— Day 1 - Set Up and Styles, Materials, Colors & Shape: Our primary goal for this day is to assist students in joining the Minecraft class and to familiarize kids with our course’s objectives. To begin, we’ll show students how styles, materials, colors, and shapes affect the final building. The class will then put these skills into practice with smaller builds, with the goal of developing a palette they prefer.

— Day 2 - Blueprints and Worldedit: How does an architect design a blueprint or a floor plan? As these designs lay out the foundations of a house, students will learn how to design a floor plan and create one for their estate. Afterwards, they will practice Worldedit by raising the walls of their floor plan.

— Day 3 - Interior Design: Once a floor plan is in place, our junior architects can then expand on those to build rooms and furnish the interior. We’ll show the class how to match interiors and what makes a design good with examples and through lectures.

— Day 4 - Exterior Design and Showcase: To complete their homes, students will learn more about exterior design and how windows, roofs, and other features can be both visually appealing and functional. Students will learn how to properly showcase their builds and practice with their completed building.

— Day 5 - Architecture Firm: By creating an architecture firm, architects are able to find clients. In this session, students will discover how architects market themselves and build their own company building.

— Day 6 - Scenes and Showcase: Students will continue to finish their architecture firm. Then they will move onto designing scenes which are model examples to show the talents of our architects. Lastly, they will showcase the architecture firm and scenes with us.

— Day 7 - Economy and Working with Clients: Students will design and build a few projects to fulfill requirements established by their clients. They will learn about the economy and how to adapt as clients may have different needs throughout the duration of the project. 

— Day 8 - Adapting, Feedback, and Celebration: Similar to the previous session, students will continue to design and fulfill projects as needed by their clients. After showcasing the work, they will receive feedback on what can be improved, tour other students’ creations, and spend their earned money!

Connected Camps is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2015 with the mission to build a global online community where kids build, code, play, and learn alongside one another. Our programs are designed based on extensive research in the learning sciences. The founders and leaders of Connected Camps, Mimi Ito and Katie Salen, are professors at the University of California, Irvine, who specialize in the design of online learning experiences that are fun, social, and directly tied to academic outcomes. Learn more about the research behind Connected Camps at the Connected Learning Alliance resource site: https://clalliance.org/ 

One thing that makes our programs unique is our near-peer mentorship model. Our programs are led by young adults and college students, often with the help of high school volunteers. We hire counselors and coaches from top universities in computer science, game development, economics, social studies, and the arts, and train them on how to facilitate project-based learning with younger kids. Our young instructors have the same passion for technology, games, and digital making as our learners, and take on the role of instructors, as well as fellow enthusiasts and relatable role models.

The curriculum for this program was designed by a team of counselors pursuing degrees relevant to the material at hand. The learning experiences in this class are driven by these counselors’ academic expertise in the field, along with their desire to share their passion for the subject with a group of excited learners. All of Connected Camps’ curricula are vetted by the organization’s Product Manager, Matthew, who possesses a Masters in Secondary Education and a deep belief in the power of collaborative virtual learning.

숙제 제공
This class does not require any out-of-class work. We do offer optional challenges that students can work on as an extension of what is taught in class. We provide guidance and instructions for students who are inspired to delve deeper into the topic. The purpose of these challenges is to give students the opportunity to supplement their learning with additional material that aligns with their passions and goals. Students may then integrate their learnings into their project and showcase their accomplishments to their classmates.

With this approach, students can explore the subject on their own. We give students the opportunity to share what they’ve explored independently with the class.
제공되는 평가
At Connected Camps, we assess each student’s progress by engaging them in reflection of their own work and the work of their classmates. By building in Minecraft and applying concepts taught in class, our students are able to solidify their learnings through hands-on application. Our counselors’ focus is to provide qualitative feedback to further each students’ individual goals and interests, and we do not use letter or number grades.

In addition to our in-class reflections, our counselors also provide post-session recaps that offer a summary of what is accomplished each day. Through these summary reflections, students are able to review the material and share with their parents what they did in class. We find this approach allows kids of different interests and abilities to engage with our teachings in a way that is particularly relevant to them.
제공되는 성적