 This session, we're happy to introduce a terrific couple of speakers with a session called Open Sim Adventures for Middle School Age Children. Our speakers today, excuse me, are Mary Howard and Andrew Wheelock. Mary's a sixth grade teacher at Grand Isles Veronica Connor Middle School in New York and Andrew is the technology coordinator for the Western New York area. Welcome all. Let's begin the session. Hi everyone. I want to just quickly say some quick thank yous to Lear Lobo who was really great at making sure we were keeping on track with this great conference. So thanks Lear. Let me just begin by saying Mary and I have been working at this for probably five, six, seven years. It seems to add up pretty quickly. So I'm going to just introduce where the project's been and Mary really has been taking off with so much of what we've been doing and is really powering things into the future and beyond. So to introduce the project, we started with the Open Sim project called the Islands of Enlightenment. Let me see if I can advance my slide here. And these projects were a grant funded project through New York State Department of Education. And basically that got us started with the server and all of the start-up money for professional development for teachers. And the first project that we did, hard time advancing my slide here, so I'm going to maybe go backwards first. And the first project was the Anne Frank project or the Understanding the Holocaust project. And that was essentially, we recreated the streets of Amsterdam in 1944, there we go. And the idea was to kind of have kids read the book, The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, and then have a virtual world experience and Open Sim to learn about not only the Holocaust, but to learn about Anne Frank and have a visual experience to go with the powerful book. And what we found was kids really got a lot of out of it, because they got to make presentations, they got to make museum exhibits, and they also had to do a lot of writing about the Holocaust. So that was the first project that we rolled out for students. The second project was called The Air of the King, and this is where Mary came into my mad little world here and started really being not only a digital creator, but I'd like to call Mary the curriculum whisperer, because she is a really talented curriculum writer and has a lot of creative ideas, as you'll see, when I turn the mic over to her. But the second year was The Air of the King project, which was a medieval virtual world, and we gamified it, and we really made a lot of, we kind of created a medieval world for kids to walk through, and as they leveled up, they got to go into the castle, and by the time they got to the castle, then there was kind of an Arthurian legend that took place, and students were able to try and solve the mystery of who was the rightful air of the king. So that was really, really a great passion project for us, and the kids were just amazing and had a lot of good time with that. The third year we have a local Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin creation called the Darwin Martin House, and we had the students, you know, as probably all of you know who work with students, they're such a passion for building, that the students just dug right into building, and so we contacted our local Frank Lloyd Wright Museum, the Darwin Martin House, and they were a really great partner, and we had the kids create virtual kind of architecture, and again we found just, it was amazing that the kids understood the principles of architecture, not only just of Frank Lloyd Wright, but just general principles and then made their own designs, and again, Mary was a really big part of this project as well as a lot of other teachers, but Mary really did a lot, we toured the house and then the kids really took it to the next level and created. And then just a couple of other sidebar projects that we did with some other local teachers, Sheila Cannon, who has since retired sadly, but we did our digital art museum project. So kids not only created art out of world and brought it in world, but they also create their own digital project, so that was one of the other projects we did, and that's kind of an avenue that I want to explore in the future. And then we also had, and this is one of my favorite days, is I had some teachers that have been, I had one teacher who was kind of a Civil War reenactor in the real world, and I put him together with some awesome history teachers that have been doing a lot of open sim building. You can see their names there, and we spent the day just recreating a Civil War battlefield, including a medical tent, and it was just a really awesome experience to bring teachers together and let them create, not only creating the content, the historical content, but then having them create the history along with that. And that really kind of were just some of the things that we've involved in this, and I really want to kind of turn it over to Mary, because you know, Mary is such an inspirational teacher to work with, because she took what we had and then really just powered it beyond it, and Mary's not the only one, but Mary certainly has been just a leading force in education, not just in virtual worlds, but other technologies, and now she's starting