 Now this session, we are happy to introduce Techland, the evolution of a virtual world. Our speaker today is Michelle Techland. Michelle is an educator at IC San Cesario de Leche. She owns and manages Techland, a grid focused on math and science. Welcome all. Let's begin the session. Over to you, Michelle. Thank you very much. Good morning. Today, I will talk to you about the evolution of Techland from 2010 to the present and what kind of educational approach and activities we have performed. Okay, I come from the south of Apulia and I teach in the San Cesario de Leche Institute. Techland is a group of educational and service island focused on math, chemistry, biology and our science. K6, K8 degree students are the target of this project. Techland has been owned and managed by me in order to engage students and to make learning easier. Techland is configured as a hypergrid grid. And this is the configuration of the server. Techland was initially developed as a giant 3D book where a scripted learning object acts as a paragraph displaying mathematical and scientific properties and giving information. Learning objects are placed along structured learning pathways in thematic areas. During the daily activity, Techland is shown by an interactive whiteboard and the teacher's avatar is a kind of assistant. When clicked, the object changed their appearance and position, animating themselves and giving information. So, students can visualize mathematical and scientific properties in a dynamic way and in real time as a 3D vision gives a correct perception of space and geometric transformation. So, in this way concepts are simplified. Then 3D objects are something like metaphors of abstract concepts. This educational approach is typical in island centered on curricular topics like mathematics, statistical science and chemistry. In this learning setting, students were almost passive users. I'll talk with a relative degree of interactivity. However, students are free to explore islands from home. In the next step, the next step was making students develop an entire project in Word by collaborating together. In this case, the teacher has the role of facilitating and supporting learning. This generally happens for a short time project. After short training on building and terraforming techniques, students were encouraged to express their creativity and knowledge starting from scratch the building of an entire island. The first island is Waterland. It is the first island student built. Okay, in this kind of project, steps to follow are similar. The first step is to get information by brainstorming and research and make real scientific activities such as laboratory experiment followed by documentation activity, multimedia presentation to Reds in Word. The second step is to translate information into 3D objects, tridimensional graphics, molecules, plants and so on. The third step is the production of short movies by using the PC screen capture. Okay, Waterland was the first island followed by other islands. These are the last. This is Metroland, made last year by K6 student, focused on the physical quantities and instrument. And this is Glass and the winner project in a national contest about glass and its uses. Okay, if it's possible, we tend to mix an approach where in an island there is an educational areas built by the teacher and an exhibition area built by a student. In 2015, we started a building of Matland Arithmetic and the student began to script objects with the LSL program. I noticed that it was quite difficult for pupils. They had to pay attention to syntax errors, spending a lot of time to debug and often they were discouraged to go on coding. However, students were familiar with the visual programming languages like Scratch and Blocky, because the year before the Italian Government Educational Department started a three-year national project in partnership with Code.org in order to make students familiar with the K concept of computer science and with computational thinking. Visual programs were more intuitive and students easily combined functional structure blocks to make scripts. They were more engaged, they avoid syntax errors and were able to run correct sequences of instruction as well. In order to combine coding and virtual world, we used the Flash Scratch tool in the scripting language, FS2 LSL. Since then, students started producing 3D learning objects, it became more and more creative, adding content and behavior to their products. They divide the job in a team, a scripter, a builder and a content editor. Coding helped the students to think in a sequential manner to decompose complex problems into simpler sub-problems, to be clear in giving instructions and to share a job. The combination of coding and building activity has increased the students' engagement with mathematics. In 2016, a group of about 50 students of our school started an extracurricular project to learn the K concept of 3D modeling and 3D printing using a solid modeling CAD software, 1, 2, 3D design. As compared with the mesh modeling CAD, it was easier and more intuitive to be used by the students and very close to the award building. So after 16 hours of training, they were able to build their object and to import them in Techland. This is a distillation plant made by a student for her final exam of middle school. And this is the last project this year. Glassland focuses on glass, uses recycled plant, molecular structure and so on. Skyscrapers and many parts of the recycled plant are mesh objects. Okay, one of the other activities that we perform are machinima video. Machinima videos are different and original way to report about projects carried out during a year. In this way, students can express their personal point of view by using other types of languages. Often, students like mixing virtual and real elements, so they avatar as the role of storyteller and real images or videos are shown in panels and screens. And they also like to recall past and present events. Students also create multimedia products including machinima video lesson in their website. Okay, generally the first step of the work consisting of research, note, reflection about how to write the recording narration voice of the video. In the second step, the teacher allowed an OR file containing terrain, building, shop, texture, pose, furniture and clothes from internet. Students freely modify contents to set different chance for their videos. Specific objects are directly built by the student on the spot. During the third step, students recall small part of the video by using the screen capture, viewer lie effect and camera tools. Then they assemble video, voice audio, music and text with common video editing programs. Okay, this is a machinima video that won a national contest of the Italian governative education department about informatic technology in 2016. Okay, in order to carry out activities in Techland, student and teacher need to be quite confident with the viewer tools, the avatars movement, the building and scripting skill. So there are some service sims in Techland for this purpose. There is the prim school, the training area about viewer tools and the sandbox. They can use this service sim without the teacher supervisor. But I noticed that during the training period when they have user name password, they generally prefer building without attending training sim by making various subtents and consulting other student. Okay, Techland has the typical feature of a constructivistic learning environment. Most of the activity are based on an engaged project of problem to be solved. The teacher provides a rich environment where pupils can find information and material. Special training area provides student with the necessary skill to operate in world. Interactive learning object act as a mind tool to foster learning. The teachers like a coach who facilitate meaningful learning. Voice and instant chat communication tool allow interactive with other avatars sharing ideas, information in a not a hierarchical manner. Okay, one of the strength of Techland is that is constantly evolving and expanding. New island and new content are added from time to time, depending on the needs of the pupils and on the project they are participating in. Year by year Techland has become a collaborative platform where teacher can approach to new methodologies and student are active protagonists of their own knowledge. I'll wait you at the booth number 10 in expo zone three. Thank you for your attention. And I am glad to answer to any questions you want to make. Thank you very much. Fantastic session, Michelle. We'll give them a moment to see if there are any questions from the audience. Well, thank you for a fantastic session. And you were so well organized. That was great content.