Build A World EDU is developed to support Collaborative Learning
The introduction of computers and the Internet has brought significant changes to education.
Though computer-aided education and computer-assisted training have been around a long time, the tools available is often were confined to more or less advanced multi-choice solutions.
Build a World EDU provides next generation possibilities for students to explore and contribute to a virtual world which got a vast amount of similarities with the real world.
A virtual world like Build a World represents a set of new rules, abilities and possibilities. All these are an invitation to explore, experiment and create together. Given the right conditions, a student can enter the world with a purpose and a goal. The Scenario is a set of premises for the world or basically the narrative that students become a part of.
The sandbox acts as a “Choose your own adventure” – environment, where students take part in an unfolding story. The story is the scaffolding in which students can engage in challenges together, while experimenting, creating and exploring new locations and possibilities.
The virtual space also presents a canvas for free fantasy, letting students encounter massive structures and dramatic events at very close quarters. The ability to experience and experiment with a virtual environment are key to creating an immersive- and thereby a memorable learning experience.
Using these game dynamics, educators can harness the natural flow of sandbox gameplay to nurture curiosity and discovery.
The Before, During and After approach
To easily gain the most rewarding benefits of using Build A World EDU is important to set the right surrounding when using the platform as a teaching tool.
As a general approach to working with games in the classroom, using a “before, during and after” – mindset, provides a good structure for a lesson. Before and after take place off-game ie. in the classroom, and during takes place in the game.
The purpose of the before phase is to qualify the activities that are going to take place once students are inside the virtual world. Students can conduct research, create hypotheses and plan collaboration in order to make well founded decisions when they enter the simulation.
The during phase is a time where students can test, co-create and experiment, based on their preparations. Most often the quality of the gameplay is derived from how well students have planned their work.
After the simulation, a teacher needs to create reflection on what has been experienced. This is to make a transfer of knowledge from a simulation experience to a deeper understanding of the subject matter in relation to the real world. This reflection can be initiated by students documenting and presenting using the built in screencapture features.
The teacher starts a Build A World session day with a Kick-off. If the session is about sustainable energy the teacher can tell about the basic power production, the history behind the different technologies or using other angle thats relevant for the specific class curriculum. The Kick-off should have a duration of 15 – 45 min.
The students are split in several teams and each team is handed out specific task they should solve inside the virtual world that the Build A World platform provides. The students have to debate and communicate to find their own solution for solving the tasks they are responsible of. We recommend a duration of 4 – 5 hours for the During phase.
This is a Show & Tell session where each student team presents how they have solved their tasks, what they have learned, advantages and disadvantages, or how they would do it next time and so on. Recommended duration of the AFTER is 10 – 15 min. pr. team.
Thought out didactic principles
The didactics of Build a World EDU are inspired by modern teaching principles
Flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, often online, outside of the classroom. It moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home and engage in concepts in the classroom with the guidance of a mentor.
E-learning 2.0 is “learning as a network phenomenon”, e.g. web of user-generated content, such as learning scenarios, 3D models social networks and communities (entails a genuinely portable (and owned) identity, Networks of interactions (aggregate, remix, repurpose, feed forward) – syndication.
A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.
We believe in the same ideas as described in the video below from Lego Foundation.