look at this case study link and the following product data sheet link. You can also see live demonstrations on the exhibit hall floor at ISTE 2012 in San Diego in June. It’s a great time to be alive.

Leo Is Here

A new 3D tool hit the U.S. for the first time (at both CES and TCEA), Leonar3Do.  Building on the metaphor of the engineering, design work, and creativity of the famous inventor/artist/engineer Leonardo daVinci, this group (and their U.S. reseller) offers a “mixed reality” stereo 3D desktop VR kit.  Check out this video to see how this technology conceptually works.  This company produces “an interactive tool that not only displays, but also integrates into your own personal 3D space.”  It features the bird, a special 3D handheld controller than enables the user to reach, grab, work and play with objects.  Currently, they are offering educational, professional, home, and conference center editions of their product. This tool advances the possibilities for student content creation, especially at the high school, college, and university level. For educators, this tool would make a strong basis for an excellent grant proposal.

Think in 3D

The Panasonic HDC-SDT750 3D Camcorder

Some 3D educators are purchasing 3D video cameras these days, like the low-cost Panasonic model shown opposite, so that students can begin to make their own 3D content. This arena will be an increasingly important category of 3D content development in the future—student-created content. So, when asked by 3D educators to recommend a resource guide for teaching tips on how to film in 3D versus 2D, I can easily recommend a new book by 3D expert Clyde DeSouza. The book is called "Think in 3D.” It is quite easy to read, practical, and offers easy entry into this field. In particular, “Think in 3D” offers worthwhile educational and psychological insight about the effective use of the 3D medium.

Think in 3D

The kindle version can be located at: http://amzn.to/zKTb8c 

The paperback version can be found at: http://amzn.to/x3ryUq 

Wanted Again: 3D Educators

The Opportunity

Presente3D, an innovative startup company, is looking for insightful educator feedback on their product. Presente3D enables 3D content creation through a truly easy-to-use and extremely flexible ribbon bar add-on to PowerPoint 2010. Their tag line is "taking 2D PowerPoint into the Third Dimension." It enables the educator, e-trainer, or student to turn their presentations into a 3D format, but more importantly, to turn any graphic or chart within a PowerPoint into a 3D object that can be manipulated in space and depth.

If you are interested in exploring this tool, you own PowerPoint 2010, and can provide in-the-field practical feedback as an educator, visit Presente3D's website to sign up for their 3D PowerPoint Beta program. If you want to contact them directly, do so at this email address. 

Wanted: 3D Educators

The following opportunity is being offered by the stalwart 3D company, Eon Reality: 

Apply to the International 3D in Education Program.

EON Reality is hosting a competition in which 30 schools from around the world (5 in North America, 5 in South America, 5 in Europe, 5 in Asia-Pacific, 5 in the Middle East, and 5 in Africa) will be selected to participate in the International 3D in Education program. Tell them how your school will use interactive 3D content in Education: the 30 best applications will receive a one-year license for interactive 3D content creation software that enables teachers and professors to create their own 3D learning applications and to use interactive 3D in their classroom. Download the application form at http://tinyurl.com/EON-3D-Education-Competitionand send it back to education@eonreality.com before April 30.

3D Jedi Conclusion (3)

Concluding our series on North Carolina’s 3D Jedi, (see post 1 and post 2), it is fair to say that Epps has not made it this far without solid commitment from his community. Epps notes: “The BRAC Regional Task Force, which is a base realignment and closure group (an organization closing bases across the country, consolidating troops, and relocating them to new areas) led the initial effort by funding our previous program, placing 3D labs in eleven high schools.” And now, BRAC is ramping up their investment. “BRAC aims to further shape the educational landscape of the 21^st Century” by expanding and adding more content and equipment, totaling thirty-one systems in eleven counties.

As a result of Epps’ G.R.E.A.T. 3D Academy, some local business leaders have also changed their perspective about education: instead of thinking that schools should be producing a traditional workforce, they now believe that high schools are capable of producing a highly skilled workforce. Again, Ben Dibble reflects that his work in producing stereo 3D as a student “helped me become very independent and, at the same time, it taught me to work with a group. It taught me not to wait for opportunities to open up, but instead make my own.“ Given the current STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education challenges we face, Jeff Epps appears to be well along the road toward producing a highly marketable workforce, while investing in his state’s own and most promising resource—its potential-rich youth.

