What Really Matters

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.

Interactive Parallax Quiz

Stereoscopic 3D—Negative Parallax—Positive Parallax. It all seems so technical and confusing. Let’s stop and see if you really understand these concepts by using a few visual metaphors. Take the short quiz below, and see how well you do:

Stereo 3D Unpacked

Everywhere I seem to go, I recognize a common misconception people have about 3D. There's actually quite a difference between a 3D-like image and the type of 3D we see in cinemas. For that reason, I created this short visual tutorial. It seems to help educators understand 3D a bit better.

Why 3D Counts

In a previous post (Why 3D Works), we spent some time trying to explain why 3D is such a compelling medium in the marketplace, especially for students. This post dares to explain "why 3D counts"—why 3D may hold promise for the classroom, for promoting interest in STEM careers, and for pushing math and science achievement forward.

At the ISTE 2010 technology conference, I met a remarkable Russian computer scientist, now residing in the U.S., who pointed me to the insightful "meta-analysis" by Dr. Nora Newcombe. I procrastinated for 6 months before I took a closer look. That was a mistake! A link to the 'aha!' article is provided below. Read on. It's well worth your time. Seriously.

Picture This Increasing Math and Science Learning by Improving Spatial Thinking

3D Content Update

More and more educationally-focused 3D content providers are coming to our attention. Here is a new list (in alphabetical order) of these providers, along with links to the educational aspects of their web pages:

When Students Create The Content

In a previous post, I mentioned that I wanted to revisit the tools that could be used for students to construct their own 3D content. We started to see the emergence of these tools at the ISTE 2010 conference, and now is the time to make good on my promise to cover this territory.

To date, the following tools look promising in terms of reaching that goal. (I suspect, however, that the system requirements for each of these tools will be quite daunting, in terms of our often limited K-12 platform realities.)

Reallusion’s iClone 4

Eon Reality’s Eon Studio (basic) and Eon SDK (more versatile)

Unity’s free 3D product (in use by our 3D Jedi, Jeff Epps)

To quote, Texas Instrument’s Jaime Beringer, last year’s question was “Where is the content?”Now it’s “When can I create my own content?” I believe that all 3D content producers should provide authoring tools to accommodate the student-constructed content development space.

Why 3D Works

Dr. Hilliard Jason (M.D., Ed.D.), a clinical professor with the School of Medicine at the University of Colorado-Denver and the former editor of Education for Health: Change in Learning and Practice, offers an interesting explanation as to why 3D may be so appealing to our younger generations.

I cornered Dr. Jason at the fall CU COLTT 2010 technology conference for this on-the-spot interview. I appreciate his insight, which is based on his work in brain research, how the body works, and his sense-making of very recent literature.

Dr. Rod Archer, Vice-President of Cinema Products for RealD added this thought, as well:

"I agree.  That video makes a very good point.  In fact, our brains need to learn to accommodate 2D images as an impression of the real world.  We all learn to do this at a young age, so we don’t appreciate the compromise anymore.  It is ironic when you think of it this way that 3D images are now considered something that we need to learn to accommodate…."

What is your reaction to this post?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

3D Shoot

In fall of 2010, I took a a short vacation in Southern Colorado, moving from small town to even smaller hamlet, enjoying local B&Bs as I shuttled around. Arriving in picturesque and bustling La Veta, Colorado, I was driving down the main drag looking for the 1899 B&B, when suddenly my eyes were riveted to a sign on the side of the road:

Wow! What was this? Had stereoscopic 3D technology made its way into rural and rustic backwoods Colorado? I was compelled to find out. My imagination leaped like a Colorado antelope over a prairie fence. What would this be? A chance to be in a 3D movie shoot? A new 3D nature film being screened in the community hall? A 3D symposium being held in the authentic backchannel of Colorado's pride? A 3D shooting arcade?

Following the long green arrow, I made my way down a hot and vacant street that intersected with La Veta's main thoroughfare. I pushed on through a lush canopy of trees, and across a bridge that safeguarded my vehicle from the rushing muddy waters of the Cucharas river. As the paved road gave way to a dirt carpet, I pressed forward. Soon the road grew rough and climbed steeply upward, with ruts and rocks so large that only a four-wheel-drive vehicle could reliably navigate its challenging corridor. I emerged at a fenced intersection with more signs pointing to the event I so craved. And here is what I found:

3D Shoot 3D Shoot Picture

Beyond Words

Leaders and educators in the country of Poland were worried that the nation's youngest citizens are forgetting or will never truly understand the horrors of World War II, the suffering of the Polish people during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, or the devastation this war brought to their country. For that reason, we recently witnessed the completion of a huge undertaking: the 3D reconstructive filming of the most destroyed city in World War II, Warsaw.

