DRIVING QUESTION: What will our school look like in the future?
Students reflected on their existing school, researched future learning spaces and collaboratively built a future school using ‘Minecraft Education’.
The journey began with students imagining what a school of the future would look like and drawing their vision. Ideas were developed by taking virtual reality tours of current future focused schools. Interviews were conducted on students throughout the school to gain multiple perspectives on what Ferncourt could look like in the future.
In small groups, students measured the area of different parts of the school using a trundle wheel. Collaboratively, all measurements were put together to create a complete scaled map of Ferncourt Public School.
A team of student Minecraft experts took leadership roles in setting up the original outline of the school. Measurements were double checked when needed using both trundle wheels and an approximate 'stride' movement. The students paid careful attention to detail and ensured that all buildings and open spaces accurately reflected the real world buildings.
Using ideas from the beginning of the project, the creative team were in charge of re-imagining what each room would look like. Walls were taken down and new spaces were conceptualised. A major problem that was encountered was when students realise that some buildings were on a slant and it was impossible to build accurately because 'creative mode' did not allow you to dig deep enough. A new plan was formed for Ms Kay and Ms Sens rooms - they were replaced with a swimming pool! Mrs Scott's room became the change rooms and a diving platform.
Students continued working collaboratively throughout the term and showed strength and determination with the various obstacles thrown our way. The first was NAPLAN, which meant we couldn't access the computer room with all our work for two weeks. Students spent this time revisiting their designs from the beginning of the project and researching new ideas. Some of the design concepts that were envisioned during the first phase of learning were revisited and developed into 3D models using the program '3D Slash'.
The second obstacle was when Minecraft user licenses were suspended! Mr Walsh saved the day and showed Mrs Evans how to sign everyone up again. Phew!
The biggest obstacle and by far the moment where students showed the most resilience was when our entire world was deleted. Mrs Evans didn't realised that the world was saved on a desktop and when the computers were re-imaged, everything disappeared, never to be seen again.
Students were momentarily disheartened and many tears were shed. We had been so close to the end, and with only two more weeks of school left it seemed impossible to recover from the apocalyptic destruction of our carefully crafted universe. Matt managed to see the humour in what had occurred and said what had happened was 'ironic'. It was only a few weeks ago that we had discussed the possibility of a future world where it would become unliveable and Ferncourt would protect itself with a bio-dome style shield (parents - yes, we did discuss the real bio dome and also the hilarious Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin movie!). A result of this led to Nora writing a short story to further envision the setting.
To my delight, T4L announced that they were holding a Minecraft competition! This gave students the motivation to pick themselves up and start again. This time, students decided to completely let loose and create a future school of their own with no measurements needed. Other year 6 students who were not part of the enrichment group heard of our story and offered to jump on board to get the work done on time. The most empowering moment for me as a teacher was to see junior and senior students working side by side to get their designs right - a true reflection of the future focused skills that were developed throughout this project (collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking).
Although our original concept was not what we ended up with, I have never been prouder of my students. I would like to thank each and every one of them for their dedication and commitment to this project.
I hope you all enjoy watching our videos of the final design. Just hover over the 'FERNCOURT FUTURE' tab at the top to get to all the pages. Please feel free to leave feedback for the students on the comments section below. Students - I will post any feedback on Google Classroom so stay tuned.
Mrs Evans
Students reflected on their existing school, researched future learning spaces and collaboratively built a future school using ‘Minecraft Education’.
The journey began with students imagining what a school of the future would look like and drawing their vision. Ideas were developed by taking virtual reality tours of current future focused schools. Interviews were conducted on students throughout the school to gain multiple perspectives on what Ferncourt could look like in the future.
In small groups, students measured the area of different parts of the school using a trundle wheel. Collaboratively, all measurements were put together to create a complete scaled map of Ferncourt Public School.
A team of student Minecraft experts took leadership roles in setting up the original outline of the school. Measurements were double checked when needed using both trundle wheels and an approximate 'stride' movement. The students paid careful attention to detail and ensured that all buildings and open spaces accurately reflected the real world buildings.
Using ideas from the beginning of the project, the creative team were in charge of re-imagining what each room would look like. Walls were taken down and new spaces were conceptualised. A major problem that was encountered was when students realise that some buildings were on a slant and it was impossible to build accurately because 'creative mode' did not allow you to dig deep enough. A new plan was formed for Ms Kay and Ms Sens rooms - they were replaced with a swimming pool! Mrs Scott's room became the change rooms and a diving platform.
Students continued working collaboratively throughout the term and showed strength and determination with the various obstacles thrown our way. The first was NAPLAN, which meant we couldn't access the computer room with all our work for two weeks. Students spent this time revisiting their designs from the beginning of the project and researching new ideas. Some of the design concepts that were envisioned during the first phase of learning were revisited and developed into 3D models using the program '3D Slash'.
The second obstacle was when Minecraft user licenses were suspended! Mr Walsh saved the day and showed Mrs Evans how to sign everyone up again. Phew!
The biggest obstacle and by far the moment where students showed the most resilience was when our entire world was deleted. Mrs Evans didn't realised that the world was saved on a desktop and when the computers were re-imaged, everything disappeared, never to be seen again.
Students were momentarily disheartened and many tears were shed. We had been so close to the end, and with only two more weeks of school left it seemed impossible to recover from the apocalyptic destruction of our carefully crafted universe. Matt managed to see the humour in what had occurred and said what had happened was 'ironic'. It was only a few weeks ago that we had discussed the possibility of a future world where it would become unliveable and Ferncourt would protect itself with a bio-dome style shield (parents - yes, we did discuss the real bio dome and also the hilarious Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin movie!). A result of this led to Nora writing a short story to further envision the setting.
To my delight, T4L announced that they were holding a Minecraft competition! This gave students the motivation to pick themselves up and start again. This time, students decided to completely let loose and create a future school of their own with no measurements needed. Other year 6 students who were not part of the enrichment group heard of our story and offered to jump on board to get the work done on time. The most empowering moment for me as a teacher was to see junior and senior students working side by side to get their designs right - a true reflection of the future focused skills that were developed throughout this project (collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking).
Although our original concept was not what we ended up with, I have never been prouder of my students. I would like to thank each and every one of them for their dedication and commitment to this project.
I hope you all enjoy watching our videos of the final design. Just hover over the 'FERNCOURT FUTURE' tab at the top to get to all the pages. Please feel free to leave feedback for the students on the comments section below. Students - I will post any feedback on Google Classroom so stay tuned.
Mrs Evans