zSpace Laptop

Have you heard? The New zSpace AR/VR Laptop?

zSpace has outdone themselves with their new AR/VR-capable laptop (VR defined here as 3D), now in growing use in the Atlanta Public Schools. See the laptop’s specs here.

NETP, zSpace, & VR

In last week's post, we highlighted some of future trends predicted in the National Education Technology Plan (NETP). Most notably to our blog readers, the interactive three-dimensional imaging software trend spotlights a well-known company frequenting U.S. educational conferences: zSpace. Quoting from page 16 of the 2016 NETP:

Interactive three-dimensional imaging software, such as zSpace, is creating potentially transformational learning experiences. With three-dimensional glasses and a stylus, students are able to work with a wide range of images from the layers of the earth to the human heart. The zSpace program’s noble failure feature allows students constructing a motor or building a battery to make mistakes and retry, learning throughout the process. Although the content and curriculum are supplied, teachers can customize and tailor lesson plans to fit the needs of their classes. This type of versatile technology allows students to work with objects schools typically would not be able to afford, providing a richer, more engaging learning experience.

It's important to realize that some visualization technologies, like zSpace, can multi-task in their purpose: they can serve several educational agendas at the same time.Take for example the NETP’s four categories for future technologies that offer educational promise (remembering that 3D visualization is mentioned in only the third category):

Increased use of games and simulations. The zSpace curriculum itself is designed around a rich collection of STEM-based games and simulations. 

New ways to connect physical and virtual interaction.   The “near-holographic” zSpace hardware platform makes the content appear not on a screen, but in the students’ own personal space, manipulated by a physical stylus. And the cooperative (paired) learning approach promoted by the zSpace STEM Lab also brings a physical presence and process to the visualized lesson. 

Interactive three-dimensional imaging software. ‘Interactive’ being the key word here, this tool is not just about viewing or watching—it’s mainly about doing, constructing, testing, evaluating, and rebuilding. 

Augmented reality. Interestingly, the zSpace zView enhancement lets an entire class—not just the students wearing passive glasses—see each simulation in starkly vivid augmented reality.

Although, in the 2016 NETP, the 3D visualization meme was positioned solely in the third category above, clearly some technologies work across lanes.  I am suggesting that some successful 3D visualization products, like zSpace, operate in all four of these domains.

NETP Meets 3D

The 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP), Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education, by the U.S. Office of Educational Technology is already in motion. Past national education technology plans have been well received by U.S. K12 schools; their recommendations have slowly been adopted country wide, due to incentives and organic pressure from federal, state, local, and even foundation funding. Given the past impact of previous NETPs, this the 2016 NETP is due serious consideration.

Now—on to some interesting specifics. One of the chapters in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP) is necessarily more forward looking than the other sections, spotlighting some upcoming areas in cyberlearning. “The Future of Learning Technologies” section of the 2016 NETP is an attempt to move the reader beyond an “understanding of the current state of educational technologies; it also [identifies] the research being done on early-stage educational technology and how this research might be applied more widely in the future to learning.” In fact, the NETP highlights four promising avenues for future learning technologies, based chiefly on the investigative work of the National Science Foundation in “researching opportunities offered by integrating emerging technologies with advances in the learning sciences.” These auspicious avenues include:

• Increased use of games and simulations
• New ways to connect physical and virtual interaction with learning technologies
• Interactive three-dimensional imaging software
• Augmented reality (AR) 

No surprise here, in our next post we will highlight the the third bullet above, one that predicts the growth of interactive 3D in education. More to come next week...

FETC Preview

The Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) is shaping up to be a must-attend event in Orlando, January 24-27. One of the largest and most innovative ed-tech conferences in the country, FETC has a long history of exceeding expectations. Here is a preview of what to expect in the arena of VR and 3D. I hope to see you there!

Expo

The exhibit hall this year will bring a number of players in both the 3D and VR fields to our attention. Samsung, Google, Nearpod, and Best Buy will likely be showing their popular VR solutions. Sensavis will return with their excellent 3D visualization content. A stalwart in the 3D and VR industry, Eon Reality will exhibit for the first time at FETC. And the venerable zSpace will be back in the house with their unique desktop virtual reality. (zSpace has won best of show at two consecutive ISTE conferences.)

Workshops

Four workshops will be offered with a VR meme: two by Samsung, one focused on Google Expeditions, a do-it-yourself virtual reality content creation workshop by Eon Reality, and my own in-depth VR workshop, described below.

Sessions

Concurrent sessions will offer a few interesting opportunities to learn about VR in education. One district will be presenting about their Nearpod immersive project, while innovators from North Carolina State University will do a deep dive into desktop virtual reality, focusing on zSpace technology. I will also be doing a session on Virtual Reality and a surprisingly positive connection to early learning/reading, entitled “See to Achieve: Virtual Reality, 3D, Vision, and Learning.”