September 5, 1944 in Warsaw. Public Domain.

I mention this movie, City of Ruins, because it represents perhaps the most moving effort to date to use 3D, a media form that young people are very familiar with, to reach out, to educate, and to replant memories that somehow must never be forgotten.

TEDx DenverEd

Another interesting aspect to ISTE 2010 was my own TEDx Denver Ed speech focusing on what 3D means for education. Thank heavens for amazing editors, who were adeptly gifted at removing my nervous mistakes! Take a look!

3D @ ISTE 2010

In the closing days of June, over 17,000 technology educators and exhibitors stormed the mile-high city of Denver for the ISTE 2010 conference. I have attended many ISTE conferences over the years, but this was the first conference I can remember with such a strong and persistent 3D-thematic presence.

  First, ISTE offered over fourteen sessions with some treatment of 3D in education, including 3D Comes to School, which was a well-attended session conducted by two of our own Boulder Valley teachers, along with an outstanding Dallas-based special educator, and a respected school principal. (This was the only session dedicated to stereoscopic 3D, however, as the other sessions centered on virtual 3D.)

Third, the exhibit hall was flush with a 3D-related presence, including Texas Instruments, Cyber-Anatomy, JTM Concepts, DesignMate, Reallusion, XpanD, AV Rover, RealD, and a myriad of projector companies featuring 3D-ready projectors. Other well-known companies were also whispering to key clients about future plans in the 3D space.

Finally, the conference also evidenced the emergence of a few companies supporting 3D content creation by students. Now that's interesting. We'll discuss that development in more detail in a future post.

3D Jedi

In our Future-Talk BLOG, I haven't spoken much about the 'constructivist' fifth column of our 3D taxonomy—student content creation. But that's about to change. One of the most interesting projects in the country focusing on 3D stereoscopic content creation by students comes out of rural North Carolina's Richmond County Schools.

IT Director and 3D Jedi, Jeff Epps

In 2009, a unique program was started in Richmond County Schools, a rural community in North Carolina. IT Director Jeffries Epps and seven high schools students developed a project to teach students to create 3D models of objects that teachers could use to introduce new concepts during instruction. Epps states, "With only 10 hours of instruction, the students were working with a geometry teacher creating objects and animations that explained the concepts of transitions and rotations. Our i3D Internship was born."

Now more than a year later, Epps and two of the original seven interns have set their sights much higher. Richmond Senior High School is hosting "The Summer of Kainotomia 2010." (Kainotomia is the Greek word for innovation.)  This summer internship teaches students the fundamentals of Java Script Programming, 3D Modeling, and 3D Simulation.  Students from six regional high schools are participating.

Jeff Epps and Grady Lorenzo, a senior at Richmond Senior High, preview Lorenzo's 3D simulation of a space rover to be used to teach the human circulatory system.

We are building "skills that will allow schools to produce a future-ready workforce upon graduation from high school, skills will look great on a job application or a college application," says Epps. Epps is now looking to establish i3D Teams in high schools and middle schools nationwide. Sign us up, Jeff! (More on that in a later post.)

Tethered 3D Learning

In an early entry in this blog, I introduced the 3D content taxonomy represented in the chart below:

In this post, I originally groused (in reference to 3D movie or movie segments): "There's not much educational value there, except the 'grab' factor. Don't stay fixated here too long." Well, live and learn. I was a bit wrong. At the ISTE 2010 national technology conference in Denver, I spoke with Dr. KJ Brar, who is the president of Designmate (www.designmate.com), perhaps the largest producer of 3D content in the world. After some thoughtful conversations with Dr. Brar, I learned something quite important. Although movie segments are indeed more passive learning experiences than their other cousins on the 3D content taxonomy, they can still play a very important role in 3D learning. When tightly tethered to interactive simulations, 3D movie segments can provide the sound base of knowledge and context that students need in order to fully explore a simulation and firmly understand the concepts being presented. Although 3D movie segments have less value when they stand alone in instruction, in tandem with interactive simulations, movie segments have real value. Now, six months after I spoke with Dr. Brar, his words have borne out in our classrooms. Short video segments are indeed highly effective.

