Welcome to the Barnsborough Information Website

Barnsborough is a virtual town which has been created for Barnsley Learning Services by Virtually Learning. The town of Barnsborough is currently being used in 10 primary schools across the borough to raise attainment in literacy. Children in Y5 are accessing the town which is being used as a stimulus for the literacy lessons. The first unit of work taught studies report writing.

The project started in 2005 with discussions about how the Local Authority could use a virtual environment, similar to those used previously for a data handling and creative writing project, to help raise standards. A virtual world environment was considered to be a highly motivating and engaging environment for children especially boys.

Given the almost endless possibilities of the virtual environment, it took some time to decide upon what kind of environment we should use for the project. Eventually the idea of a town was decided upon as it seemed to have the most scope within the curriculum. We then realised that the town would not have any people living in it as the population would consist of the children and adults when they were exploring it. We had to somehow incorporate this feature into the project for it to work effectively.

Why would the town which by this time was called Barnsborough be empty?
Where had all the people gone?
Could the long term task of the children to be to find out what had happened to the people?

The children would visit Barnsborough to investigate what had happened to all of the people. Next task was to decide what had happened to all the people!

There are 4 storylines which we decided upon,

· Alien abduction

Could the townsfolk of Barnsborough have been captured by aliens in a mass abduction?

· Environment disaster

Has the town been evacuated because of an impending nature disaster? Or have the residents been tricked by somebody into thinking there is a disaster coming soon?

· Big business take over

Is Barnsborough situated on an enormous oilfield waiting to be harvested by the local business tycoon?

· Reality TV show

Is Barnsborough the empty studio of the biggest reality TV show in the world? Or have the people all joined a reality TV show to escape from Barnsborough?

So what does the town look like and how exactly do the children explore it?

Each children is given a unique username and password to log with. The virtual world is accessed through an Active Worlds browser which has to be installed and configured on the school PCs. Only schools and individuals involved in the project have access to the browser and access to the world. So there is no possibility of any unsuitable people accessing the world. The children enter the town in the sewers which have been designed so that they can familiarize themselves with the movement and how to interactive within the world. Once they have found their way out of the sewers they arrive in a square in the middle of Barnsborough.

Here they will be able to find clues that link to the four storylines. The clues can be visual (such as the poster above the café), audio (such as a sound file accessed by clicking on the phone in the square), tool tip clues (which are text boxes that appear when the cursor hovers over an object) or they may be hidden behind doors or in cupboards.

Additional content and clues has also been created such as websites and flash programs all of which contain clues to one or more of the storylines.

To link with lessons away from the world, content has been written such as newspaper reports and leaflets which can be read in the world or used as text for literacy lessons. These texts have been given to the teachers so that they can present them in whichever form suits them.

Initial feedback is very positive with the pupils enthusiastically exploring the town and highly motivated back in the classroom to complete tasks to a high standard linked to the town.