Epps' project is not without significant challenges, however. “We’re looking for more business leaders as partners,” he indicates. “We need assistance from the engineering community to help expose students to the engineering experience—we need internship opportunities for our student once they become comfortable using 3D design software.” He is not only seeking physically close internships, but also remote internships. “I need people that can video conference with our students, look at their content, and challenge our interns to improve their work.” He is also looking for laptops to put in the hands of students. “When those kids get laptops in their hands, they take them home; while they’re at home, they’re doing more. We find that they actually do extra work without complaining.”  Epps is also hoping to find more modern 3D content development software. (If your organization is interested in partnering with Epps, field testing products, or recruiting his growing army of students, please consider contacting Director Epps at jeffepps@richmond.k12.nc.us.)

It is becoming clear that not all 3D content development will emerge solely from creative production houses. Student-created content will soon become a disruptive element in the content development market. For that reason, I’ve always advised 3D content development companies to develop a simple authoring tool for student use. Then, I suggest they begin to strategically tap into this growing developer community well before it begins to tap into their revenues. 

Return of the 3D Jedi (2)

The strength of Epps’ 3D Academy described in last week’s post is based on the notion that relevance, context and authenticity in learning really do matter. Epps explains:

"We see this as a great opportunity for students to use a 3D skill set to give them a better [and more relevant] understanding of math and science concepts. And what better concepts are there to visualize than the very concepts that they’re weakest in? If they can design it, they’re going to have to understand it. It’s a win-win: the student has now mastered a specific weakness in math or science and the teacher now has a tool that she can use with other students."

Students designing  and testing stereoscopic 3D content in North Carolina

Here’s how Epps strategy works: imagine a middle school math student who still struggles with fractions. Working closely with her math teacher, Epps anticipates crafting a design-build project that fortifies the student’s own math skills, while at the same time provides the teacher with a 3D visualization tool that can help instruct other struggling students. In designing this project, according to Epps, our young middle schooler “will soon acquire a better-than-average understanding of fractions that will get her past this unfortunate hurdle in math skills.” (Social studies applications are also possible. During middle school “I made pyramids, burial chambers, and a simulation of the launch and orbit of the Sputnik satellite,” Ben Dibble recalls.)

Asking your students to design stereoscopic 3D learning objects can also leverage improved student performance in critically important science skills. Creating a visual model of the human cell can contribute directly to mastery of learning by students who struggle to understand abstract concepts that they ordinarily cannot see. Asking students to create stereoscopic 3D learning objects that require precise measurement, metric conversion, and tool calibration skills will go a long way toward cementing some of the most critical prerequisite skills in understanding science. 3D design projects also provide a powerful seedbed for improving other building blocks of science achievement, such as tentative explanation, putting raw data into graphical form, and, of course, technical writing.  

Return of the 3D Jedi

In a previous post, we introduced our blog readers to the 3D Jedi Knight, Jeff Epps. This post is a continuation of his story, more than a year later. 

Jeff Epps
North Carolina's 3D Educator

Jeff Epps, the Director of Information Technology for North Carolina’s Richmond County Schools, has recently formed the G.R.E.A.T. (Globally Ready Engineering and Technology) 3-D Academy. His solution is effectively simple: take on any students who have the interest and aptitude for learning 3-D; connect those students with both a relevant context for learning and supportive classroom teachers; and then leverage that interest to enable students to reach higher levels of performance in science and math.

 “You bring us any students that have the willingness to learn how to design 3D content, regardless of their academic challenges, and we can help get them to new levels of math and science, “ he states “—we can turn them into engineers and designers.” One student, Ben Dibble, serves as a clear instance of Epps remarkable vision. 

Ben Dibble
Richmond Early College High

Ben, currently a student at Richmond Early College High, describes his motivation in wanting to make 3D artifacts “to help teachers make students understand concepts better—and I found when I did make things for the teachers, I understood the concept better when I finished also.”

Happily, Epps’ 3D dream is an opportunity open to all children, not just the usual suspects. He observes:

“I felt there were a lot of students that were getting overlooked in terms of talent. There are students that may not be academically talented, but are very well rounded with technology. I thought about launching a program that’s inclusive and not exclusive of students. We are reaching out to females, children of color, and special needs students. One of our top graduates has been accepted to the Art Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has Asperger’s syndrome--and yet he was the best 3D modeler in our district.”

Epps believes that “anybody can learn higher levels of math and science if they just want to. That’s why this technology needs be accessible to all.”  

In our next post, we’ll take a closer look at exactly how Epps’ impressive project builds academic and technical skills through relevant, contextual, and authentic learning.