Virtual School Update: SEGUK
By Chris Pim on Friday, June 10, 2011 - Related Tags:- living, Mill-Chase, news, SEGUK
The future development of our home town, Bordon in Hampshire Uk, is uncertain. An ‘army’ town; the original government promise was to redevelop Bordon as an ‘Eco Town’ on the massive abandoned lands that the army will vacate when it is redeployed elsewhere in five years time. Plans made to re develop the infrastructure, the schools and housing stock, have been in full flow and forwarded for public debate and approval. Recent political change has placed some uncertainty over the future project, but hopes are still high, that despite inevitable cuts, our secondary school campus at least, will be given the green light for rebuilding and modernisation.
From the perspective of Mill Chase Community Technology College, as our local community secondary school, these plans for redevelopment have been exciting and two possible sites have been ear marked by planners for this purpose. Children of all ages and a wide range of local institutions have been involved in joint projects to plan and debate what they would like to have in their local ‘secondary school of the future’, and teachers have been have been investing their time and energy into innovative collaborative work between schools.
One such venture is the ‘virtual school’ collaboration between Mill chase Community Technology College and it’s local feeder schools. Using ICT and virtual world technology feeder schools are encouraged to upload project work about hopes and aspirations for a secondary school of the future, via the ‘Bordon Cluster VLE’ to the secondary school virtual building team, who build in a Second Life region owned by the Australian based Skoolaborate organisation. Work is installed by the virtual world student team into their self made futuristic 3D school and onto the walls of virtual classrooms each dedicated to one of the feeder schools. Once complete, in-world Fraps video techniques bring the feeder school projects to life, as the virtual world team film project work in situ and download the Fraps videos back to the feeder schools again, via the Bordon cluster Moodle vle. Hopes to utilise Sloodle technology lie ahead for the team in the New Year, which will simplify this kind of in-world and real world communication.
Even after 3 years in Skoolaborate the teenagers originally involved still remain enthusiastic about the technology and can see the potential of crossing spatial and temporal boundaries as they communicate within a virtual space whilst learning a host of IT skills including team work, scripting, co-ordination, building, communication, and presentational skills. Three years in the making, the virtual school is developing into a popular destination for inquisitive Sl avatars from around the globe, as well as from local schools in Hampshire and Surrey. Collaborative projects like ‘virtual school’ have become a means to bringing together educational organisations into a joint collaborative project, exciting and innovative and attractive to all age groups.
Chris WoodICT subject leader
