Monday, September 30, 2013

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.

7 comments:

  1. Well done you did a really good job.
    You got the teachers desk and the big table in the middle in the right place.
    Next time you could move the tables so they are opposite each other.

    Emily
    Selwyn House School

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Elizabeth,

    Well done on your minecraft! You got the middle table correct and the doors correct! Some of the desks were in the correct place too. What was the hardest classroom item that you had to build? Congratulations on the amount that you've got correct!

    Charlotte 8C, Selwyn House School

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well done Elizabeth, your representation of our classroom was really close with only a few mistakes.

    I hope you had fun working with us,
    Sarah Be, 8C

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Elizabeth,

    You're great at drawing to scale and 3D objects! I think you've done a good job with the tables. Something you could work on is putting 2 groups of desks on opposite sides of the classroom. But otherwise you've done really well!

    Juliette, 8C

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello Elizabeth this looks great you have done a fab job.
    Hope you had fun doing this task I know we had fun communicating with you!!

    Abby, 8C
    Selwyn House School, Christchurch

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi,

    That Minecraft Presentation is awesome.
    I really enjoy to watch presentation.

    Moeka 8C Selwyn House

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi, this is Chelsea from 8C. You did really well modeling our classroom only listening to our instructions. Maybe next time you could move the desks, so that 2 groups are on the long side of the wall and the other 2 groups on another.

    ReplyDelete