Wednesday, August 27, 2014

A Virtual Urban Myth

All good societies should have an Urban Myth.  I have not seen one appear in any of our Virtual World societies until yesterday.

Students are creating virtual tours of Mars to take the 4-6 students on an incursion in the next two weeks.  As a result they needed to find six places which they liked on Mars to take their younger charges.

There was a level of frustration when a group of students from different tribes could not find the Giant Apple.  I had not seen a Giant Apple (which I was quickly corrupted when I referred to it as the Enormous Apple) nor had Chrisi.  The more it was talked about and the more other students became involved and the more convinced everyone became that there is or was a Giant Apple.

There is no Apple.

What we think it might be is a technology tribe built an enormous iPone as a monument with the apple logo on it.

This amy hav been the start to our urban myth.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Work plan Session 23 and 24

Tourism Industry
The purpose is to develop an industry that the colonists can use to add to a potential economy on Mars. Also this will enable them to share the work they have been doing while introducing other students and teachers in the school to the Virtual World program.

Come to MARS!!

 Excursions to Mars – discuss
What is possible?
What makes a good tour /excursion?
How do we engage our visitors?

Organisation is the key!

What could each tribe share with visiting students??

Plan an Excursion to Mars
Tribes are to design an advertising poster inviting 456 classes to a tour of Leaving the Earth - Mars

Your tribe will become tour guides taking tourists on a journey around the new Martin settlement.
The tour
Select 6 major stops (highlights that you tribe will take tourists to see.
 Each stop must have an accompanying commentary: Tribes must write the scripts for the tours

-who built it (which tribe)
-what is the purpose of the structure
- Symbolism of any patterns or colours
- Any changes or adaptations to the structure
- Whether it was a tribal or community space

Advertising
Design a brochure (app smash) that shows what the tour designed by your tribe will offer tourists to Mars.

Include Text and photos.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Work plan Sessions 18 - 22


I'm back from outer space!!!
Four week away on leave and I am back on Mars and looking forward to a bright future.The tribes have all made their first move to a government system to run the planet and new colonies. It was unanimous that Democracy was the preferred system. below is the plan of the session and how each class came to this decision.
(We did have a few students who thought they would be good dictators or great monarchs, but they were out voted!)
Session 18 - 22

Monuments to Martian achievements

Government development (safety law and order)

Session 22

Review and highlights of last 4 weeks

Students will individually vote on the system of government that will be implemented

 Choices are:

Democracy

Monarchy

Dictatorship

Record the decision.

Team share 3 minutes

In teams list what attributes a leaders should possess. What are you looking for in a leader?

Key words - in line with school values
Respect Empathy Belonging Resilience Excellence
plus leadership reliable responsible organised kind caring etc.

Key Policies

Policy (record all the responses)

Equality Trust faith hard work etc

Nominate 3 candidates from the class to be a leader in the classroom

Consider the attributes of each of the nominees
next week - As a whole class elect a rep for the cross tribe UTC

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Guns, Germs and Steel

Today we started moving the students from tribes to Governments.  We looked at three types of Governments we explored were Democracy, Monarchy and Dictatorship.

We also used the theories discussed in Guns, Germs and Steel to highlight why societies move to more formal styles of Government and why that might happen.

Some students thought that a Dictatorship might be fun until they realised it is only fun if you are the Boss..

We also looked at the idea that while tribal Governments worked for a small number of people, they, the class were not in fact in contact with the other two Grade Seven classes and that they were completely unaware of what decisions the other tribes were making.

After this discussion we left the students to ponder where they were going and the future Government they would form.

Students went into the Virtual World and continued building their National Monuments and public buildings and spaces
  

Lights Camera Action

Currently there is a document being made about our students working in the Virtual World. As a result the film crew turned up to film one of our classes.  It was a slight distraction that turned in to a media class. The students wanted to know about the cameras, sound recording devices, light, cranes, and dollies.  They were excited at being asked to do multiple takes of dialogue and action.  There was the realization that "this must be the way reality TV is made."

Everyone wanted to get in a shot. Everyone wanted their 30 seconds of fame.

The students were excited to learn that that were doing "proper" interviews next week with lights and  a director.

This process is extremely important to creating authentic outcomes with students voices.