Describe your dream project using the new media in school. What would you like to do if you had all the equipment you needed and all the time for preparation?

 

When we visited the Landschulheim Steinmühle we were told that the school is planning an interdisciplinary project including the new media.  The project is going to be a virtual classtrip to Australia. Due to the fact that I spent a semester abroad in Australia I was inspired by this idea immediately. If I had all equipment I needed, all the time for preparation and, most important, all the technical knowledge, I would programme a virtual Australian world in which the students could move around as in Second Life. By this, they would be able to explore for example Sydney, climb Harbour Bridge, walk through the rainforest and feed kangaroos in a sanctuary. To ensure a certain learning outcome I would work in certain activities. Let me give an example:

One station of the classtrip would be Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park.

In the course of that the students would have to climb Uluru. On their way to the top they would reach certain points on which geographic information would be given. With regard to the curriculum, Uluru would be a good example of Weathering, in greater detail exfoliation or onion weathering. It occurs in very warm climates when exposed, non-vegetated rock is repeatedly heated and cooled. The surface layers heat up and expand more rapidly during the day and cool and contract more rapidly at night than do the inner layers. This sets up stresses with the rock which cause the surface layers to peel off, like the layers of an onion, to leave rounded rocks and hills. So far for the academic background. Of course, one has to prepare the content in a creative way to catch the interest of the students. Alternatively, the classtrip could be made after this topic has been discussed in school so that the students would have to reactivate  and apply the things they have learned before. The methods used to present certain topics could vary from WebQuests to expert chats, to name only a few. However, I also know that I could never realize such a project because I lack the technical knowledge.

On the other hand I do not want to give up the idea of an, lets say, “artificial” classtrip to Australia. Due to this I’m thinking about a simplified version of such a classtrip and the possibilities of its realisation. One could for example create a blog on which the different destinations being traveled are presented in units, including tasks the students have to work on. They could be asked to create blogs to present their results or to write diary entries about what they learned so far on their trip. 

Anyway, I have to admit that all these ideas are not really concrete yet, but I’m working on applying some structure to them soon. If I fail, I will think about another project.