2020 #VWEDU: Digital literacy. He did it in Classcraft. Like a detective story. Could you do it better in your favorite virtual world? Are your students the heroes who will solve this problem?

He did it in Classcraft. 

Like a detective story.  

Could you do it better in your favorite virtual world?  

Are your students the heroes who will solve this problem?

Consideration of how a story could be created in a virtual world to engage students in activities that develop skills on digital literacy, teamwork, and presentation.  Plus knowledge of some selected STEM content.

Students as detectives

• Digital literacy lesson plan — November’s Quest of the Month
• Classcraft

• Update 11/19/2020 Covid feel good. VWBPE2021: RECONNAISSANCE Call for Proposals Educators' online calendar and OPLN. 

*****************************************

Needed skill sets for developers

• Writer
• Builder
• Scripter/coder
• Subject Matter Expert (SME)
• Instructional designer
• Yes, it takes a team.  Like writing a textbook, only more interesting.
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.

Needed resources

• Instructional objectives for digital literacy in middle school (search)
• Plot 

Brainstorm tips

• Think of an educational web page as a scenario
• Think of the experience you want the learner to get.  
• Think of it as a writer--you must keep the reader interested.
• Think of it as a detective story--the students must find all the clues and put them together to work out the solution. 
• Think of it as a police story--the students must collect evidence to catch the killer. 

Outline 

• The hook catches the reader's attention. 
• Warning! There's a killer on the loose!  
• This mass murderer is a disease. 
• Bloggers: Your opening paragraph catches your readers. Or not. Checklist
• Your task (for the whole class) is to develop a credible plan of defence.

Exposition

• In and educational story, the students do the exposition.
• In our story, the students find the evidence using their digital literacy skills.
• They are formed into teams: Description, hang-outs, modus operandi, vulnerabilities, plans, etc.
• Note: the evidence may be text, graphic displays, animated objects or videos.
• Digital literacy can find on make any of these. 
• The evidence is recorded in a series of videos.

Rising action

• As the information comes in, several planning teams are formed to evaluate, organize and integrate it. 
• The teams work together to produce a comprehensive solution and final report.

Climax

• The class presents its final report including the evidence videos (probably a YouTube playlist.)

Building the investigation office

• Offices on Kitely market (search)
• Bulletin Board

Instructional background

• Inquiry-based learning, project-based learning 

Could you beat this?

• Of course you can do better than this.  
• You can even work it out as a complete lesson plan.
• I hope you do.  
• Maybe I can too.  I hope to be smarter next month.

What are the students learning?

• Digital literacy: how to use the web to collect information and use it.
• Teamwork: How to work with team members on a task too big for one person.
• Presentation: How to organize and present information.
• Subject:  Details about a specific disease and general information about how we combat a disease.

Stories in virtual worlds

• The pecan pie murder. A 3D story in first draft for the writer's workshop
• Tutorial: How to put an interactive story in a 3D web page on 3DWebWorldz
• The developing writer's workshop in 3DWebWorldz: Video conversations
• Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) can run the search game: solo, teacher's game, or team game
• Writer's 3D online workshop: Meet in your browser. Meet in a story scene. Working together apart.
• Collaborative fiction blogging in virtual world. Writing does not have to be lonely

Related

• Teaching Critical Thinking with Education Technology
• Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.
• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary with JIT learning design

*********************************

Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
• I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
• Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
• I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
• Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
• And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  

************************

License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain.
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.
• Screenshots from ShareX
• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
• Annotated screenshots made with Techsmith Capture
• This blog is not affiliated with anything.   Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.