Scenario-Brainstorming

For the Zoo: They have a few cats, and a husky dog. So that is good

they do have a mouse, but no alligator or bald eagle.

Here are some zoo animals we could use though: A variety of bugs, hawk, camel, flamingo, kangaroo, koala, lemur, lion, monkey, penguin, shark, wolf

The have some fences in the farm section that I could probably use to make it look more "zoo like"

For the weather This was a bit trickier. They have a lightening bolt and a cloud with lightening. But they don't just have clouds and I am not sure how we could simulate rain/hail/wind...etc

I think the Earthquake pretty easily we could do because we can just make a room with random objects and have them all shaking. I think this one we could really expand on if we wanted to and would make sense and seems very scenario driven. They have some pretty cool fire animations which might work if we wanted to expand on the natural disasters...

I am just going to through a couple more of these ideas out here...just to give you an idea of what is available...

They had a pretty cool Alaska, Arizona, and Forest backgrounds...we could compare contrast different climates. Or we could still work the weather in here by saying how one might feel in each of these climates (cold, hot, dry, sunny, overcast..etc) They also had a whole ocean floor collection...maybe we could have them visit the aquarium...(or this is part of the zoo) to learn more about the varieties of fish.

They had a lot of space models as well as amusement park models. They also have a number of dinosaurs.

We can definitely make it look like a city/town very easily though. They have plenty of buildings for us to use.

I have seen some info about scavenger hunts for students. Maybe we could create an environment or room and we provide them with a list of questions. Maybe some of them require interaction with objects in Alice in order to get the answer. They would be proving they understand the written questions and they are also using other vocabulary if we ask them questions like, who is the girl standing next to..or what color is her hair? or she asked you a question, what was the question and how would you answer?

Ideas for Interactivity:


 * 1) We can keep score
 * 2) We can check for collisions...so if one object hits another object something happens
 * 3) There is a way we can program to make things happen in order so they can't click on something and move it until they move this object first...etc.
 * 4) There are two tutorials on changing colors of objects
 * 5) Having a timer/countdown
 * 6) There is one where you drive a boat through arches and you get points...that seemed to use VR pretty well. Not sure how we could do this in a scenario. I was thinking traffic signs, but they only had one with words on it, a stop sign.
 * 7) Here is the example of the cooking game, I liked how at the end it gave you ideas for something else you could have them do like setting the table for dinner.
 * 8) There seems to be a way to have the students put in some text. So we could have the system ask the students a question and they can type in their answer.

(Erin's Note): I placed this down here as I don't know where exactly to place it right now. Basically, scavenger hunts is a game where the organize prepares a list that the participants would have to seek out and gather the items on the list in order to complete or win the game. The most famous real-life scavenger hunt is held by The University of Chicago where the hunt last 24 hours and teams must acquire a list of 300 items. With the influx of technology, professionals, business and educators have been thinking of ways to import or translate real-life gaming or educational situations into the virtual world. Completing scavenger hunts in a virtual world allows students to visit and explore other places on the Earth that they would not be able to do in real life. If a group of students were learning about France, the teacher could create a list and then by means of the game, the students would plat the game and use the list; not only to acquire the items, but to also learn more about the France and the items they are collecting.

There are some other benefits of VR scavenger hunting:
 * 1) Scavenger hunts allow students to bond with one another. So is promotes social skills and collaboration.
 * 2) Improves morale and self-confidence within the student.
 * 3) Allows students to "escape" from the normal classroom routine.
 * 4) Allows more interaction with their learning.
 * 5) It can be changed and manipulated to fit the needs of the learner.

For the scavenger hunt idea, I was thinking we could make it like a webquest. Maybe we create a handout or something of various questions that they have to answer. Here are some questions I thought might work, I think what we could do is take the information below and turn some of them into questions they have to find based on their experience in that environment. We could add on questions for the animals when we get those picked out. I think each of the climate areas could have a character in it, besides the animals, that gives some of this background, but it is more conversational so it would help with english speaking. I will include a human character in each scene. Make sense? We could even try to have the climates linked through clues if we wanted to. So if one climate area might lead to another.

Instructions: Using the Alice program, try to answer the following questions exploring the worlds at your leisure. All answers must be in complete sentences. You can use any of the class dictionaries to help you. You can use the controls to switch to different climates to find the answers. Try clicking on people, animals, and other objects in the scene to find the information.


 * 1) How cold can it get in the tundra?
 * 2) In the summer how long does the sun stay out?
 * 3) What types of animals did you find in the tundra? the desert? the forest?
 * 4) Describe the desert, what is the weather like?
 * 5) What types of plant life did you find in the forest?
 * 6) How is the forests seasons different than the desert or the tundra?
 * 7) What climate does the wolf live in?
 * 8) What animal is standing next to the rabbit?

Another idea is maybe there are different characters (or animals) and they have to decide on the best climate for them to live in based on the search they do. So maybe they have the wolf. And the wolf describes things that they like about a home, then they go out and interview other characters to determine the best place for them to live.