to blend those in. So with that, I'm going to turn the mic over to Mary and let her really tell you the cool stuff that she's been carrying on with. Thank you. That was quite a buildup. It's hard to sit quietly for such a long period of time. I'm a teacher and you're used to talking all the time, so just to back up a little bit and give some background on myself, I am a sixth grade teacher, and for about 15 years I taught social studies along with ELA, and then I've just recently switched to teaching ELA in science, but still in the sixth grade. And so the title of our session is Open Sim Adventures for Middle School, and a lot of what Spiff just shared really is the genesis and kind of the evolution of what we've been able to do with Open Sim over the years, and it's really allowed me to buy into the program and truly see the value of using Open Sim for instruction and what it can do for my students. And it's quite a powerful thing, and I know I'm probably speaking to a crowd of people that are drinking from the same Kool-Aid, and yet, you know, I have example of after example of things that have changed students' perception of education and instruction, and that, you know, gosh, school can actually be fun and engaging, and I really credit my experiences with using Open Simulator and my collaboration with Spiff as the reason a lot of that was able to happen. So the projects that Spiff shared, you know, again, over the course of the past five years have been wonderful, and then the slide you see up here was just sort of another one where I took what I do already in the classroom. I do a lot of scavenger hunts. I do a lot of breakout activities, escape rooms, you know, really anything to keep students engaged. And so I wanted to try kind of an amalgamation of escape room principles and virtual environments, and that's where this Westing came project came from. And essentially, and I don't know Spiff, we can kind of slowly go through the slides. The kids read the book, The Westing Game by Alan Raskin, and they were on providing a mansion. So you can see the picture here is the mansion. And in this mansion, we built them a scavenger hunt. So after they finished the novel, I wanted to have them evaluate every single character in the book to sort of prepare and what the characteristics of the characters were. So we can go to the next slide here, Spiff. This was the kind of a what they had to do is they had to search for these dollar bills. So I kind of scattered dollar bills all throughout the mansion. And when they and I course program, and so when the kids clicked on it, a little note card pops up. And note card gives them information about the character, but they have to type in the chat bar, the answer. And as they do that, they sort of collected the names of all of these different characters. And you can keep on going here, Spiff. They had to type in on a certain channel, because I didn't want them seeing each other's answers, who the character was. So you can see here, they typed in Sandy McSothers was the answer to the question. And then it gave them a teleport. So they demonstrated their knowledge, teleported to another location. We keep on going with the slides. And one of my favorite favorite parts about the scavenger hunt was something I've been trying to do more and more is bring in AR and VR together at the same time. And now granted, just using a red lens isn't necessarily augmented reality. But for me, it was kind of the first steps in realizing, you know, you can do both. And so it's trying to imagine the students sitting in the computer lab, and they all had little red lenses. And when they teleported to this new location, I hid all of these panels up in the, you know, up in the woods, I guess you could say, and they would hold the red lens literally up to the screen. And it would reveal a phrase. And the phrase went along with a poem that they were collecting. So they went from station to station, teleporting from location to location, as they would answer a question, and then hold the red lens up to the screen to collect the answers. So this is sort of that starting point for me when it came to integrating both, you know, AR and VR and really seeing more and more of an interactive component, along with the building component, because as Spiff mentioned, we did a lot of building we built through the Durham and Martin House, and the students built their own inventions in a mall and a virtual mall. So this kind of was just another step in, okay, I'm going to transform my instruction, I'm going to create a scavenger hunt in a virtual environment that I've already used in the classroom. And I have to say, they absolutely loved it. And you can go to the next slide here. When they finally achieved their objective, and they collected all of the lines to the poem, they would be teleported to the top, there it is, to the top of the mansion. And they had to type in the answer. And then the answer was compass. So it was a poem that I wrote, and they just collected all the lines in the poem, and they would do the chicken dance on the top of the Westing mansion. And so trust me, it was absolutely hysterical to see all these students standing up there on the top of the mansion doing the chicken dance with their avatars. That was all they wanted to do. They were just