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.

Two emails that I read today related to literacy grants. One if for Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Competition through the Federal government. The other is from the New York State Educational Media/Technology Association (EMTA) looking at Media Literacy. I just wanted to quickly share this out.

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. 

Who would have thought that Oprah would want to interview Ariel the Mermaid and Prince Eric the Jellyfish?