i tend to wear rose-coloured glasses and narrowly view my tasks such as the science activities in Enclave Harbour. when i see another educational use i get excited
new learning modality
nearly two years ago, some teachers visited me in Reaction Grid and commented on how floating sci-fi homes would be great for an elementary writing class to act as inspiration for fiction. on the same tour, a math teaher commented about graphing the number of 55 gallon oil barrels in a government junkyard i have. as you can tell, that still thrills me =)
what i saw being done by my fave Oz Kate and the Coffs Harbour Primary School (who ripped off Enclave Harbour’s cool name, i think) really got me excited (i am such a spaz that i don’t really need coffeeeeee, but it’s free at work, so what’s the harm in 6 to 8 cup a day?) =p
Kate and her class are using sim-on-a-stick for learning about geometry!
circle “bounds” the hep
this is seriously cool on several levels. obviously prims are geometric but in making other geometric shapes, like the heptagons they were making here (hep as in hip!), means that students have to really grasp an understanding of geometry to use simpler shapes (the prims) to make more complex shapes. using several prims to make another shape requires a higher cognition than simply making that shape out of one mesh for example
most awesome pic
very, very cool use of OpenSim and by creating new neural pathways in the use of the 3D space (compared to drawing this on paper), these students are actually physically changing the layout of their brains (yes, you OpenSim nuts have more neural pathways than the average person because of working in a 3D space – do it enough and it actually adds more and deeper sulci! you’ve been right all along – you are smarter than most!)
“Ener says I have all the right curves in my sulci”
This is a wonderful use of OpenSim!
David Miller
14 Jun 12 at 9:53 am
This was an excellent lesson and the students didn’t want to finish. They kept on saying ‘this is hard’ but then when the lunch bell went they wanted to continue to work on their shapes. I didn’t expect them to create one (as it took me long enough to create my very rough attempt in SL) but one actually managed a hexagonal prism and then went back in the afternoon and made a heptagon. I just loved it when Luke made a seven sided shape and then looked at me and said with a wry smile “Look Mrs Booth, I’ve made an irregular heptagon!” priceless =D
Kate Booth
17 Jun 12 at 6:16 am
this was a hard lesson! holy cow, make this a tutorial for adults in OpenSim and you’d see a lot of people struggling to create this!
outstanding vision on your part – you truly see OpenSim as an educational tool and not simply something onto itself
Kate is Enclave Harbour’s Innovative Teacher of the Year! =)
Ener Hax
21 Jun 12 at 10:01 am