Just like us on Facebook before the end of the Autumn term and say what you like about Immersive Education or our products and choose a free standalone Kar2ouche title of your choice. We’ll set up the download for you. It would also be great if you could forward this offer to a friend. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your username on Facebook so that we can verify you, your school postcode if possible and the name of the title you would like to receive.

During the summer, and in conjunction with NASA, the Virginia Space Grant consortium ran a summer ‘Academy’ for students. During the week long course students used Krucible to understand the physics behind getting to Mars and back. They then used Krucible to present their plans to NASA scientists.

Each year the Virginia Space Grant Consortium (see vasts.spacegrant.org) run an online course for students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The students study STEM through modules designed with NASA and covering space technology. The best of the students are invited to a summer Academy based at NASA’s enigmatic and highly secure Langley Research Center (sic).

During the weeklong Academy students work in teams under the scrutiny of NASA scientists to plan a manned trip to Mars. As well as figuring out how to get them and their equipment there and back safely, they have to plan how to live and work there for a period along with what experiments to carry out.

The students used Krucible to understand the physics behind getting a vehicle from earth to Mars, looking at the equations of motion, how forces interact and the effects of varying gravitational fields. The open-ended nature of Krucible allowed students to vary the parameters involved and to experiment in the safety of a virtual laboratory. They could then use that information to plan the trip, safe in the knowledge that what they saw in the lab would be repeated in space.

The week culminates in the teams presenting their plans to a panel of NASA scientist who pull no punches when it comes to analysing their plans. With Krucible in their armoury they were ready for the task.

For more information...

If you’d like a 30-day trial of Krucible please contact us quoting this article. If you then buy a site licence for your school quote offer NASA Newsletter 2 and we’ll give you 15% discount plus the first year of home access free.

We’re still offering FREE home access for your staff, students and governors

If teachers don’t have access to the software loaded on school machines at home, it won’t be used so effectively.

We don’t need to tell you that planning, absorbs many hours outside school and therefore you need access to the tools available in school, at home! Students and parents also tell us they would like to continue their work using our platforms when the school day has finished. We therefore provide home access downloads. If you’d like to trial this service we will set up a year’s free home access for you on one of the titles you already own. Alternatively, we will give free home access with any title bought before the end of the school year. A great opportunity for you to get to grips with the software and to encourage students to work in their own time! This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

At the end of the year, if you like and have used the service, you can continue with a charge of £250 per year per platform. So if you have one or ten Kar2ouche titles it’s still only £250 per year for all of your students and staff.

This term I started teaching again; I feel it keeps me honest. I’m just doing two sessions a fortnight plus one lunchtime a week ... find out more

The year six groups I’m working with are involved in a games-making project using MissionMaker As part of this course we’re working on writing for different purposes and audiences. So far we have looked at persuasive language when writing a letter reviewing a game and more recently we’ve explored composing emails and questionnaires for a specific audience. In future weeks we will be writing project proposals, instructions, logs evaluating progress, a walkthrough for a gaming magazine, a web advert and text for packaging. All the lesson plans and associated sheets and games are being posted on a blog:
https://immersiveed.wordpress.com

These are updated regularly with a bit of refection on how the session went and what might be attempted in a different way in subsequent lessons. At the end of the project this will be written up as a teacher support pack and put with the other free materials on the downloads section of our website.
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Donna spoke at the International Congress for Inclusion through Digital Education in Buenos Aires during the holidays. Looking at the impact games can have on improving learning she spoke about Immersive Education’s partnerships with university education departments when developing both Kar2ouche and MissionMaker.

For more about the conference and the project in Argentina...

There is a button for an English translation on the line with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. A full report to be included in the next newsletter.

If you don’t know anything about us, we’re the developers and resellers of Kar2ouche, MissionMaker, MediaStage and Krucible. We’ve been around just over ten years and work almost exclusively with schools. The company is run by two ex teachers ...

There’s been so much almost hysterical news around phonics and approved reading lists of late that we’re in real danger of losing focus. What is it that we want and need to do?
‘In my view, I wanted my pupils to engage and work hard on ...

If teachers don’t have access to the software loaded on school machines at home, it won’t be used so effectively.

Immersive Education is pleased to be working in collaboration with FantastICT

In recognition of the importance of CPD in ensuring that users get the most from their investment in ICT, Immersive Education is pleased to announce its collaboration with FantastICT, a leading national ICT professional development provider.

Having met and discussed beliefs about the nature and deployment of professional development, Immersive is confident that FantastICT will be able to provide an enhanced CPD service to schools, teachers and learners that is tailored to meet individual needs and priorities. In line with Immersive’s current objectives, FantastICT will focus on helping users to embed the Immersive platforms into teaching and so realise their full potential to transform learning.

Together, Immersive Education and FantastICT are keen to extend the range of training currently offered to include extended project work with staff and students as well as providing introductions to the role ICT can play in supporting change management. If you have any ideas for projects you’d like to run with us, get in touch: contact us or call us on 01865 330410

Learners on a mission at Stephen Lawrence Centre

Staff at The Stephen Lawrence Centre in South London have been using MissionMaker to "invigorate the curriculum". "MissionMaker," says Caine Crawford, who leads the workshops at the South London educational centre, "engages with students on a graphical level."

Teacher Martin Colley expands, "...we’ve got quite a number of children here for whom English is a second language and they can achieve at the same level and higher than the pupils who speak English as a first language because written language itself isn’t a central part of the [MissionMaker] process."

Read the full story on Merlin John Online...

Young offenders reformed through ICT

Sheffield West City Learning Centre is working with their local Youth Offending Service to offer young offenders personalized learning and the chance to stay out of prison in two innovative schemes using Immersive Education software...more