I walked over to the Inner Harbor at lunch, to find some good food and some quiet. I ate at Phillips, in what was essentially a food court. After I finished, and was walking back through the mall area, I saw a young mother and her daughter, perhaps two years old, jumping around on the floor. As I eased over, I realized that there was a projector mounted on the ceiling, directly above them, projecting a game court on the floor. There was a digital ball (of sorts) bouncing off of the projected walls, and the two were trying to step on the ball the change its course to the opposing goal.
It was one of those times when you just seen, for the first time, something that you suspect will be huge in the future.
Finally! A techno-gizmo that I knew about before David Warlick!! (Sorry, couldn’t resist, Dave!)
Actually, we’ve had one of these in our mall (near Milwaukee) for a couple years. A great thing when you have a 5 and 2 year old in tow. “Ok, honey,” says my wife. “You stay here with the kids while I go into just one more store…”
Funny thing, though, as a educator who is ALWAYS thinking “How could I use that in class”, I’ve never thought of the educational possibilities of this kind of projection technology. I have a Smart Board in my classroom, so I understand the tactile charm of this, but what about a whole floor? What if a series of projectors could turn my floor and all four walls into this kind of interactive medium?
A virtual field trip where you walk through and handle the exhibits?
Wow.
If you can shine light on the floor, why couldn’t you in some way put different images into the lighting system and have the images flow through the system like a slide show. The images could be from a particular historical event, literary novel, or scientific context, etc. I’m thinking it could be like a hologram, (is that what they call the thing on Star Trek? ). Even better, the player could get to make choices with a switch and he/she would determine the next image. Honestly, I always hate having a constrained set of choices, but right now my thinking is limited. In terms of music/sound, I can’t imagine that it would be very difficult to, rather I know it would be simple, to have sound accompany each of the images. Wow, talk about involving students in the learning process. Actually, there’s no reason that you couldn’t have students design their own images, either.
I have nothing intelligent to add to this conversation. I now live in NC, but I miss Baltimore so much. The inner harbor is an awesome place. I hope you can catch an O’s game.
Ok…back to the conversation.
I am glad that you liked the Inner Harbor. We loved having you here with us as our keynote speaker. My head is spinning with regards to all of the new information that you shared. I look forward to hearing you in the future, and am glad that you were able to come to MICCA.