This is a video of a project from the talented crew at Take 2 | Back Alley Films. They showed this to us just a day before I entered the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Global Education Challenge. It was a matter of seconds before I put the two together in one glorious idea.

As someone who works in advertising, I see a lot of interesting and unique ways that technology is reaching consumers. We live in an age where dynamic digital experiences are quickly growing around us, and it’s time to use them for more than just selling products.

Odds are you know somebody with an Xbox Kinect in their home. This technology allows people to interact with games without a controller – just using the motion of their own body. Multiple players can even join in.

Combined with a projection screen and software designed around grade-level lesson plans can create an immersive experience where students work with each other to turn problem solving into a shared experience.

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about, and how this can translate taking a passive audience into an enthusiastic community:

A typical kinect runs a couple hundred dollars. The projector another couple of hundred.

The software can easily change and develop for age levels. For example, students learning to develop letters can “create” them in a virtual environment, then place them by different objects to understand their phonemes. As a group children can work as “word factories” where some build the letters and others connect them in the right order, creating a team-based, interactive environment.

Microsoft has just released a software development kit (SDK) for Kinect technology, allowing for open-source creation of apps like the ones I’m hoping come about. I’d really like to use this post as a topic of discussion for potential games and applications that can use this technology as an interactive learning tool.

Read an article to the physical benefits Kinect can have with kids here, or see this example of how it can be used with art class:

Please share any thoughts you may have.