Using AWedu for the Atlantis project

General goals.

- Putting in touch each other students of the world, in shielded environment, helping cultural sharing

-Making easier multidisciplinary activities, mixing technical works with more theoretical  jobs

-Discouraging random activities, forcing to elaborate mental maps of their own projects, before realising them

Why, among so many myths, this choice of the Atlantis myth?

Because Atlantis myth is so universally known that it can capture attention of every students, even if they have a very different background

Description of  the 3D   work with students

 The project consist in building -in rather accurate way- the source (Plato, Critias) at least  in the general structure of the city: round, made of 3 concentrical rings of ground, separated by large channels: the last one is open toward ocean.

The 3 ground rings are connected  by cover bridges.

Inside the citadel, the Poseidon temple, the sacred wood,  the royal palace with ivory roof, golden and silver and “orichalc” walls. Outside, the   healthy sources have cold and hot water

In the environments, students, but also teachers could-if they like-build their own flats, maybe in “atlantician” style .

Otherwise, we could decide to build the citadel only (the wood, the royal palace and Poseidon’s temple, surrounded by the Ocean

Atlantis draw, following the Plato’s words

Involved classes and age of students

At the moment we have an Italian junior class (12 years old) and a Finnish class (secondary school: 13/14 years old), but we’re looking for some other international partners: please register to the ECOLE site and write to the ECOLE mailing list if you are interested in joining.

Time-schedule

Synchronous meetings are is planned to be every Wednesday (11,30 till 13,30 italian hour): these are the moments for chatting and giving everyone a “piece “  of city to build. It’s not necessary to do that in synchronous time: pupils  can do everything in other time, when they prefere (Using KF, it will be always possible to upload and download useful images and draws, with the aim of sharing it with other students).

Working steps

(Following Mantastrega’s steps)

1)   General brainstorming in class about mythology: myths for what?

We begin reading (no more than 5 minutes) a paragraph from J.Gaarder :“Sofia’s world” :first pages, where the auctor  speaks  exactly about   the meaning of myths

2)   The teacher mentions Atlantis and asks  if someone  never heard something about that (probably  most people did)

3)   Let’s start with search  : we go to  on internet ,looking for images, draws  and sources

4)   Pupils reach Plato  (Critias and Timeus), among  a stream of more or less fanciful  sources :e.g. the story  of  ‘medium’  E.Cayce (that’s a good  opportunity for explaining  the theoretical meaning of “source”!!)

5)   Pupils study Plato’s words

6)   Pupils prepare  in the classroom a poster which collects all gathered infos

7)   Pupils upload the poster on a web-based forum, in  order to show  it    everyone ,  to see if  partners have done   the same ,to find out some  interesting news.

8)   Pupils meet at  AWEDU , chat with other” bricklayers”, decide which part of Atlantis they want to build.

Interesting webpage : (abstract from Plato )