River City - I’ve referred to this in some previous updates but here’s some detail. River City is a MUVE “multi-user virtual environment.”An online game would qualify as a MUVE - a place you can interact with other characters (avatars). In that sense, like the SIMS game. And of course kids tend to like that environment.
River City takes the game-like environment and uses it for learning – the puzzle is why are people getting sick in the simulated town? (turns out there are several overlapping factors – complex issues, without the need to "get it right"). The students work in teams, test hypotheses, measure and observe the environment, set up experiments, answer quizzes for online reporters.
Its also a Harvard Uni research project, investigating the effects of these environments for learning. The target audience is 12 year olds (but using older and younger both seem fine), who may be at risk of “dropping out’ of science. They wanted to see if this approach would be effective in increasing science engagement and understanding of scientific method. (The server stores all student interactions, for later (anonymous) analysis – and their results do indicate, in short, that it is effective for science learning). So, its more “serious” than it looks at first glance - or at least its "serious fun"
There is more than I can describe here but there is a full and well thought out curriculum behind it (the teacher note book is 120 pages, the student one is 54 pages).
Little extract from one of the training docs about MUVEs:
• They offer authentic scientific inquiry in the classroom without fiscal or safety constraints.
• They promote students’ curiosity through online cooperative activities.
• They allow students to explore their identity.
• Students choose a physical identity in the River City world to represent them.
• Students assume the role of a scientist.
•They foster collaborative learning by prompting students to communicate with otherparticipants and computer-based agents.River City is based on theories of teaching and learning that go beyond the traditional 3Rs of “readin’, ritin’, and rithmatic” by leveraging rigor, relevance, and relationships–the 3Rs of the 21st Century.
I first encountered the phrase “River City” in a conversation, with the suggestion it had something do with virtual networks. Google led to the site, and email and skype discussions led to an agreement to try to implement something here, which led to training materials etc … There’s a public site here, with links to research, demo movies, curriculum (US but similar to ours). After lots questions and reading, email and skype, I’m now a local trainer for the program. Also invited another I&E educator in Mildura into the thing – he’s also training teachers there. I’ve offered the training to the cluster schools, and there are three in the first group (and two in Mildura).Here’s a snap of our first training session.
The face on screen is a video conference with a researcher in the US, answering some questions during our lunch.
We might also run another training session for 2 other schools who are interested later in the year. (Mac schools are a bit trickier, since it needs windows, unfortunately)
Here's a little video of the first orientation session at one of the schools (coming)
In fact drumming up interest isn’t really a problem … I got asked to present something at an e-learning conference in another region, when a someone saw it and passed on the info. I declined, since while the Harvard end is interested in how the project “scales” they don’t have the capacity for a mass rush of Australian schools enrolling in the program. They’ve been generous in including us for free, with lots of support, in any case.
We were looking at ways we might be able set up a local server to run the program from here. The researchers would haved liked that, since it broadens their data access, and from our side a lot more teachers and students here would get the benefit of an engaging, well structured ICT environment for learning science.
But nothing is as easy at seems … more on that later .. still might prove productive..