Title:ExploreNet and the Virtual Academy
Performer(s):
J. Michael Moshell and Charles Hughes
University of Central Florida
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Cluster: CAPER
Contact Information:
Phone: 407-658-5021
email: moshell@cs.ucf.edu
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1. Instructional Focus:
Content areas/topics: Applicable to most subject areas.
Process skills: Collaborative project-based learning; problem solving; constructivist approach; role playing; interdisciplinary studies.
2. Target Population: Grades 4-12; homebound; adults.
3. Summary Description: ExploreNet is a cartoon world which teaches students to build "quests" or "adventures" in which they interact with other students around the world through technology. Simple two-dimensional student-drawn or scanned graphic scenes and animated characters are used. Students construct an environment which, for example, affords opportunities to visit Ancient Greece, ride inside the human bloodstream, or build Mathville...wherever there is something to be learned. The building and role-playing within that environment depend upon the imagination and research of students. Students assume the following roles: Guests (taking a field trip to a virtual theme part,) Cast Members (actors in the "story",) World Builders (creators of the next theme park,) and Tool Builders (making better tools for World Builders.) At each level, teachers and adult volunteers supervise students' creative activities as they build or enact educational experiences. Educational goals are specified by teachers, but specific subject matter and story lines are provided by students.
4. Training and Staff Development:
- Teacher prerequisite skills/knowledge needed: Familiarity with Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, Worldwide Web tools, word processing, and a simple paint program.
- Student prerequisite skills needed: Similar to teachers.
- Training needed/provided: Training is needed in how to function in this environment; "Training worlds" for teachers and students provide the training.
- Technical support needed/provided: Maintenance of Internet connectivity; students at schools (and even the homebound) currently using ExploreNet become resources to new students.
5. Technological/Resources Needed: Computers with Internet capabilities.
6. Intended Outcomes:
Students: Spurred by the worlds they must build, the stories they must write, the roles they must play, and the goals the teacher sets, students do the research necessary to make the world a believable place and the people believable people.
Teachers: Teachers become skilled in monitoring and evaluating this very rich learning environment.
7. Instructional Time Required: The amount of class time involved will vary depending on how the teacher guides the world building and the goals to be met.
8. Role of the Pilot Teacher(s): Teachers will identify the instructional goals which the building of the worlds will achieve, they will play a substantial advisory role with regard to the subject matter; they will develop methodology for determining how effectively the creation of the world and the playing of roles has worked; they will learn how to create these worlds themselves.
9. Example(s) of the Use of this Product (Scenario): Students build a world, ancient Rome, for example. Some become actors in the story that they write for that world, assuming roles consistent with the world and its conditions. They enact the story in a credible way.
