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This distance collaboration activity began with a book, //[|Blood on the River]//, by Elisa Carbone. Young Samuel Collier is a poor orphan on the streets of London. Through good luck, he becomes Captain John Smith’s page. He sails aboard the Susan Constant bound for the New World. The New World has many surprises for all the colonists. Virginia is not what many of the men expected to find. While they struggle to establish the colony of James Town, they must also find a way to live with the natives. As Samuel begins to learn the language of the Algonquian Indians and follows Captain Smith’s example, he know that with hard work he can become whomever he wants to be in this new land.

Julie Franklin ITRT Henrico County schools Dr. Trevillian and her 4th grade class Al Doss CRS Virginia Beach City Public Schools Mrs. Tomchik and her 4th grade class We began a blog [|Blood on the River] and on this blog we posted audio chapters that all of the students could access from school and home.

Dr. Kristi Trevillian submitted a Blood on the River novel study lesson plan as an entry into the Henrico21 competition for 2011. This collaborative project met all four of the 21st Century Skill strands: Communication and Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Creativity and Innovation, and Research and Information Fluency. This collaborative project between the two schools won runner up in the category of Communication and Collaboration. More information about this project, a downloadable copy of the lesson plan, and supporting artifacts, can be found at the url:

http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/21/2011/06/27/blood-on-the-river-novel-study/

As a culminating activity to this project, Julie Franklin, the Henrico ITRT and Marie Booz, the Instructional Technology Coordinator for Va Beach City Public Schools, teamed up to bring Second Life to the 4th graders in Dr. Trevillian's class. Marie Booz logged in as Pocahontas and gave a virtual tour of Jamestown on VSTE Island while the students watched and asked questions through Julie Franklin's avatar. The virtual interaction on VSTE Island was designed to teach the students more about the Jamestown colony as well as to stimulate critical thinking about elements of the novel Blood on the River while entering their responses on GoogleDocs.

During the scheduled Elluminate video conferencing sessions, the students participated in book talks, a living museum activity, and other non-structured activities. They completed Kidspiration activities, shared student-created videos, student-created glogs, etc.

ActiveWorlds is a computer install that allows access to student created virtual worlds. This rendering engine allows teachers and students to build and meet in a virtual location. However you can't just visit Active Worlds, you must have the permission of the World's creator.
 * Future of this Idea**

Developed by [|ReactionGrid,] Jibe allows you to design and manage your own virtual world which can either be hosted by ReactionGrid or fully installed on your own servers. With a single click install and no browser restart, users can instantly be in your fully customized multiuser 3d virtual world.
 * Jibe ** is a ** multiuser 3d virtual world platform ** accessible via a web browser or standalone client.