Coffs Harbour High School uses sim-on-a-stick at i live in science land

Coffs Harbour High School uses sim-on-a-stick

Coffs Harbour? i had to do a double take on a tweet that let me know about sim-on-a-stick being used at a school in New South Wales Australia! (Oops correction: this is the primary school, not the high school – when i watched the video i assumed these had to be high school students! gee, these are some pretty awesome kids if you ask me!) =)

i always pictured Enclave Harbour as being in the Pacific Northwest of Canada, like Vancouver Island, but maybe it’s neighbours with Coffs Harbour! at least both are under the reign of Her Majesty The Queen! (happy 60th Liz! the diamond jubilee!) w00t! you go girl! =D

Today class 5M were introduced to the virtual world platform Simonastick and it was a huge success. Mrs Booth showed the students what you could do with your own virtual world and how you could use it to enhance what you were learning in the classroom. It is highly immersive and the students were captivated. When asked who would like to stay in at lunch and have a ‘play’ everyone put up their hands. Mrs Booth selected six students Harry, Lewis, Jason, Maia, Ebony and April for this week and next week she will come in one extra lunchtime to give more students the opportunity to experience the program.

read the rest of the article here, including two videos, 5M Discover A Virtual World: Simonastick

Mrs Booth is clearly a physics or physical science teacher and undoubtedly a classroom innovator!
(Edit: Mrs Booth graciously commented on this post – she must be pretty web savvy to find this post so quickly! and she’s not even a teacher yet! she’s at university working on her education degree and obviously passionate and really caring about educating kids – the single biggest influence for how far students go in school are their teachers – one good teacher can make the difference even in how successful a student becomes in their adult careers. this study shows that it can be an extra $25,000 over a lifetime!)

well done Mrs Booth and very well done students of Coffs Harbour! *waves from Enclave Harbour*

Coffs Harbour

written by Ener Hax

February 10th, 2012 at 2:35 pm

posted in enclave harbor,OpenSim

It warms the cockles of my cold heart. (It’s winter in New England. Though, actually, a pretty mild one so far not counting that one big storm in October.)

Maria Korolov

10 Feb 12 at 2:44 pm

it is indeed mild! i have shoveled only three times (albeit that first one was like 14 inches for Portsmouth)

it does warm my heart like mad too =)

Kate Booth actually has great in-world experience and is part of that http://web1.macquarieict.schools.nsw.edu.au/ group =)

Ener Hax

10 Feb 12 at 3:11 pm

Today Australia, tomorrow, the World!!

Sarge Misfit

10 Feb 12 at 4:37 pm

well Sarge, between you and me, we are covering the Commonwealth! =)

10 Feb 12 at 5:17 pm

Hi Ener thankyou for this post as the children will be super excited! Simonastick is fantastic and the students engaged with it immediately. Can I just add a correction that we are Coffs Harbour Primary School, though many of the kids wish they were in high school…lol. Here is the school link so you can change your hyperlink http://www.coffsharb-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/home
Again a huge thankyou for developing SOAS as this has allowed students who wouldn’t normally have a chance to experience virtual world technology in their learning now to be up there with rest of the world. PS: I am a 3rd year primary education student at Southern Cross University who, with the support of my mentor @LisaJacka, has developed a very healthy interest in virtual worlds and their applications to learning. I volunteer 1 day a week at the school to work on innovative ideas with the students. I am enjoying the ride and will keep you posted. My twitter is @SCU006

Kate Booth

10 Feb 12 at 5:31 pm

woot! thank you Mrs Booth for taking the time to comment here! i added corrections =)

10 Feb 12 at 6:45 pm

[...] sim-on-a-stick success – primary school – feb 10 fired up imaginations & students wanting to work in OpenSim through lunch! [...]

sim-on-a-stick posts at i live in science land

10 Feb 12 at 6:56 pm

Is there any chance of creating a primary student avatar for SOAS? as that would stop me or other primary teachers having to edit the very shapely female avatar and deleting the upper and lower textures? This is such a brilliant tool but as you know the kids love to change the avatar first and when the clothes come off…Wowee. If you look at the school blog it also has a page titled ‘Virtual Worlds’ this is where I have written about SOAS and also in ‘For Teachers’ there are links etc.

Thanks for being so quick with the corrections too.

Kate Booth SL:captainflint006 T:@SCU006

10 Feb 12 at 7:47 pm

lol, she’s not too shapely compared to sl – i think her bosom is the same as Ener’s, like a 13 (pretty flat, much like real life!)

BUT . . . what you can do is edit Simona Stick on a clean new download, delete her textures, and once you have reshaped her just use that as your base install. since it’s not a real install, all your changes will be saved and any copies will have your avatar (or selection if you make several – just save each new avatar as their own folder by searching for WORN in inventory and placing all those items – shape, skin, clothing, and hair into a named folder)

do you konw how to make skins? it’s pretty easy with Gimp or photoshop. i use the following skins which are nicely layered and allow you to trun off things like nipples and other sensitive areas =)

http://iliveisl.com/my-go-to-female-skin-base/

you could also load your version of SoaS with something like Linda Kellie’s OARs or Nebadon’s:

http://iliveisl.com/sim-on-a-stick-bundling/

if this is new to you, please let me know and i’ll be glad to explain =)

10 Feb 12 at 7:55 pm

This person, Kate Booth, is clearly a problem solver. Exactly what is needed in schools.

I read the 5M post. Its all positive. Marvelous stuff!

Breen Whitman

10 Feb 12 at 8:19 pm

We at least have both ends of Canada covered, Ener! :-D

10 Feb 12 at 11:02 pm

it is a nice post – i love that the students stayd in OpenSim during lunch! that’s preyy engaged!

lol, with Canada covered, isn’t that realy the best of the world? =D

11 Feb 12 at 10:16 am

So no need to add it’s about 28c in Coffs Harbour at the moment?

Shockwave Plasma

11 Feb 12 at 10:24 am

Is there anything that Linda Kellie has not made? This is a collection of her child avatars: http://bit.ly/waoVaB (oar-file). After having loaded the .oar-file, just click the boards or boxes to open them, then copy the content into your inventory.

I added one more child using the skins of Eloh, only deleting some layers. (I hope it works…)

Beacara

12 Feb 12 at 9:21 am

your young boy looks great! =) and he is on today’s post! thank you so much, this will help teachers

12 Feb 12 at 4:20 pm

yeah, 28C is a little over 80F which is warmer than the 20F here! =p

12 Feb 12 at 4:23 pm

[...] you have no idea who Kate Booth is and why she is a Officially Certified Enerific, here’s a post on her and what she is doing with OpenSim at a primary (elementary) school in the land of Oz (actually in [...]

Kate’s Worlds – how one teacher makes a world of difference at i live in science land

23 Feb 12 at 7:37 am