Poster presented at the Gordon
Research Conference of Visualization in Science and Education (20-25 July 2003)
at Queen's College on 22 July 2003 by Joe Grabowski
TITLE: Adding the Third Dimension to
Classroom Activities: 3D Projection for Chemists and More!
ABSTRACT: Computers and data projectors have dramatically impacted
teaching practices across the disciplines and at all levels. Most college and
university classrooms have dedicated LCD projectors and a rapidly increasing
fraction of schools at all levels have portable data projectors. This technology
is often used to display images and animations that would otherwise be described
only in words, or be schematized by hand drawn, icon-heavy, representations. The
next use of this technology will be to transform flat two dimensional
representations of inherently three dimensional entities, into three
dimensional, interactive projections. This presentation will document how our
Chemistry faculty have built and are using such a system in a large lecture
hall, and will describe a portable system that can readily cloned by everyone.
All aspects of the project will be available for discussion, from the technology
needed, to experiences using the system in large to small lecture halls, to the
assessments so far available, to the challenges of changing software, to
frustrating experiences using less-expensive hardware, and even to discussions
about the technology of tomorrow.