very, very excited about, you know, getting a solution. And it's the same level of excitement that you've seen a breakout if you've ever done one or that you see in an escape room, it was just this genuine joy, you know, in learning. And that was pretty incredible. And so moving forward this year, I am teaching science, as I mentioned. And, you know, it's really hard teaching a brand new curriculum. It's brand new curriculum for me, brand new curriculum for the district, we're following the next gen science standards. And we're using kind of that five e format. So we start with a phenomenon, the kids explore via stations. And, you know, they explain, we explain things, they expand and elaborate their knowledge. And so I've been really kind of struggling with how can I continue to use virtual environments with a brand new curriculum and everything else. We all know it's not fun. Starting from scratch, that's a really difficult thing to do. So my idea here is this science island. And so I did build, well, actually, Smith gave me some all places. And the students are receiving avatars. And I've got to get them trained, we got to go through our boot camp, got to teach them how to use the virtual, you know, virtual teleporting and everything that comes along with teaching OpenSim. And then they're going to get this lab place. And what we've been doing is using it as evidence of learning. So after we finish every single unit, they have a section in their interactive notebooks, where we call the AHA connections, it's sort of like, Okay, what did we learn about Charles Law and Boyle's Law? They go back in and they write a summary. And what did we learn about density? And they go back in and they write a little summary. So they're using their AHA connections in their interactive notebook to go into their science labs and build evidence of their learning. And so in the picture here, you can see a density column. There's an H2O molecule sitting there. There's examples of physical and chemical change. So as the course of the year continues, really all we've done so far this year is matter 12 weeks of matter. So apparently it does matter. And so all we've done is matter so far, but they're putting the evidence in their little science labs. And I'm really excited about the possibilities here, you know, instead of giving these assessments matter does matter. Instead of giving these the assessment, they can see, you know, we can see the evidence of learning in their labs. But we're also, you know, using those building principles. And I'm teaching them how to, you know, shape objects and how to lay objects down and how to expand the objects and everything else. But they have that sense of ownership because it's their science lab. And so that part's been really exciting to see begin to unfold. We're not nearly where I want to be with it yet. But, you know, this is kind of the idea and this is the direction we're going to be heading. It's only December. So I'm very excited to see where this particular project goes. So then going back to that topic of kind of that amalgamation of AR and VR, someone mentioned earlier, I do believe I see a merge cube sitting on the table. And so, you know, I really, this is not, merge cube is not open sim. And some people might even, you know, scoff at things like co spaces because they really aren't open sim. And they don't have the power that the open sim has when it comes to having an avatar and, you know, being able to build to the depth that you're able to build. And yet this has been a really good starting spot for us in our classroom using Tinkercad. And so we use Tinkercad early in the year when we were designing molecules and it was actually the Tinkercad molecule that I was able to convert and bring a mesh file into the open sim so that their actual molecule is in their little science stores or their science shops. And so Tinkercad has kind of been our starting point when it comes to building. Just learning what a builder's platform is, learning how to look at things in a 3D mode, learning how to manipulate objects, stretch them, rotate them, all of those details. So Tinkercad was our starting point. And now MerchCube and CoSpaces has kind of been my little side journey that I've been on recently with the students. And if I, you know, if I could, I'd love to ask how many of you are familiar with MerchCube? Maybe you can perhaps put in the chat. Have you heard about it? Are you familiar with it? Do you know what the MerchCube is? So I've got a couple people saying yes. It's important to ask your audience what they know before we go on a little tangent. And if you're not familiar with the MerchCube, it is really just an augmented reality trigger. The MerchCube allows for any merge app available in this host of mini-verse. There's a website. It's mini-verse.io. And there are, so a lot of people don't know what it is. Oh, you're in for a treat because these are pretty cool. The mini-verse.io is the website and it has probably about 40 at this point. Different apps that work with the MerchCube that allow augmented reality to trigger. So the MerchCube serves as a target. You open up a MerchCube app and the MerchCube will trigger whatever the app is holding. Like, for example, they have a solar system app. And if you point the solar system app at the