It’s been one month since teachers participated on the MissionV training day at Galway Education Centre and we’ve been delighted with the progress in that short time. In this blog post we’d like to bring you up to date on what students from 20 primary schools all around Ireland, have been creating and learning in their virtual worlds.

A magical house built by Seán, 8, and Aaron, 9 at Gaelscoil an Bhradáin Feasa.

For the first few weeks students on the MissionV programme have been practising the basics of virtual world use – modifying their avatars, building simple objects (and more complex ones – see above!) and learning how to collaborate as a team. These are important foundational skills, the mastery of which is crucial to subsequent stages of the programme.

Training included an introduction to the Scratch programming environment, which is compatible with MissionV, and we are delighted to see students putting it to really creative use. Anne McMorrough from St. Martin de Porres National School,Tallaght reports that her students have password protected a ‘secret laboratory’ on their digital island by writing a Scratch programme –

“We love adding mystery like secret passages and science labs to explore. Today we figured out how to add passwords to our objects, using Scratch, which is great fun!” ~ Leah

Science Week

 The next stage of the programme focuses on Science Week. Students have started developing exhibits for this year’s event based on the ‘Chemistry of Life‘ theme. MissionV will run a massive virtual exhibition, in association with Discover Science & Engineering, where more than two hundred students, parents, teachers and special guests will visit and discuss 20 interactive science models.

This is a true first in Ireland – no virtual event on this scale has ever been attempted before and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Colourful furnishings by students at St. Munchins, Limerick