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

Model 3D Classrooms

Here’s some news of note for teachers, professors, manufacturers, developers, integrators and thought leaders in the 3D in education space. This year, 3DComm at InfoComm (for the first time ever) will focus entirely on the role of 3D in education. You can read about this unique program and focus here: 3D Education . 

The event is scheduled for June 12^th in Orlando and features a robust new idea: a 'live' model 3D education classroom and prototype 3D training room. I very much like that sort of thinking. And the cost for attendees is a mere $99, which makes it affordable for those of us who are working K-20 educators. (Sponsors pay a higher fee to participate.) It sounds like a good opportunity!

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. 

ISTE 3D Preview

The ISTE 2012 educational conference, scheduled for San Diego in June, is offering four powerful educator presentations in the area of stereo 3D. Make plans to be there and learn about the latest in stereo 3D DLP technologies for the classroom. Click on any link to learn more.

When 3D Comes to Your School Saturday, 6/23/2012, 12:30pm–3:30pm Presenter: Len Scrogan, University of Colorado-Denver This is a comprehensive three-hour workshop on everything you need to know about creating a stereo 3D classroom or pilot project in your school or district.

3D in Education
Tuesday, 6/26/2012, 5:00pm–6:15pm
Nancye Blair, McKeel Elementary Academy with Len Scrogan

This is a birds-of-a-feather gathering for teachers or leaders interested in learning or talking about teaching with stereoscopic 3D. It is an open-ended discussion focusing on emerging resources and best practices for using 3D technologies to increase student engagement and learning gains.

Exploring 3D Technology in the Classroom: Strategies and Lessons Learned
Tuesday, 6/26/2012, 1:00pm–3:00pm
Carole Hruskocy, Regis University with Sandra Foster

How does 3D technology in a science classroom affect learning and teaching? Explore this emerging technology and find out the results from a third-year extension of the BVS3D research study, presented by University researchers in a two-hour stay-as-long-as-you-want poster session.

Teaching in 3D: Why It Works, Why It Matters
Tuesday, 6/26/2012, 10:00am–12:00pm
Presenter: Len Scrogan, University of Colorado-Denver

Discover how stereo 3D visualization technology is being used effectively in K-12 classrooms, how it affects student thinking and performance, and why it matters. Presented in a two-hour stay-as-long-as-you-want poster session. 

3D@Conferences

After attending FETC in Orlando, TCEA in Austin, and COSN in Washington, D.C., I came away with a fresh wind of perspective as the 2012 ed-tech conference season began in earnest.

Learnings from FETC

Stereo 3D was not well represented.  It was visibly on display only in two booths.  In addition, the displays were not that effective. Self-running demo loops simply won’t excite educators.  There are better ways to showcase stereo 3D capabilities, folks.

Stereo 3D is not well understood by conference leadership.  Although chosen as a presenter, none of my stereo 3D offerings were selected.  That decision perplexed me, so I wrote to the conference leadership asking why they did not select one of my 3D presentations.  “We already had several 3D presentations scheduled,” they claimed, and “didn’t see the need for any more.”   The answer was mystifying, but I accepted it at face value.  Who could possibly be presenting?  Fast forward.  The conference arrived.  Once I landed in Orlando, I took thirty minutes and reviewed every session offered during the conference, scouting for the previously mentioned stereo 3D sessions.  There were none.  But there were indeed three sessions being offered on “3D virtual worlds” (rendered-3D immersive worlds, like Second Life) and rendered-3D design tools, or rendered-3D animation.  But nothing on the visualization and learning advantages of using stereoscopic 3D.  As you can see, the conference leadership did not understand what stereo 3D is.  Why? It is not fully a part of their generation or their personal culture.  It is not yet on their radar.  It should be, but it is not.  But don’t ever think it is an unreachable goal.  We just need the right messaging.

Learnings from TCEA

Texas “gets” 3D.  Numerous sessions touched on 3D at TCEA, including a half-day workshop. The presentations were well received and packed with people.  New 3D math and science content was demonstrated that convinced even the stoutest doubters.  3D content was visible in a number of projection manufacturing and reseller exhibits. DLP 3D Lamp-Free Projectors were all the buzz, with four projector companies featuring DLP lamp-free projectors.  (To the educator, lamp-free means not paying for bulbs every year—at $350 a whack.  These projectors cost a little bit more, but pay for themselves in a year and a half. In some cases, the solution was expected to last for 20,000+ hours, or 10+ years in school terms.)  I saw models from Vivitek, BenQ, Casio, and Optoma.  Again, Texas ‘gets’ 3D.

Learnings from COSN

3D is the new kid on the block. A conference for technology leaders, 3D was clearly a new experience for most. Amidst the clamor and noise of cloud-based applications and 1:1 initiatives, folks who saw examples of great 3D educational content were quite impressed. Some of the discussions I had with interested educational leaders were promising.  Educational technology leaders simply need to see great examples of 3D (not movies), in order to begin their journey towards understanding.  

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. 

The Eyes Have It

On June 6^th and 7^th, the Vision Performance Institute is offering a seminal 3D educational experience that will be of interest to 3D educators, software developers, hardware manufacturers, and literati alike: their 6^th Annual Research Conference. 


This conference will feature topics such as

• vision ergonomics
• defining 3D content quality
• vision care
• S3D in the classroom
• S3D in public health
• and much more

At the conference, I will be moderating a panel, but will also offer an informative presentation on what is different about educational 3D content (eS3D), exactly how we use it in the classroom, what the research is suggesting to us, and key research questions your organization should examine in future case studies.

I strongly encourage the audience of this blog (and especially our strong international audience) to find a way to attend this conference. It will lend a competitive advantage to all of your hard work and efforts in this field. Below is the flyer. I hope to see you there.

Open publication - Free publishing - More 3d

On the Road Again

I’m doing quite a bit of presenting on 3D in education over the next six months. Here is a current list of my schedule and topics, in case you are interested in attending. If you are in the vicinity, it’s also always a good excuse for an opportunity to meet, get some coffee, and have some conversation.

Conference	Month and Location	Topic(s)
TCEA	February, Austin TX	5 Workshop: When 3D Comes to School 5 Teaching in 3D: Ten Reasons Why it Works, Why it Matters
Colorado Conversations	February, Wheat Ridge, CO	5 Evaluating Technology Initiatives
COSN	March, Washington, D.C.	5 Teaching in 3D: Ten Reasons Why it Works, Why it Matters 5 21st Century Teaching with New Media 5 Evaluating Technology Initiatives
Vision Performance Institute, Pacific University	June, Forest Grove, OR	5 3D in Education
3D Comm	June, Las Vegas, NV	5 Remapping for 2012: 3D and the Education Market Space
Colorado TIE 2012	June, Copper Mt., CO	5 Cultivating Your Donkey Cam Kung Fu
ISTE 2012	June, San Diego, CA	5 Teaching in 3D: Ten Reasons Why it Works, Why it Matters 5 Workshop: When 3D Comes to School
American Optometric Association	June, Chicago, IL	5 Panel: 3D in Education