My Sessions

Of course, I have to do a shameless plug for my own workshop. The FETC 3D VR Bootcamp (EDW070) is a distinctive experience, a very non-traditional workshop, to say the least. This workshop uses both a flipped learning model and a fishbowl approach to make for the ultimate in personalization. It will be offered from 5-7:30 pm on Thursday, January 26.  This highly popular

workshop will help you dig deeper, and go beyond the hype. We will explore 3D VR content, low cost options for VR headgear; teaching strategies; instructional weaknesses in the technology; how to deal with VR vision discomfort; managing VR in the classroom; disinfecting headgear; zSpace and their award-winning desktop VR; VR visualization spaces; and, of course, next-up developments to you can expect to see. Please join us!

3D @ ISTE: EXPO

Some pundits feel that 3D in education has peaked. But it didn’t seem that way at all at ISTE 2016, where 3D technologies evidenced their strongest and most mature presence in the history of that event. The ISTE 2016 educational conference, with over 16,000 in attendance hailing from 76 countries, is the largest ed-tech conference held in the U.S. 3D was well represented in both the exhibit hall. Here are some of the players we saw in action in the expo hall:

AVRover. 3D stalwart AVRover, offering their mobile 3D classroom platform, maintained heavy crowds and high interest every time I passed by. They are now partnering with DTI (see below entry) in offering an autostereoscopic lab platform that can provide a 3D visualization ‘breakout’ experience, taking AVRover content into the computer lab or classroom centers. Doug Smith, CEO of AVRover explained:  "AVRover and DTI are working together on a technology where educators will teach one-on-many using a mobile AVRover with a screen. In this scenario, the teacher manipulates stereo 3D objects for the students; but then the students can go to multiple workstations in the classroom or in a lab and can work on that same content, with autostereo, glasses free monitors.”

Dimension Technologies. Co-located in the AVRover booth, Dimension Technologies, Inc featured their autostereo display platform. Having worked with NASA for over twenty-five years, DTI just received a new SBIR Phase II E grant from both NASA and Boeing to build a glasses-free 3D display for aerospace. Tom Curtin, Director of Business Development, pointed out: “Education is a natural fit for this technology.” The cost to the customers is expected to be a 60% premium over traditional displays. 

Eureka. They offered a strong presence showing mesmerizing mono and stereo 3D content to passersby. What’s new? It seems like DesignMate is rebranding itself in the U.S. as the more internationally known Eureka.in.

Sensavis. Sensavis, a 3D visualization content company, ran a vibrant booth featuring some of their newest 3D simulations. It seems like they are showing a new simulation at each successive show, a remarkable pace for new content development.

Sterling Pixels. Sterling Pixels, a veteran 3D content company, broke away from the hidden corners of past booth locations to find themselves in a prime spot with much better visibility for this impressive company. 

Unity3D. Unity3D came to the exhibit floor with a fresh, vigorous vision to reach the education market. 

Visible Body. Although traditional 3D anatomy provider Cyber-Anatomy was noticeably absent from ISTE 2016, VisibleBody offered their rich visual anatomy lessons for STEM educators.

zSpace. Again winning Best of Show at ISTE 2016 from Technology & Learning magazine, zSpace continued in stride impressing large numbers of booth visitors. For a deeper dive, take a look at my most recent article with District Administration magazine entitled “Broadening the Impact of Technology.”

zSpace: Broadening the Impact of Technology

Last week, we hinted that the zSpace STEM Lab, a unique visualization and virtual reality technology, demonstrates how a single technology can exemplify many of the possibilities found in the Horizon Report. (zSpace is a Silicon Valley company offering what I call “a near-holographic hardware platform”). Using the same headings found in the international Horizon report, here is how zSpace does it:

Authentic Learning. Educators frequently lament that so many learning experiences are purely academic, removed from any reasonable applicability to life. So when learning takes on the appearance of a real workplace challenge, we call it an ‘authentic’ learning experience. “6^th grade is using zSpace Franklin’s Lab,” says Joyce Barry, Chairperson of Science, Research and Technology at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District, “to introduce our students to basic operation and design of electrical boards. Then they go back into the tech shops and design their own electricity boards, returning again to their design stations to create their electricity boards.” She adds: “This is something that we would never been able to afford or be able to let them do for safety reasons.”

Collaborative learning approaches. The growing phenomenon of collaborative learning in classrooms is now conspicuous. In most zSpace STEM Labs, I have noticed that students are paired together to work on and solve unique and authentic learning challenges.

STEAM learning. STEAM refers to science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. It speaks to the workforce needs of modern society. As a result, STEAM initiatives are really gaining traction in U.S. and international schools. Now, imagine a tool that combines each of the elements of STEAM in one learning experience. To me, that’s another way to go outside the single lane trap.