Hands-on 3D

One of the most interesting things I am seeing develop in 3D teaching lately is the combining of 3D visualization techniques with hands-on activities. Both Lauren Sanders of the Shelton School (Dallas) and the BVSD Douglass Elementary team (Dawne, Lynn, and Holly) are designing and using lessons that combine a visually rich 3D interactive presentation with individual hand manipulatives or desk-based activities. Lauren has used manipulative cubes along with her 3D images, while the Douglass team plans cleverly to use acetate sheets for hands-on reinforcement, practice, and transfer of learning (see the lesson plan thumbnail below)..

The combining of visual manipulatives or experiences with hands-on manipulatives is an effective practice that has been used in lower grade levels for years, and using it in conjunction with 3D visualization is a very thoughtful connection. And it promises to be effective in transferring abstract concepts to very physical levels of understanding for children.

3D Comes to School

Here's an unabridged version of my recently published article, "3D Comes to School." This article highlights some of the best approaches in exploring 3D, and it highlights the benefits of using various content providers and folks who can help you get started (integrators). The magazine-published version suffered through the excessively sharpened scalpel of seasoned editor, so this version will serve you with much better detail.

BVS3D Case Study Schools Selected

The following BVSD schools were selected to participate in the BVS3D Case Study:

Monarch High School

·         Description: a comprehensive high school in Louisville, CO.      

·         3D Focus: science with an emphasis on SPED, TAG, ESL and AP students

Douglass Elementary School

·         Description: an elementary school in Boulder, CO.

·         3D Focus: science and math, 4^th grade and TAG

Casey Middle School

·         Description: a new construction, gold-standard Leeds-certified middle school in Boulder, CO

·         3D Focus: science

Halcyon Middle-High School

·         Description: A day treatment educational facility and treatment program supported through a multi-agency agreement among the Boulder Valley School District, the Mental Health Center serving Boulder and Broomfield Counties and Boulder County’s Department of Housing and Human Services.

·         3D Focus: social studies, math and science in a special needs context

Logos by Ganse

These amazing 3D scenes/logos for our 3D Case Study Project in the Boulder Valley School District were created by BVSD science teacher extraordinaire, Jack Ganse. He teaches at Eldorado K-8 in Superior, Colorado.

3D TV

In January, 2010, the world witnessed the fanfare-laden arrival of 3D television in the consumer marketplace.

Most 3D TV content is initially coming from Discovery and ESPN, it appears. You can read about it in this CNN article. I know one BVSD teacher who has already purchased this new type of TV set, but the price is still prohibitive: $3000 per set. Where will this head?

The Olympics in 3D?

During the last winter Olympic games, the nation was invited to view the Olympics in 3D.

The familiar "3D" catchphrase is used here, but I am uncomfortable with the thought that it is really the same thing we have been discussing in this blog. The key questions are: "Are virtual walkthroughs, tours, or flyovers really 3D or are they merely simplified representations of 3D in a planar image?"  "Is a Google Earth community flyover a true 3D experience?"  "Is a 3D Art Gallery or a virtual open house walkthrough really a 3D or more of a first-person observer point of view?"

So far, I am still in deliberation; I am still trying to wrap my mind around where this particular "3D" concept fits. My preliminary instincts suggests that this is simply a first-person precursor to the stereoscopic 3D we have been discussing in this blog, that it is not really 3D because it doesn't come out of the screen or show strong depth of field. On the other hand, it is not as passive as watching a 3D movie, and may therefore fit our 3D taxonomy somewhere between movies and learning objects. But how do we justify that with a 2D planar image?

More to come on this topic later, but for now, consider exploring the links above.

BVS3D

 

Guess what has tiptoed into BVSD? You've got it---3D comes to BVSD.

In the thumbnail below, please find the Call for Participation we used for soliciting proposals and selecting our eight 3D pilot classrooms (grant funded). This document will give you concrete ideas on how to shape, propose, and select participants for a 3D project in your own school or university.

Get your 3D shoes on!

(The above picture is actually a type of fake 3d, created through an animated wigglegram--wiggling stereogram--but it gives you the flavor. An iPhone app took the picture)