Hello, My Name is Demetri: March 2015

I had a few ideas for an immersive learning space for this assignment, especially after having some practice building an immersive museum for a different class with Professor Walsh. During the semester, we watched a few videos showing young elementary level students using Immersive learning environments to interact with the material they were being taught about. For example, students were watching a virtual hawk fly while learning about hawks. One thing that struck me though, was that especially with how much schools encourage activities such as teams and physical education, none of the environments I saw being used in the videos had anything to do with sports. Because of this, my initial idea was to use minecraft to build a virtual football stadium which could be used while teaching young students the game of football, so they can then use it for physical activity in gym class and so forth.

However, realizing that a football stadium was more of a building than an environment, I had to expand on it, and so I added a "Bridge to Egyptian History", in which I created a full environment for young students to explore as well as find hidden treasures. All of which could easily be incorporated to a 3rd-5th grade level history class, dealing with Egypt's history, as well as discoveries in the area.

This was a task, but I had fun doing it (after all I'm playing a video game) and I hope somehow this map I created on minecraft can be downloaded or shared, I'd love for it to reach students in a nearby Elementary School, or really anywhere.

So let's begin our virtual tour, and see the environment, as well as my ideas that went along with each part!

First, a view of everything! We can see properly named iED Stadium on the right, and "Egypt" on the left.

Here is the front entrance to the stadium, with the first 3D object which is a statue. Students could be taught about a position on the field while walking around this statue of a player.

Here is a view of the pyramid from the base of the statue.

Next we enter the stadium and see the big scoreboard. I added goal posts to help students during a lesson explaining points in the game.

Here we have a view of the highest seat in the stadium, and also a view of the pyramid from the top of the stadium.

Above are more views of the stadium.

Next, we turn and walk toward the bridge to "Egyptian History".

Also, a view of the stadium from the bridge below.

Once across the bridge, we have entered our actual immersive learning environment. Students would see a pyramid to explore on the left, and 2 caves to explore on the right!

Below, we enter cave number 1.

Young students could walk through the dimly lit halls exploring while being taught about discoveries made in the last century that tell of Egyptian History.

Almost there...

Finally! At the end of the cave, they'll find a block of gold.

Next, climbing out isn't an easy task, but makes it seem more realistic. The climb out of Cave 1 is seen below.

When coming out of Cave 1, students will be facing the opposite direction, prompting them to notice Cave 2 which was behind them when they first entered.

Below is the journey into Cave 2.

At the end, there is a block of diamond!

Below is the climb out.

Once out, students will see the pyramid which is open to explore. This could of course be used while teaching a lesson on the pyramids which are possibly the biggest part of Egypt's history.

Below are some more views of the pyramid.