Shifting students from consumers to creators. More and more, teachers are shifting their thinking away from students as consumers of technology. Instead, educators value students being able to produce with technology. In recent exhibit hall walkthroughs at educational conferences, I notice that almost every product is focused on pouring information into the minds of empty-vessel students, using the technology du jour. It truly strikes me as anachronistic. Actually, it’s the pathway to extinction, because more and more educators are making the shift to “students as creators” with technology. The design, construction, hypothesis-testing, and hand-on emphasis of the zSpace STEM Lab appears to support this transition well.

Deeper Learning and MakerSpaces. The shift to deeper learning signals that it’s time to move beyond the typical low-lying fruit of recall, memorization, and motivation. Motivation is a nice contributing outcome, but we need deeper and more results-oriented learning.  Students need to design, to build, to explore, to do, to enact, and to perform their learning. This is something that’s easily done with great visualization and design tools like zSpace, which is a ‘maker’ technology by design.

Rethinking the Roles of Teachers. According to the Horizon Report, “teachers simply cannot take on the same roles they have traditionally held as lecturers and information dispensers.” The Report adds: “This …underscores the need for teachers to rethink their pedagogies and curriculum in ways that enable students to customize their own paths.” See this video for an example of a successful Los Altos School District pilot project that is changing the role of the teacher.

3D Printing. This video for an example of zSpace embedded within a 3D printing and design ecosystem.

Complex Thinking. According to the Horizon Report, the term “complex thinking” refers to the ability to understand complexity, a skill that is needed to comprehend how systems work ...” The Report tells us: “Another key skill of complex thinking is the ability for students to make complex ideas understandable, using data visualization, media, and other communications techniques.” Visual technologies like zSpace help make this possible for educators.

I’d like to end this series with some key questions. What technologies are you using? Do you find your current efforts consistent with the vision of the future evidenced by the K12 Horizon report? Can the technologies you pursue have a broader impact than you originally imagined? Do you have to stay in one lane with your technology? Are single-lane technologies worth the investment? What’s in your pocket?

Download the complete article

zSpace: Going Outside the Lanes

The New Media Consortium (NMC), together with the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), recently released their annual K12 Horizon Report, an international report which is useful for educators contemplating how much they have accomplished or where to go next with their technology initiatives. According to the NMC, “The NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in school communities across the globe.” And this report has been around a long time. “With more than 13 years of research and publications, it can be regarded as the world’s longest running exploration of emerging technology trends and uptake in education.” The full report can be accessed here.

Although the K12 Horizon report largely speaks for itself, in this post I will offer a bit of translation, along with a new twist for thinking about this venerable report. With full disclosure, I served as one of the 50+ panelists who developed this report over many months. Serving as an expert panelist for the Horizon K12 report, I can add beneficial nuance to the findings, from an inside perspective.

Important developments in technology for K12 schools world-wide

The first pages of the Horizon Report observe some of the most important developments making an auspicious appearance in K12 schools, with promising implications for the near, short and far term. (I highlighted some of these developments in bold typeface so I can address them later. See panel 1.)

Observable trends in technology for K12 schools world-wide

Another section of the Horizon Report focuses on keenly observable trends in K12 schools, again with promising implications for the near, short and far term ‘landing’ of those trends. (Again, some are highlighted in bold typeface for later discussion. See panel 2.)

Technology Challenges Facing Schools

In its final pages, the 2015 Horizon report devotes considerable ink to identifying some of the stubborn obstacles currently facing K12 technology efforts. These obstacles are divided into three categories: solvable (those we understand and know how to solve); difficult (those we understand, but any solution remains complex); and wicked (those that are exceedingly difficult to define, let alone solve. See panel 3.)

When reviewing the K12 Horizon Report, it is always heartening to see a trend or development come across the radar that validates one of your existing technology initiatives. Such is the case with 3D and virtual reality. It is also insightful to see a yet untraveled pathway beckoning us, crying out for our future technology investment. But do you ever feel like the technology journey is so daunting? That the sheer number of technology choices or lanes is overwhelming? I certainly feel that way at times! Still, there is hope. You see, sometimes a single technology can have a broader impact, cover a richer swathe of learning experiences, than we think. In this way, an innovative technology can pack a bigger instructional punch than we originally imagine.

Here’s just one example. One technology drawing consistent crowds at educational conferences for the last three years is the zSpace STEM Lab.  zSpace is a Silicon Valley company offering what I call “a near-holographic hardware platform,” one which really turns heads. Last year, the zSpace STEM Lab earned best of show award at the huge ISTE ed-tech conference in Philadelphia. (It will certainly again be featured at the ISTE 2016 conference here in Denver.) The zSpace STEM Lab is a unique visualization technology, but more importantly, it demonstrates how a single technology can exemplify many of the possibilities found in the Horizon Report. In next week’s post we’ll take a closer look at how a 3D product like the zSpace STEM Lab can cover a lot of bases. Stay tuned…

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3D Tidbits

What's trending?

