Listen to your 'clients'.
When I’m building a new 'virtual experience', I want to get as far away from the traditional view of a classroom as possible. We've already got the bricks and mortar version, right? I wasn't sure this was a shared opinion. Often businesses go straight to the virtual office model. Recreating their physical building in the virtual space. This makes more sense as it’s familiar and productive, but is it the same for education? Today we can go anywhere, learn anywhere, from locations limited only by our imaginations. Do students really want to sit in a replica of their classroom? So I went to ‘the loop’ to seek answers.
I work primarily with Years 4, 5, and 6 students. Junior schoolers. When I asked some of them about it, almost all of them said something similar to "Why would we want another version of what we've already got?". There it is in a nutshell.
Our students are the harshest critics, but they'll give you the most honest feedback. They're also the best indicator you have, to see that what you’re doing is working! So next week we're going into deep space to learn about plant growth. That should keep them happy. You should come with us! www.edumetaverse.com.au