Melville Intermediate - Modelling another classroom in Minecraft

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More PowerPoint presentations from Myles Webb

Melville Intermediate - Selwyn House in Minecraft Presentation

Earlier this term, inspired by 'Room with a View' from the Figure it Out, Mathematics Curriculum Geometry Level Three Books - although we adapted it slightly.  Those of you familar with the teaching resource will know that under the material listed it suggests a speaker phone.  We put a twist on it, and used our Aotearoa Quadblogging Buddies, Tawa Intermediate and Selwyn House to communicate with by leaving comments on their blog and then responding to them.   This allowed us to refine our questioning technique and also improve the use of mathematical language that our students were using, this worked for both us and our buddies that we were working with.

We started with a two dimensional grid model, refined it with responses from our buddies, converted our two dimensional grid to a three dimensional sketch, contacted our buddies about the sketch, built a three dimensional cube model based on the sketch, and finally constructed the finished classroom in Minecraft.

We then contacted our buddies to show them the results.  Elizabeth, one of the Room Five students filmed this video explaining the process.  You can see some of the screenshots in the process here.
 
  ElizabethMinecraftExplanation from myles webb on Vimeo.

From a teaching perspective a week long project stretched into four weeks however the students were engaged, they were collaborating with other students form across New Zealand and they used Minecraft in a constructive way.  The producing of the final Minecraft model was the quickest part of the whole project.  We completed models of two out of three of our Quadblogging buddies and will continue posting the results during our term break and early next term.

Melville Intermediate - Room 15@Tawa Intermediate in Minecraft

Nathan G and Daniel have been working on this virtual map of Room Fifteen, Tawa Intermediate School.  They are part of the Lumpy Space Princesses from Room Five.  Earlier this week the group completed a two dimensional grid map of the Tawa Inatermediate classroom folllowing detailed discussion and a first attempt at drawing the classroom.

Today Minecraft was used to construct Room Fifteen on the basis of the grid map.   The buidling took place between 9:00am and 9:30am from start to finish.

This is what Nathan G wrote about the activity:
this is me and Daniels idea of room 15 at Tawa Intermediate. we built this on mine craft with clues from the students in that class. the first picture is a view from above the cloak bay, and in the second picture it is a picture from the white board. behind the wall paintings is the cloak bay.

This is what Daniel wrote about the acitivity:\
Me and Nathan G design on minecraft what we thought what Room 15 at Tawa Intermediate school looked like from the inside. The first thing we had to do was create a 2D model of Room 15 then create a 3D model of Room 15 out of small blocks then the final step was was creating Room 15 on minecraft which took only 45 mins.  

We also completed this task mapping Room 8C from Selwyn House in Christchurch, the details of that post are here.

Melville Intermediate - 3d Modelling in Minecraft

We're fast approaching the end of term in Room Five, and we've attempting to complete our Drawing to Scale/two dimension to three dimension/modelling of another classroom.  As you know we've completed the task with Selwyn House and were trying to currently complete this task for Room Fifteen at Tawa Intermediate - we've set ourselves a deadline of tomorrow, the last day of term, and have been busy working in all four Mathematics groups to complete the task.

Room Fifteen @TIS Models - slideshow

These are some of the screen shots from the Minecraft creations of 8c Selwyn House, Room Fifteen Tawa Intermediate and Room Five, Melville Intermediate Schoool.

MineCraftScreenShots2013 - slideshow

Melville Intermediate - 3d Modelling Room 15 @ Tawa Intermediate

Today we got back into one of our Mathematics activities that were completing before the end of term - the mapping of Room Fifteen @ Tawa Intermediate School.   This process has been a bit more drawn out than expected but thats because of the challenge that has been posed by a classroom that dosen't have a traditional set up.  What Room 15@ TIS are is extremely active online, so today the 'ban' from our classroom teacher was lifted allowing our students to look online at everything they could find.  We've had some wonderful questioning prior but we spent this morning looking at Room Fifteen from an online perspective.  The students then compared this to their notes that they'd taken, the feedback from the students that they'd received and reworked the maps that we've already been working on.  The group that was told in the first round of mapping was the closet, the Lumpy Space Princesses, were able to refine their model and then start constructing Room Fifteen in Minecraft.

Space Princesses @ TIS - slideshows

Melville Intermediate - Is THIS Room 15 @ Tawa Intermediate School?

As part of Geometry for Mathematics we are attempting to create scale maps of classrooms, we have already created maps of own classroom and Selwyn House School from Christchurch.  Both these experiences provided us with better questioning and reasoning.  However our newest challenge has really tested our students - a map of Room Fifteen at Tawa Intermediate School.   They've got some unusual learning stations and classroom set up (no teachers desk for instance!).  We orginally had a detailed description of the classroom provided by one of the students, Tom.  We then reworked that description with additional information provided in the form of questions asked through the Room Fifteen class page.  Today each Mathematical group in Room Five presented their version of Tawa Intermediate School - and as you can see from the videom, four different groups would appear to mean four different maps!
Is this Tawa Intermediate School? from myles webb on Vimeo.