News from Outer zSpace. Talk about smart moves. zSpace has been wisely cozying up with symbiotic partners and pursuing powerful use cases. Their recent partnership with the Living Heart Project, a collaboration to develop and validate personalized digital human heart models and establish a unified foundation for cardiovascular medicine is sure to turn the heads of both the medical community and medical educators.

3D Model Creation Using Smartphones.  Carnegie Mellon University researchers in Pittsburgh have successfully explored the use of ordinary smartphones as scanning devices for the creation of 3D models. Lots of implications here for education. See this link for more information.

Smartur3D Raises the Ante

To date we have counted 33 major software producers of stereo 3D educational content, worldwide. Now there are 34. A new arrival to the 3D software scene, Smartur3D is raising the ante with their unique value proposition.

Smartur3D produces interactive 3D models in K-12 STEM subjects. Smartur3D offers 150 models in biology,with other subjects (chemistry, physics, and geography) coming. These interactive 3D models can be used in flexible formats: in high-definition rendered 3D, stereo 3D, or even as an augmented reality overlay. Looking at the navigation menu, I immediately recognized that this content was built on the Unity game engine, offering some familiar commands and features (e.g., explode, disassemble, ‘glassy’ transparent mode, hiding elements, and reset). But that’s where the Smartur3D advantage (educational value proposition) comes into play. More advanced capabilities are offered, richer than what we have seen with the typical ‘exploratory’ nature of most 3D interactives. For example, students can label elements as opposed to the computer doing it; elements can be highlighted; a drawing tool enables annotation of elements; and a customization toolbar allows for personalized navigational choices.

There are other very powerful differentiators, as well, features that set Smartur3D apart from the crowd. Some of these features include on-the-fly image capture and recording of interactive events for lecture creation or reshowing in a later class. (The teacher can build an animation, annotate it, record what she is doing and saying, title it—and then save it for later replay.)

Smartur3D also permits overlaying augmented reality images on live video. (Only one other company has merged the stereo 3D and the augmented reality worlds effectively —zSpace.)  Smartur3D lets the educator take a 3D object from a 3D model and place it as an augmented reality overlay. It’s quite attention getting. (Think of it as embedding an augmented reality object over a live video scene of your own classroom of students, while they are watching.)

Another advantage offered by Smartur3D is simplicity and flexibility in installation. These are not small matters, as over-complexity and technical constraints become deal breakers for many schools. Smartur3D can be installed via a CD or network, put on high-end or low-end laptops or computers, and even displayed on projectors, 3D displays, or interactive white boards.

Since cost makes or breaks technology use for schools, Smartur 3D is also innovating in licensing. “We wanted a price point that even [emerging markets] could afford,” explained Neeraj Jewalkar  of Smartur3D. The price of the entire Smartur3D corpus for an entire school (not just one teacher), regardless of the size of school is $99 per year, per school.  “The whole idea is to create something that is affordable,” adds Jewalkar. “And despite the fact that it is already affordable, we are going to give away the first year of Smartur3D for free for a whole year for anyone who signs up.”

zCon East

Here’s a free ‘happening’ event I’ll be participating in, which is scheduled for late October: zCon East.

zCon is the zSpace Developers’ Conference, a meeting place to explore immersive, lifelike and interactive technologies with the goal to accelerate the pace of innovation in manufacturing, biotechnology, architecture, government, medical, entertainment, gaming, education, and research.

zCon East brings together those at the forefront of building 3D applications on the zSpace platform. (zSpace provides a highly-­‐realistic visualization experience, enabling users to directly interact with virtual-­‐ holographic simulations as if they were real physical objects. For a virtual demonstration of zSpace, visit www.zspace.com.)

zCon East includes sessions in technical/user experience, research/academia, and business-oriented topics, conducted by 3D industry experts.  The event is scheduled for Monday, October 21, 2013 at the Microsoft NERD Center in Boston, MA -­‐ free registration is available. You can Register Here.

This event might be a fit for you if you are a (an):

• Educator dealing with complex problems that can’t always be visualized, described and solved in two dimensions.
• Student who aims to create applications of the future
• Professional interested in emerging tools that allow new human-computer interface models.
• Software company executive engaged in efforts to accelerate your company’s innovation and growth.
• Software engineer who creates state-of-the-art and next-generation 3D applications
• Investor or policy-maker who needs to understand where the future of 3D technology is headed.
• Researcher who wants to be on the forefront of a major shift in human-computer interaction.

I'll be there. If you get there, please look me up.  Let’s do coffee and conversation!