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between the teams and the teacher. Whenever
difficulties were encountered, the problems were
solved via troubleshooting and consultation with
the project manager.
Since all VRML code was to be their own, team
members were not permitted to copy and paste
any code. The only exception was the code for
the trees which surround the school in the virtual
model. Students were able to find a free code
available online for these trees. This, however,
presented a major difficulty when the project
manager added these trees to the model because
the leaves were not constrained to individual trees,
but spread across the entire model. This situation
afforded the students the opportunity to problem
solve and think creatively as a collaborative team
when they all worked together to find the com-
puter code which would constrain the leaves to
the individual trees. This information was then
given to the project manager who then added it
to each individual tree in the program.
involved to complete a creative and innovative
project.
The following year, the same teacher again
presented a different group of students with the
responsibility of choosing an additional VRML
project to add to the school's webpage. After
discussion and voting amongst themselves, they
decided that they wanted to make a virtual model
of their hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Knowing that this was quite an ambitious project,
even more so than making a virtual model of the
school, the teacher discussed the inherent difficul-
ties involved. The students decided to stay with
their project and proceeded to divide themselves
into groups that would be in charge of different
areas and well-known sections of the city.
For the Morgantown virtual model, the stu-
dents were again innovative and creative in their
project. As a group, they decided the scale. One
of the students constructed a conversion formula
for everyone to use. To get a better idea of where
everything was situated in the area, students used
Google Earth to study various sections of the city
and to scale their distances. The students also
used online search engines to find pictures of the
buildings so that they could make more accurate
models. All troubleshooting was handled within
groups and with a project manager. Unfortunately,
because of the size of the project only a few of the
structures were completed. However, the students
learned as much and worked as hard doing this
project as they had the year before. The teacher
learned that letting students choose the project,
although motivating for them, can lead to a scoping
problem due to their lack of experience. Students
can learn a valuable real-world skill of being able
to properly access what can be accomplished in a
given time frame with given resources (one of the
most important ideas in the business world).
Through teamwork and collaboration, the
students involved in this project created a very
accurate virtual representation of their school.
They used higher order thinking skills and sound
Life and Workplace Skills
This study was an exceptional opportunity to
observe how students (even at the level of middle
school) could function in a real-world type of situ-
ation. In the 21
st
Century workplace, the skills of
collaboration, communication, creativity, etc. are
necessary. In this project, students were able to
effectively work together and collaborate to com-
plete an innovative design project. They monitored
their own progress, set their own deadlines and met
them efficiently. They were flexible and adapted
to any difficulties encountered on the project and
adjusted their priorities as needed.
Students were able to demonstrate that they
had mastered the skills being taught by applying
these skills in a simulation setting. They set high
standards for themselves and met them. Leader-
ship skills were demonstrated not only by the
project manager, but by individual team members
in completion of the project. The students were
able to utilize the strengths of all of the students
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