CAS Conference 2024: Getting started with interactive 3D worlds – and making these inclusive for all

Creating interactive 3D worlds brings exciting education opportunities – and if they are designed with inclusion in mind those opportunities are accessible to everyone.

Rebecca Franks and Dr Tracy Gardner set up TechEd company Flip Computing with the aim of improving the computing education experiences for under-represented groups.  Flip Computing provides guidance on making computing curriculums more inclusive, as well as publishing computing books. Flip Computing also provides free, downloadable resources for teachers and club leaders.

This inclusion-first approach aims to make computing an exciting and creative subject that can be enjoyed by all learners. Rebecca and Tracy ran a successful workshop at our CAS Conference in 2024 about inclusion and interactive 3D.

Rebecca, who is also co-chair of CAS Include working group, told us more about how interactive 3D can work in the classroom:

How can teachers get started using interactive 3D worlds?

“Tools used in industry are surprisingly accessible to educators and young people if you know how to get started. Flip Computing can guide educators to get started with modern tools for creating interactive 3D worlds. We ran a workshop at CAS Conference, which showed how to bridge from computing concepts that are familiar to the features of Blender and the UEFN editor from Epic Games. We also provided a taster of the Verse programming language used by UEFN and developed for the future of the metaverse and web3. Resources are also available as free downloads on CAS website.”

How does interactive 3D enhance the computing provision?

“UEFN can be used with children aged 13 or above which makes Year 9 a great year to get learners started with it. It meets a wide range of needs from the KS3 computing curriculum, including providing a text-based programming language (Verse).

“The specific attainment targets covered are:

• design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behaviour of real-world problems
• use two or more programming languages, at least one of which is textual, to solve a variety of computational problems
• make appropriate use of data structures [for example, lists, tables or arrays]
• design and develop modular programs that use procedures or functions
• understand simple Boolean logic [for example, AND, OR and NOT] and some of its uses in circuits and programming
• undertake creative projects that involve selecting, using, and combining multiple applications
• create, re-use, revise and re-purpose digital artefacts for a given audience, with attention to trustworthiness, design and usability”

Why is teaching about interactive 3D especially valuable for under-represented groups?

“Research shows that making real-world links to computing increases engagement of under-represented groups.  In particular, girls and SEND learners engage more with computing at primary school with interest decreasing through transition and into Y9. The introduction of text-based languages, such as Python can be a contributing factor. 

“As learners move from the creative and highly visual block-based language, Scratch, into a text-based environment such as Python it can be challenging to see the real-world applications and make those links.

“Verse and UEFN (Unreal Editor Fortnite) help to bridge this gap. UEFN uses the assets from Fortnite to create beautiful and unique 3D worlds. Some of the functionality from the Fortnite game is pre-built into the character movement and interactions. It is quite speedy to go from a blank island to a completely unique space. This visual element allows learners to see real world links straight away, increasing intrinsic motivation and spurring them on to add more features to their world.”

How can you embed inclusion in the teaching about interactive 3D

“The resources that we have created for CAS, that are freely available on the CAS website, have been designed with an inclusion-first approach and tested on young people with a wide range of needs. We have carefully considered the right collection of skills required to create a variety of interactive 3D worlds. 

“All of the instructions include design decisions that are appropriate for the level that learners will be at that moment. We know from the research that personal choice is a motivating factor in making a connection and fostering a sense of belonging in computing. We have also considered different ways to use the tools, such as keyboard shortcuts, to allow learners to create worlds in a way that is most comfortable for them.”

What's the best way of getting started? What resources are available to help?

“We have created a full day of activities for CAS members to use with their learners that explore the capabilities of UEFN. Learners get hands on very quickly and make links to games that they may have played on their own consoles. Learners can have a lot of fun designing their own 3D worlds and adapting our useful code snippets to keep track of objects collected and rewards that are given. 

“In these resources, the code is not the ‘key player’, learners focus on making a great experience for their users and a beautiful environment to explore. The code is just the tool needed to make some of the interactivity work. By having less emphasis on the code, it gives young people the freedom to create their own interactive 3D worlds without the need for writing lots of lines of code with little reward.”

Useful links:

Download the materials from the sessions at CAS Conference 2024 - https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/communities-and-events/cas-conference/workshop-programme

Visit the CAS Include community page for links to resources and information - https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/146565

Visit the CAS Physical Computing community page for links to resources and information - https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/communities-and-events/cas-thematic-communities/cas-physical-computing-community