Pedagogy

Church Builder was initially aimed at primary school children aged between 9 and 11 years (Years 5 and 6 in the UK). The objective was to produce a 3D modelling tool that children could learn to use in 15 minutes and create realistic, complex models quickly. We believe we are meeting this objective.

The original concept was to provide a tool kit for modelling a range of types of buildings including churches, castles and palaces that could be placed in a virtual world modelling the heritage of their locality that could be shared across Europe via the World Wide Web. Church Builder is the first component in this tool kit.

We have trialled Church Builder in a number of primary schools throughout the Merseyside area since July 2005. The response from the children has been very positive. This was in spite of the awkward interfaces employed in our early versions of the software as we explored different approaches. We found the children quickly picked up the church architecture terminology and quite happily talked in terms of naves, chancels, towers and transepts when building their models. They coped very well with the software especially as we changed it in responses to their experiences. The current version of Church Builder has been found to be very intuitive after an initial few minutes introduction.

There are a variety of ways that the children can use their models. For example, Chloe and Sophie (two Year 6 children - 11 years old), used JPEG images generated by Church Builder of a model they made of their local church to make this video.

Beyond QCA

Beyond QCA: Digital Creativity in the classroom by Steve Head

CAD Conference Paper

We presented a paper, Kiddy CAD: A Child Friendly Parametric Approach for 3D Modeling Software, at the International Conference on Computer Aided Design in Honolulu in June 2007. Here is the abstract:

Kiddy CAD: A Child Friendly Parametric Approach for 3D Modeling Software

Brian Farrimond, Janette Bonar-Law and Robina Hetherington

ABSTRACT

3D models are increasingly used to visualize objects for presentation in schools. Children are sophisticated consumers of 3D worlds and engaging creatively with ICT in the classroom is recognized as beneficial to developing multiple intelligences in children. Historically, the creation of 3D models by children has, however, been considered too difficult a process to master. This paper describes the development of a CAD tool, Church Builder, designed for use by children, which is fast, fun and easy to learn and has minimal system requirements. The tool treats the underlying data of the 3D models as a tree structure of nodes, consisting of parameterized representations of the components of the objects being modeled. The tool automatically generates graphics primitives that enable the visualization of and interaction with the object, allowing children to rapidly build sophisticated model church structures.

We are currently developing teaching materials to support teachers in the use of Church Builder. These will include guidance on organising trips to the local church to carry out investigations on which to build models.

Why churches?

We have been asked for school builders, castle builders, mosque builders and so on. All these are possible but we had to start somewhere. We chose to model churches because:

They are big, sometimes complicated, buildings providing a rich variety of components to engage the modeller;
Traditional, Gothic style churches are built to rules that make it easy to identify a sequence in which the models can be built
The real thing is never far away - every community in the UK has a church of some sort. In contrast, most people do not live near a castle. Thus, a school trip to the local church to carry out observations, photographing and measuring is much easier to organise.
The buildings are often an important repository of the history of a community. We believe that engaging the children through modelling is a great opportunity of giving the children a sense of that history
Many schools in the UK are associated with local churches and Church Builder gives a further opportunity of strengthening the association
We like church architecture. We can build models of churches and walk about them using the Church Builder tour facility or else export them to web pages and explore them using a 3D viewer such as Cortona. We can also make video clips and JPEG pictures of the models using Church Builder.
We have learned a lot while making Church Builder. The lessons will be applied to producing Castle Builder etc in the coming months

Church Builder started life as the first of a set of proposed tools to enable children to model their local heritage and place it on a shared virtual world so that it would be visible to partner developers across Europe and visitors from all over the world. Churches are usually the oldest and most historical buildings in the locality and provide a rich subject for modelling. It was also intended to show the heritage changing over time. Individual churches have changed considerably over time with additions and alterations made in different architectural styles. Also,physical changes were brought about by changes in religious practices - for example the removal of wall paintings during the English Reformation.

Church Builder provides an opportunity to create a dynamic model showing how a church developed and changed over time.

UK National Curriculum areas addressed by Church Builder

Number
Shape, space measures
Handling data
Scientific enquiry
Materials and their properties
Working with tools
Knowledge and understanding of components
Finding things out
Developing ideas
Exchanging and sharing information
All areas of History and Geography
Exploring and developing ideas
Investigating and making art
Religious education