In all of my experiences in working with teachers in 3D classrooms—and in all of our collaborative efforts to pursue deep “sense making” about how to best teach with 3D—one thing has become unmistakably clear:
Teachers and students want more negative parallax.
They want images to come out of the screen, into the “audience space,” where students find themselves literally compelled to learn—to focus, to reach out, and to understand.
Understandably, there are many reasons why negative parallax is not that common in available K-16 content. But our scientists, programmers, and software designers must find a way to make this happen. It is certainly striking to view objects in a depth of field, to gaze upon these objects as they frolic in their own world; but it is altogether extraordinary and an entirely transformative experience to have those same learning objects gingerly penetrate and enter, ever so slightly, into our world—the classroom.