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The River City Project - Part II

As with any learning experience involving technology there were a lot of questions, concerns, and hurdles around the immersion of a whole class of students in a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE).  Facing this implementation was a hurdle of having enough computers to provide each student with a laptop.  The challenge?  Mrs. Rauh's classes varied in size with two (2) classes with approximately 12 students and  two (2) classes of 29 students each.  Not only did we need at least 29 laptops we needed them to be reliable and have good connectivity.

The River City Project: Part I

This is the first in a series of posts on the River City Project born out of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.  The River City Project has been around for a number of years now as a research project studying scientific inquiry and 21st century skills in middle school students.  During the project, teams of students are immersed as "scientists-in-training" within a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) with the task of investigating and design experiments around diseases that are plaguing the city's residents. 

This is a story four years in the making...

Next Monday, Gene Gordon, a physics teacher at Fairport High School and NASA Fellow, will embark on a "dream come true" to witness first hand the first images from unknown regions of the planet Mercury.  Gene will be sitting amongst NASA scientists as the MESSENGER spacecraft takes its extraordinary path to orbit Mercury and grab images and information from the closest planet to the Sun.