Christine Rodriguez

ECI-511 - PBL Immersion Program

Description:

The PBL Immersion program is designed to specifically create a short term immersion of a virtual environment to carry out a task or solve a problem.

Findings:

The article by Mambo and McGrath discuss the use of virtual environments and an example of a successfully implemented virtual village.  In the article the immersion environment or ?virtual village? is based on the French culture.  The students are required to become immersed in the French culture and communicate the way the French do.  All activities that are assigned are based on the French way of life; therefore, give continuous reinforcement to the content/subject that is being taught.  Mambo insists that the ability to have the students immersed in what it is that they are learning in an ?authentic? manner actually keeps the student more engaged.  Although the example used in the article referred to mainly foreign languages, it is pointed out that the implementation of the program can be used for most content/subject areas.  During our discussions we also find that the program was quite useful because it would lend itself to higher order thinking as well as give a teacher the ability to incorporate their curriculum.  The one setback that may cause a problem for some districts would be that in order to create the virtual village you must have access to computer stations with the ability to utilize programs such as quicktime and so on.  Since this immersion is an audio-visual program for students to have access to the proper technological equipment.  Using quicktime students could create audio projects and shows.

Reflection:

After reading the article by Mambo I was inspired to create my own virtual village in my classroom.  I developed a unit titled ?Project Passport?, where all students would be given a country to focus on while working on a particular genre or theme.  Using this specific country all activities and aspect of the activities would be focused around that particular culture.  For instance I was executing a Drama unit, Project Passport would cover all aspects of the objectives covered in our drama unit for that specific country/region.  If students had Germany as their passport country then they would be required to focus their dramatic pieces specific to Germany and the German country.  Students could create broadcasts of Nazi Germany and the events that occurred during that time period.  I am extremely excited about this type of program because it is ongoing and can be switched from objective to objective and unit to unit.

There are a mulititude of variations that can be made when creating these virtual images and I am interested in seeing any blog responses as to how educators would implement this program in their classrooms...

Posted at 09:02PM Nov 27, 2006 by RODRIGUEZ, CHRISTINE in General  |  Comments[0]