1World the 3D Game – A Mentor Viewpoint……….

The CLC Week for St Roberts’ has been a fantastic opportunity for pupils at St Robert of Newminster School to grasp a completely new aspect of modern ICT learning. Students this week have been working with a fantastic piece of software, which has enabled everyone to help create a real 3D game. The program which has been used by the students is the amazing new version of Thinking Worlds.

The way that the software was utilised, was to allow a selected group of students; who were the ‘mentors’ for the CLC week, to learn how to use the program, in order to teach the pupils that they were receiving throughout the week to begin their knowledge of Thinking Worlds, and be able to teach them to create different areas and aspects of the game they were producing.
Once the mentors were primed, and full of new familiarity of Thinking Worlds, they were told to create plans of what the game would include, and how the main storyline would create an educational message toward the player.

On the Monday, Day 1 of CLC week 2010, mentors were gathered together to create a plan for how the rest of the week would work. The main question that was asked was what the theme of the game would include. A final decision was made, and the game would be based on the decisions an average teenager of the UK, New Zealand, and Uganda would have to face on a daily basis. The reason why this was chosen, was to highlight the major differences between how the ‘typical’ teenager of these countries would have to make choices, and how much they would differ in the UK, New Zealand and Uganda. This verdict was chosen, as not only would the player be absorbed in how the life of teenagers is different, but also more crucially learn something about how much of a variation the different cultures approach daily life.

The planning included how to divide the students which the mentors where mentoring into groups that would work and encourage each other along the way, and therefore take advantage of all the creativity the collective minds would have to offer. The mentors then made a decision on how the game would be divided up into these groups, and eventually the decision as made that the mentors would be spread out between the three working days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and that the three days would be split up into Morning, Afternoon, and Night of the player within the game for the three countries.

Tuesday arrived quickly, with the allocated mentors for that day faced with the challenge of being the first group to work with the students chosen for that day. The mentors were then the ‘teachers’ for the day, with supervisors Mr Williams and Mr Allan taking a backseat. The mentors then had the task of teaching the group how to use Thinking Worlds, and how to make the most of every aspect of the software, in order to make here area as good as it can be. Once the mentors went through all that the program had to offer, which included creating characters, objects, worlds, and interactions between all these features. Not an easy task at all, but with confidence and the spirit of the whole team, it all flowed together, with students easily picking up the characteristics the program featured, and with mentors leading divisions of the group, were able to create a successful ‘Morning’ to the game. As the group were divided, and the mentors split up into the sub groups, they were then given the assignment of collectively thinking how the life of a teenager would appear in the game, and as the three sub groups were given one of the three countries to focus on, it was a day of research, evaluating personal experiences, and collect all of this information, and use there new found knowledge of Thinking Worlds, put all his into the game.

The way groups used this, was to use all the areas this software had to offer, for example how characters interacted with other people and objects, and create questions and answers to the various areas of the game. A good illustration of this utilization was an idea about how the average teenager faced waking up for school in the morning, which was ‘Do you stay in bed for an extra 5 minutes?’ and how this would affect the rest of the day. Once all these points had been finalised and evaluated, the groups worked together as a team to each create a world, which could be used for the final game.

Wednesday then rolled on, and with fresh mentors, a fresh set of students, which meant a fresh set of active minds, the challenge of creating a scenario for the afternoon of the average teenager in these different countries. The mentors were again asked to take charge of the day, and full of confidence lead the day, and instructed the students to create an educational and informative afternoon for the typical teenager. Again, the mentors were allocated sub groups, and guided the group into creating different questions teenagers faced in an afternoon of their daily lives.

Obviously this is a challenge for the countries the group were not familiar with, so this included many people researching how an afternoon would pan out in Uganda and New Zealand, and also feature plans on how to bring all the research in an effective afternoon game.

The final day, Thursday, with again, the brand new mentors faced the test of teaching the students about a brand new aspect of ICT, how to use this amazing feature of modern learning, and also to create an effective night plan for the different problems and questions a teenager in the different countries faced at night. With all the mentors given groups, and all the minds used to make a creative and feature full night time mode for the game, it was a great success, and therefore concluded a fantastic week, with every single student taking away something in various fields, not only learning about the program Thinking Worlds, but how to evaluate all the ideas given, and put them into a final plan.

Friday, and the final challenge was put into place. The mentors, who had taken all the students through this resourceful, and enlightening week, had the mission of taking all the files the students had created, and pull all the ideas together to make one final informative game.

The mentors made a decision to divide the game into three levels, which were made unlockable after the previous level had been created, which were Morning, Afternoon, and Night. Then the game had to be put into production, by taking all the files and levels, and incorporating them into the three levels. With the help of all the mentors, teaching staff, Mr Williams and Mr Allan, the game was then pulled together into the final creation, with everyone’s amazing contribution; One World by the Students of St Roberts was at last completed.

At the end of each day, the pupils were asked to write an evaluation of how they thought the day had gone, and post it to the St Roberts CLC week’s blog website.

Here are some of the comments, which include a What Went Well, and an Even Better If:

WWW – I enjoyed the work we did and enjoyed making a game and working in groups and getting help off our group mentor.
EBI – It would have been better if we had the chance to finish our game and had more time to spend on it.
WWW- we all took part in the life of a teenager in either Uganda, new Zealand or the Uk. We all made a game in our groups about the way different people live their lives. we based ours on peoples stereotypes.
EBI- we had more time to put them all together and look at them to see what it looked like as a whole. it would have been better.

