Crossing the Rubicon into the Digital Unknown
Crossing the Rubicon into the Digital Unknown
In June of 1996, the last word I mastered at the controversial, or certainly unorthodox, dyslexia correction course I attended was “Rubicon". I learned that once Caesar and his legions crossed this river there was no turning back…it was march on to Rome to face the irrevocable consequences of his action. In essence, by doing so, he became an enemy of Roman leadership. It was a succeed or die decision made by Caesar.
My journey these last 23 years has culminated in these last three plus years of risking everything. Although it was not a "succeed or die" decision, yet all too often, it has felt that way. For these past two+ decades, in order to get out to the masses what I know to be true and have witnessed to be real, the journey has been fraught with adversity, persistence and perseverance. What resulted was the creation of Magical I Am™. And, if I may be so bold to say, it’s quite a remarkable achievement. Magical I Am, produced by a team of experts, is exponentially greater than anything I, or the team, ever dreamed possible back in 1996, or even 24 months ago.
In 1996, the three-dimensional mediums for learning to read consisted of sculpture’s clay, blocks, sand, and one’s imagination. Fortunately, with each of my personal, financial and technological setbacks, something wonderful continued to evolve yearly, if not quarterly. The three-dimensional digital mediums kept improving technically, while becoming more innovative, more user-friendly, and the same time, dramatically bringing down the costs for the end consumer.
The Magical I Am team’s work has evolved from clay, to structural graphic, pop-up, 3-D art books, to Undoda, our first foray into the digital gaming industry, and now to the Magical I Am app. We can literally say that technology has caught up with and surpassed our known and unknown ideas for providing three-dimensional learning experiences. Today, one's imagination can be stimulated by an ever-increasing flow of innovative three-dimensional technologies. We began with the three-dimensional illusion-capability offered by two - dimensional digital software, and now have access to actual three-dimensional, augmented reality and virtual reality software that evokes more of the senses than just sight and sound.
Digital edutainment enables a learner freedom from the dreaded (by all parties, by the way) and antiquated fallback methodology that uses rote & drill techniques to learn to read. And amazingly, who would have ever believed there would be a three-dimensional tool for maneuvering the mind’s eye and producing optimal perception while reading two-dimensional text. All of this "reality" is hard to fathom as these digital three-dimensional technological innovations are happening at an ever-increasing pace. We are in a digital technological revolution that spurs the imagination to unique innovative heights for learning and mastering what was thought to be complex.