Melville Intermediate - 8C Selwyn House in Minecraft

We've been working on our Selywn House School models for the past week and a half in Mathematics for Geometry.   Those of you who've been following us with the series of posts will know that we originally used the Figure It Out Books 'Room with a View' as our inspiration for this activity.  We modified it slightly - we used blogging comments to start constructing our maps and when we didn't get enough information we went back and left follow up comments.  The allowed us to create our two dimensional models.  We then used this to create our block models of 8C Selwyn House, we then collaborated with them and modified our designs.  The final stage in this process, from two dimensional model to three dimensional model was for our students to use Minecraft to create a three dimensional model of the classroom.   This is Elizabeths model of the inside of Selwyn House, Christchurch.


This is what Elizabeth wrote about the task:

For Maths, Mr Webb asked us to choose a class, ask them some questions that would get us information about what there class looks like, and draw out our version of what we think the class looks like from the information that we got back from them. I chose 8c Selwyn House and asked them about 32 questions. I wanted to get as much information as I could so I could get the classroom exactly right. I ended up getting it wrong but I don’t mind because it was really fun to draw the classroom and create it on Minecraft. Here are my screenshots:

Melville Intermediate - 8C's Helpful Video.

Those of you following along as our 'Room with a View' task has developed will have seen us develop our two dimensional model of 8C Selwyn House, Christchurch.  The language of Geometry and the directional use of language have been key features in our developing our understanding of their classroom.  Today we were very pleased to be aware of a video response to our short movie that we posted earlier this week.   Even better than that, instead of simply walking around thier classroom, 8C from Selwyn House has responded with their own two dimensional model of thier classroom! Thanks so much to our friends!

Melville Intermediate - Jamies Minecraft Collaboration

As part of our viewing of the quests from Mr Woods Minecraft Kids Quest Site the students from Room Five were asked to carry out one of the tasks and then write an explanation of the task that they had completed and detail another task that could be created by the site.   This work is written by Jamie from Room Five and the pictures with the post are screen shots of her work.

MINECRAFT CHALLENGE

Learning intention: I am writing explanation for my choices.

1.Minecraft because minecraft is something I enjoyed doing and I always have fun creating houses. My challenge is to make a house for four people which is one one of my favourite things to do on mine craft.

2.My challenge is that im not use to playing on the computer so building this will be different and complicated. The controls are hard too.

3. Yes, I would choose a different Quest because then I will be giving myself a better challenge. Making house’s is fun but next time I would want a bigger challenge.

4. Another Minecraft because its one of my favourite things to do. A new Quest to do would be to make a hospital or something ,more challenging maybe even a hotel. My suggestion is to Make a hospital for at least 10 paitents. With waiting rooms and play areas for the kids. Also with at least 3 storys. This would be educational because I could teach you how to work the hospital and how it works. 

The questions based around this writing were - why did you choose Minecraft, why did you choose the particular challenge, would  you choose a different one, What could be a new quest that you could develop/work on.

Melville Intermediate - A fantastic Quadblogging Aotearoa Collaboration

As part of Geometry this term our students have been excited with the prospect of constructing scale models of other classrooms around New Zealand involving (first) 3d models and then Minecraft.  The students are currently at the questioning stage.  Thanks to our friends at Tawa Intermediate, Selwyn House in Christchurch and Mt Pleasant School our students have left comments on their class or individual blogs and sought information about the classroom layout. 

Already the activity is paying learning dividends because a number of our students have realised that their questions need to be more detailed and more direct so that the 2d plan of the layout can be more accurate.  The great thing about the blogging aspect

of this is that an online conversation between the students is being recorded in the commenting that is going to allow its progression and development to be easily monitored.   In the next few days we should complete our students two dimensional drafts which we are then going to send to our Aotearoa Quadblogging buddies.  From there the learning communication and conversations should develop further.  Stay tuned.

Melville Intermediate - Quadblogging/Minecraft Collaboration

This term in class we're looking at Geometry as our major subject in Mathematics.  Currently were working on a variety of tasks, one of which is from Figure It Out Geometry, Level Three.  In this task

'Room With A View' (which is from page thirteen if you've got the book in front of you).  Requires you to model a classroom using a speaker phone and reconstruct the classroom through the instructions of the person that you've spoken to.

We thought we'd take it one step further.  We've left comments to our Aotearoa Quadbloggoing Buddy Classes to ask for help with this.  We're going to use the contacts that we made with Selwyn House, Mt Pleasant School and Tawa Intermediate.  We've either left comments or are leaving comments that will give us enough information to construct models using Geometric language.  Over the next week we'll receive replies from our Quadblogging buddies, and then we'll construct the classroom based on our replies.  The construction of the classroom is taking two forms - we're going to draw it, what we think it is like, construct a model of the class, and top it off by building the classroom belonging to our buddies in Minecraft.  We're then going to share the models with the students who are in the classrooms.  A great collaboration that we'll keep updating in the next week and a bit!

Melville Intermediate - Minecraft Collaborative Site

We've had a Minecraft craze sweeping Room Five at the moment - our students are very excited by the game and the possibilities.  One site that we've really enjoyed look at is from Mr Wood and his collaborative Minecraft Quest site.  There are currently a range of challenges and examples on the site with more still to come.  You can visit Mr Woods wonderful site by clicking on the link here.

Since the end of last week the students of Room Five have had an opportunity to take part in the quests that are listed on the site.  We're writing about our experiences completing the quests, taking screen shots of the 'build' and will be posting them on our class page later this week.