Overall then, the week was a fantastic success, with everybody taking part, and taking something away with them, not only a brilliant lesson in how to create an educational game, but a physical game which they know they made a fantastic contribution to create.

David G on behalf of the Year 10 mentors

Friday 5th February

The final day of CLC Week 2010, involved the Year 10 mentors coming together to review the weeks work. After agreeing the format of their completed game they split into their mentor groups to edit the games created on their day and add the finishing touches to the scene flows, adding common features. During the afternoon they worked on trying to link everything together and adding their own skins and images to the game.

A wonderful week which has been made so successful by the commitment and hard work of the student mentors who have organised, delivered, supported their peers and displayed higher order thinking skills.

Thursday 4th February Progress

Another great day with the mentors. The groups created a number of games, working well in small teams, developing their scene flows and troubleshooting the technical issues. An interesting day lies ahead tomorrow with the mentors bringing the games together to create a completed set!

Thursday 4th February Student Feedback

Students please leave a comment on this blog with your thoughts on What Went Well (WWW) today and also Even Better If (EBI)

Wednesday 3rd February Progress

Another excellent day enjoyed by all, as expressed in the comments on the previous post! The mentors gathered prior to the days sessions to look at the the days activities and also received some feedback from students who had attended the previous day as mentees. They agreed to devote the morning to familiarisation with the Thinking Worlds software and the detailed planning of the tasks. Each mentor took turns to demonstrate the different interactions and also the different components of the scene flow.

Working in small groups with a mentor attached to each, they devised their learning goals around either the Life of a Teenager in the UK, New Zealand or Uganda.

The afternoon was devoted to individuals creating their own scenes with some excellent and thought provoking tasks and content.

Wednesday 3rd February Student Feedback

Students please leave a comment on this blog with your thoughts on What Went Well (WWW) today and also Even Better If (EBI)

Tuesday 2nd Progress

A rewarding day for the students and the mentors. The 6 students mentors delivered the sessions guiding their peers through the Thinking Worlds package exploring the different possibilities and options. Then in small groups they worked on specific elements and nodes for their game planning out their scene flows. Once these plans were agreed they worked on individual tasks adding content to their games. In the face of a couple of technical difficulties both the mentors and their peers worked well as a collective.

Tuesday 2nd February Student Feedback

Students please leave a comment on this blog with your thoughts on What Went Well (WWW) today and also Even Better If (EBI). Just leave you first name and initial with your comment.

New Zealand Collaboration – Life as a Teenager in NZ

As part of our game we are looking to compare the “Life of a Teenager in the UK” in comparison with students in New Zealand. In order to help us compare the different opportunities, choices and options available in each country please could you answer some of the following questions by posting a reply to this comment. We really appreciate your help. A completed version of our game will be posted online at the end of the project.

After school what would you usually do?
What would distract you from doing homework?
Does smoking and drinking influence your lives
Do you use social networking?
What kind of programmes do you watch on the TV?
Does family play a key part in your life?
Do you consider yourself physically fit?
Is surfing and the beach a big part of your life?
What do you do on lunchtime in school?
What do you do on a weekend?
What is your daily routine?

Could you also post your ideas on the following Learning Wall

Monday 1st Feb Update

The first day of CLC Week 2010 involved a group of 13 Year 10 mentors. It is planned these students will develop both the design and content of their game around the theme of 1World with the help of 60 other students over the course of the week.

After 2 half days initial work, the Year 10 mentors met to plan the content and design of their game. After an initial discussion about the game itself the students split into small groups to work out each element of the game. They agreed that they wanted to core of their game to compare the Life as a Teenager in the UK with that of a Teenager in New Zealand and Uganda. They looked at the content for each of the countries they had chosen to study and different ways in which the tasks could be played. They considered the scene flows they could use and also the different available nodes and interactions.

As mentors they looked at their specific day and designed both the content for each session, how each group would work and what specifically the objectives of each task were to be. Alongside this as whole group they considered different game plays and rewards for the players.

Students left a comment with their thoughts on What Went Well (WWW) today and also Even Better If (EBI) for the days activities.

Friday Planning

The student mentors met to explore the potential of Thinking Worlds and try and think about their game design and content. They explored Thinking Worlds in more detail and looked at different ways their game could be designed and played. We then looked at the content of the game in more detail and tried to come up with a general theme for the game. Some interesting ideas which we will hopefully expand upon on Monday 1st February and for the rest of the week.

New Mentors start Thinking(Worlds!)………..

On Monday 18th January the Year 10 mentors took part in their first training session on Thinking Worlds 3 in preparation for CLC Week 2010. Although a little apprehensive at first the students created their first 3D environments combining variety of options and events.

You can check out the authoring tool the students have been using by downloading a 30 day trial from Caspian Learning

Collaboration Request

We are looking for collaborators from outside the UK to assist and collaborate with a group of Year 10 (14/15 year olds) students who are creating a 3D educational game based around the theme of “1World”. The game will allow users to investigate the differences in how students live around the world and what their expectations are for the future.

You can view an overview of the authoring package we will be using using this link.

The collaboration could range from feedback, to assisting in ideas, communicating with the students, to authoring tasks.

If you have a group of students who you would to take part tin the project to link with the students please add a comment below this post or alternatively contact Chris Allan, the e-learning co-ordinator at St Roberts.