Building on Papert and others’ use of the microworld with Logo, I will discuss some aspects of virtual worlds today, focussing on their applications in education with relevant case studies. Practical work explores Google Sketchup as a tool for creating representations of 3-D objects.

2. Piaget (1961)
“Experience of objects plays, naturally, a very important role
in the establishment of dynamic structures”
“All exchange between the organism and the environment is
composed of two poles:
A) of the assimilation of the given external to the previous
internal structures, and
B) of the accommodation of these structures to the given
ones.”
From Piaget (1961) A genetic approach to the psychology of thought

3. Papert 1980
 “Relate what is new … to something you already know…
Take what is new and make it your own”
 Learning Newton’s Laws
 “More is needed than an intuitive, seat of the pants
experience. The student needs to … conceptualize and
‘capture’ this world”
 “Design a microworld to serve as an incubator for
Newtonian physics”

4. With scientific method, we took things apart
to see how they work. Now with computers
we can put things back together to see how
they work, by modelling complex,
interrelated processes, even life itself. This is
a new age of discovery, and ICT is the
gateway.
Douglas Adams, Author
The Importance of ICT

5. National Curriculum
 KS1: to try things out and explore what
happens in real and imaginary situations
 KS2: to use simulations and explore models in
order to answer 'What if ... ?' questions, to
investigate and evaluate the effect of changing
values and to identify patterns and
relationships

6. Computing
A high-quality computing education equips pupils to
understand and change the world through
computational thinking. It develops and requires
logical thinking and precision. It combines creativity
with rigour: pupils apply underlying principles to
understand real-world systems, and to create
purposeful and usable artefacts. More broadly, it
provides a lens through which to understand both
natural and artificial systems, and has substantial links
with the teaching of mathematics, science, and design
and technology.

7. Programme of Study
 use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple
programs
 design and write programs that accomplish specific goals,
including controlling or simulating physical systems

8. Physics

10. Simulators

11. Scratch Physics

12. Numpty Physics

13. Star Logo TNG

14. Epidemics in Scratch

15. Google Art Project

16. Sketchup

17. Scratch 4 Second Life

18. Minecraft

20. Following up & moving on
 Attach your VR model to a blog post which includes your
reflections.
 You may wish to create an account for Second Life and
investigate its educational potential.
 Read pp 32-50 of Bacon and Dillon (2006), posting any
thoughts to your Blog.
 Book a tutorial for next week.