The short film that precedes Toy Story 3 – Day and Night – is a fabulous example of how filmmakers can make the most of the opportunities that are inherent in 3D.
While it’s a bit hard to appreciate this in 2D on your computer, this clip, and the making of Day and Night, show how 3D affords a depth of field that accentuates the differences between the two characters in the short.
And, if Pixar were elearning aficionados, I think they would be looking at tools and technologies to identify those very opportunities (affordances, if we must) that would make their use absolutely right in a given moment, in a teaching experience, in a strategically planned unit. So, for example, the collaborative nature and the tracking of history of a wiki must surely be the prime reasons why this tool is chosen as a channel to support shared, developmental writing. And to not use its features, is to miss an opportunity and risk the use of a tool or technology being ‘busy work’….
The technological-pedagogical-content-knowledge (TPCK) approach captures this idea – but I think Day & Night presents a neat analogy.
karen spencer 