James Cameron's film 'Avatar' was quite a pivotal moment; three-dimensional technology became completely 'mainstream' in cinematic entertainment. Consumer televisions and associated products with 3D capabilities have emerged rapidly in the wake of the financial success of Avatar. We at the Engine Room ask, "what role could 3D play in education?".

Recently, two of our staff - Professor Anne Bamford and Daniel Bamford - successfully applied for a travel grant to meet up with Texas Instruments at their home in Dallas, Texas to begin investigating the variety of possible educational implementations of their market-leading 3D technology for the home. This project will also involve a visit to Professor James Catterall at UCLA’s Urban Schooling Department.

While all talks are very much at the embryonic stage, what we hope to push forward is that cutting-edge technology for entertainment can very readily be transitioned into effective educational tools. Concurrently, we will conduct a thorough impact evaluation, investigating exactly how it might affect all educational objectives and whether or not these effects may be considered of benefit in the process of "drawing out" the characters and intelligence of school pupils.