Best of FT 3D Redux

Oops. I posted this Best of Future-Talk 3D posting two weeks ago, expecting not to see any changes in the last weeks of December. I was wrong. The posting Small Miracles, shot up spectacularly to the 7^th spot. That’s an important statement in that it validates the importance of 3D viewing in the arena of vision health, which still does not receive the attention it deserves. So here is the re-posting, with several other position changes shown as well:

It’s been a thriving year for the Future-Talk 3D blog, which has grown to 3,400 web impressions per month. As the year comes to an end, it is fitting to reflect on the most popular topical posts of 2012.  The top nine posts are presented below, in order of most web impressions received this year:

 

On Youthful Shoulders

eS3D Content Grows

School Safety Update

3D Myth Busting

Teaching with Depth

Wanted Again: 3D Educators

Small Miracles

BVS3D Case Study

Why 3D Works

Actually, it’s quite thought provoking to speculate as to why these particular topics were “top of mind” in 2012 for the diverse international audience that regularly follows this blog. Please let us know your hypothesis or thinking by posting a short comment.

A 3D Word Cloud (2012 Edition)

Here’s a graphic word cloud of all the key words used in our Future-Talk 3D blog during the year 2012.  The more the word is found, the larger it appears in this word cloud.

(Click on the graphic to enlarge it, or HERE to explore the details.)

It’s quite interesting to visualize, in this way, the recurring themes and concepts that have emerged from Future-Talk 3D this last year. It’s like putting your fingers on the pulse of what’s happening in educational 3D—and taking a read.

Best of Future-Talk 3D 2012

It’s been a thriving year for the Future-Talk 3D blog, which has grown to 3,400 web impressions per month. As the year comes to an end, it is fitting to reflect on the most popular topical posts of 2012.  The top eight posts are presented below, in order of most web impressions received this year:

On Youthful Shoulders

eS3D Content Grows

School Safety Update

3D Myth Busting

Teaching with Depth

Wanted Again: 3D Educators

BVS3D Case Study

Why 3D Works

Actually, it’s quite thought provoking to speculate as to why these particular topics were “top of mind” in 2012 for the diverse international audience that regularly follows this blog. Please let us know your hypothesis or thinking by posting a short comment.

3D In Depth

Two new online resources in the arena of educational 3D are now up and running. Here is a quick look at each of them, along with links to access them:

Nancye Blair

InDepth Education: A New 3D Educational Blog

A new 3D blog for education has just arrived on the stage. This new blog is aimed at a unique audience: practicing teachers who are actually using stereoscopic 3D in their classrooms. The blog is authored by Nancye Blair, who is currently an educational technology doctoral student and a seasoned conference presenter.  Named Polk County’s Charter School Teacher of the Year (2008) and a PBS Teachers Innovation Award “Teacher’s Choice” winner (2010), Nancye is one of the nation’s longest-practicing 3D educators. She has made her mark on the speaker circuit, working with an innovative 3D document camera produced by Lumens. She knows her stuff. Plain and simple, her new blog is a much needed resource. While the Future-Talk 3D blog focuses on the larger universe of stereo 3D in education, this new blog is a virtual community designed for teachers—a place to share concrete teaching strategies, lesson plans, and creative ideas for the use of 3D in live classroom settings.  Nancye’s goal with this new blog is to create a thriving community of practice for teachers to hear from other 3D educators about what works, and what doesn’t.  Although the blog is starting slowly, we expect big things from it. You can subscribe to this blog at: InDepthEducation.com.

Display Central

Display Central is perhaps the most comprehensive resource on "all things 3D" on the planet. Although educational 3D occupies a smaller footprint on this fact-filled site, it is a great place for educators and innovators alike to go and learn about anything 3D—3D in the past, present, and future. 

Small Miracles

It’s been some time since I’ve offered a posting on the topic of 3D and vision health, so please allow me to take a brief side journey back to the world of optometry and the importance of 3D in vision health. It is important to revisit this theme because the negative mythology associated with 3D is still so stubbornly apparent.

In fact, just this last week I read a movie review, written by a well-known critic, who repeated two stubborn myths:

1. "How uncomfortable cardboard 3D glasses are." (Folks, we don’t use those any more); and 
2. "I get headaches when viewing 3D" (My dear friend, read the research.  Such symptoms  serve as an indicator of an underlying vision problem, one which can be successfully addressed by your optometrist or vision therapist)

In combatting these unfortunate misconceptions, we need every good story we can find. And here are two good stories, worth your time:

Can a movie change your life?

Awoken from a 2D world.

These stories give you a reason to teach with the 3D tools you’ve come to love  or sell the 3D resources you sell. These stories help dispel the stubborn myth that 3D is somehow harmful. One story, one miracle at a time—we will see the change.