MerchCube, you can see the solar system. And if you do the human body one, you can see an augmented reality human body. So that's been really neat. So we've been able to do a few things with the MerchCube in the classroom. And it's nice because the MerchCube is cheap. You can often find them on sale at Walmart for a dollar. So I have 60 of them right now in my classroom that a parent donated. And yet, you know, it's just another tool that can engage the students. Now, what I discovered literally yesterday is what showing up on the slideshow right now. And that is the ARVR overlap, that amalgamation. And so I designed a MerchCube snow globe in a site called Coastbases. And I've got the link up there if anybody's interested in testing it out. You could actually on hopefully on your digital device, if you're sitting at your computer with a device, you could open that and then aim it at the screen right now at that target that's showing up on the screen. That little where the arrow is pointing down at a MerchCube target. And if the planets align and all as well, I have a feeling you'll actually be able to trigger that little snow globe that you can see up on the screen. So you're basically using the open sim and the virtual reality to trigger augmented reality. So last night I was pretty darn excited about the potential of this. So I'm kind of thinking in terms of my scavenger hunt for the Westing Mansion and how, you know, I could embed targets within it. And I could use perhaps HP reveal or I could use the MerchCube or even QR codes and have kind of this, you know, I don't know digital or AR VR experience for the students within the virtual environment. So my brain is spinning with the possibility of some sort of escape or scavenger hunt. Does who mean it worked? I'm very curious if anybody was successfully able to get it to work. It did work for me last night when I held up the target, held up the app and aimed it at the screen. So at this point, that was really all I really wanted to talk about. I just kind of wanted to share some ideas and thoughts and using these types of tools with middle schoolers and certainly we can close up shop or open up to questions. Hey, does anyone have any questions for other virus speakers? I think this is fascinating. And I do love the MerchCube. I just myself started playing around with the possibility of thinking about writing an app. So I was really excited to see it sitting there next to the couch. I guess they're they're pretty open source is what I've been learning as they're open. Well, they're available. There's there's yeah, they can get a license to actually create an app for it. So yes, almost open source, not quite. Gotcha. Yeah. Being not being a developer that's stopped terminology. I'm not familiar with. Lisa asked how you learned about the MerchCube. Let's see here that how did I learn about the MerchCube? Um, get us a good question. I was at ISTI and no, I take it back. I actually was googling one day. Hold a hologram in your hand. I literally typed into my search bar. Hold a hologram in your hand and this toy popped up and it was the MerchCube. And I'm like, well, that's kind of interesting. And it was $15. And so I just bought it because I wanted it for my enough use. I figured I could play with it too. And from there, you know, I discovered that there was so much more you could do the MerchCube than just play with it as a toy. I know my link isn't working for me either as I'm sitting here trying it. Maybe I'll toss in the the local chat a different one that you can try. One of the MerchCube apps. The problem is you would have to download it. And then now the red lens is just I just bought red cellophane, believe it or not at the dollar store. And what I do is on the screen, I just upload the an image that I created in a Google slide. And I could certainly share that with you. And I hide cyan color text beneath red text, pink text and yellow. So it kind of masks it out. But when you hold the red lens up to the screen, the cyan color shows through because it filters out all the other three colors. And it reveals a word or a hidden picture or something like that. I think of it as on the old Crackerjack box days, they had those little red lens games sometimes in there. And I think there's another game. I don't know if it's categories or something like that that the kids know of it that they play, that they also use it. Mary, could I just throw in one more thing before we start to wrap up? Mary and I are both part of the SD's virtual environments network. And we have our meetings in Second Life basically every almost every Tuesday of the month. So by all means, for those of you out there, come on into Second Life and join us. We do have a kind of winter holiday event. A social event this Tuesday at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern. So come on and join us. And again, we're always looking for people to present at the virtual environments playground at ISTI. So if you'd like to join us in any of those pieces, I'll make sure I put the link to the ISTI Venn website and connect with us there as well. OK, I'm going to pop in here and thank you both, Mary and Andrew, for a terrific presentation. Feel free, of course, to continue your conversations and asking questions individually after the session ends.