Beginning in November 2010 and continuing sporadically every few months, ALL Questers have been invited to take a “vacation” to a world that they might never have seen before. All they have to do is visit Brooke—our uber-gracious southern belle who serves as travel agent in OTAK Village—during the appropriate month. Brooke will give them a special, one-month-only ticket to the featured vacation spot. That ticket is good for as many visits as they’d like to take that month.

Brooke will also hand out a fun OTAK mission to guide their trip, full of suggestions about things to do and see while there. If Questers complete this totally-voluntary mission before midnight on the last day of the month, Brooke will add a special stamp to their QA Passports.

These tourist missions are just-for-fun only, encouraging students to thoroughly explore the spaces and learn a little something about them… and maybe convince their teachers to assign the units so that they can return sometime. But even though these aren’t teacher-assigned missions, we all know that the best vacations are those where you learn a little something new, right? So what kinds of things do Questers learn on their QA vacations? Glad you asked!

In November they get to visit a virtual copy of Mesa Verde National Park, exploring ruins and learning a little about the Ancestral Puebloans who built it. In February they’re off to the gothic village of Ingolstadt, patterned after Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There they can climb into creepy tombs, look for skeletons, and learn interesting trivia about the author, the novel, and even the Hollywood version of the Frankenstein story!

Now it is May, and the vacation locale for this month is Taiga Park. Here Questers do some hiking, fishing, and cave exploring in order to earn a Junior Ranger’s badge. And in September… well, that vacation is still in the planning stages, so you’ll have to check with Brooke to find out more.

Oh, and one last thing: No vacation is complete without a souvenir or two. Questers can buy a tourist t-shirt, especially designed for each locale and ready to wear with pride. Who could ask for a better holiday?

Student building in QVille

One of our main goals with Quest Atlantis is to position students to be actively engaged in the learning process and not just passive recipients. This still requires quite a bit of intervention and scaffolding from our part and the teachers’; but students still have one place where they have free reign – QVille. And the best lesson we can learn from QVille is that even when left completely to their own devices, students will still try to actively make sense of the world around them.

QVille started as a world where students could explore 3D building and play a little, but by the time I came to QA in 2008 it had already evolved beyond that. Students are able to rent a plot of land for six cols (QA’s currency) a month. Since this is the equivalent of 2-3 solid essays for the teacher a month, the price was often too steep for some children to get a lot or maintain it for long. In response, those children who had the extra cols would rent lots and build hotels. Students wanting an area of their own could then rent a room from the original builder at a more affordable price of one col a month. The students with more than six rooms in their hotels found a way to turn a profit.

Qville Stock Market Information

By 2011, a simple hotel is just old hat. Students are wanting more out of the QVille experience and even more of a profit. Now, hotels and other business have the option to join the QVille Stock Market or a company. I know the first time I saw kids talking about the stock exchange, I was skeptical – can elementary school kids really understand the complexities of the stock exchange? It would appear so. When buying stock, you give the business a certain amount of money depending on how well it is doing when you buy your stock. Each “stock” is equivalent to one percent of the company, and at the end of the month you are entitled to one percent of the profits in addition to being allowed to make decisions about the business. If the company is doing really well and others want to buy the stock you can sell it at the new price. This is not the NYSE, these are the rules of the QVille Stock Exchange.

Advertising others in the company

With all this money and investment going on, students are now more responsible for the continuation of their hotels and businesses. You now have the option to enter your business in a partnership with a Qville “company,” which resembles a conglomerate in the real world. Multiple business, including restaurants, hotels, arenas, and karaoke bars, enter into these companies in order to help one another by advertising the others or giving building advice. As part of the company, students are required to maintain company standards in the quality of their buildings, follow company protocol which could even include a uniform, and attend meetings.

Now that money and regulations are involved, laws must be enacted, right? Students are working on a Qville Supreme Court with judges, lawyers, and police. The chat excerpt below shows two students working to set a legal norm.

The Biogen Idec Foundation aims to provide students with innovative ways of exploring science literacy and hopes to introduce children to the prospect of one day entering into a career in science.  Their grant specifically allows teachers in the Durham Public School system the opportunity to use the Taiga Water Quality unit. In this unit, students interact with virtual park rangers, loggers, fishermen, and indigenous people, uncovering the multiple perspectives surrounding the issue of the fish population declining in a river in a virtual national park. The students take water samples at three points along the virtual river, run these samples in a virtual lab (which scaffolds the learning of pH, turbidity, eutrophication, etc.), and use the resulting data to uncover where the problems in the water exist. Finally, they create a scientific report detailing a plan to bring life back to the river and ecosystem while balancing the needs of all the local peoples. 

As students explore the situation, they are making important discoveries about how disciplinary learning can be a powerful tool for making meaningful changes in the world.  Students are not only learning about the scientific water quality terms and processes; they are developing an understanding that science is actually a powerful tool they can use to solve problems and make a difference in the world, and the students themselves realize that this acquiring this knowledge is precisely what empowers them to solve these problems.

As I reflect on the current state of education in our country, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if more companies like Biogen Idec or its Foundation helped to empower children is such a way. What if more companies focused not just on company profits, but also choose to invest in their communities, in the children and in the future, to help students to care about disciplinary knowledge?  What if we could help our students realize that understanding and enlisting academic content is one way to truly solve problems in the world?  Just imagine how differently our students might approach their school day, and how their attitude towards education may change in the process, especially if they knew that profitable companies, not just their parents and school teachers, valued their contributions and chose to invest in their future.  What a world of difference this kind of partnership could make for our students and for our schools. 

Making a difference in the world through the use of science…Through their commitment to their patients, their employees and their support of education in their community, the Biogen Idec Foundation seems to be able to teach us all this very important lesson very well.

Sharing some history. About six years ago, when I first learned that QA was to be funded the second time by the National Science Foundation, I was simultaneously excited and concerned. I was excited because I believed in what we were trying to do. As a former drug counselor and subsequent special education teacher, there was a strong commitment in me to find ways to motivate children to care about themselves, their community, and the world. I had experienced the power of education in motivating children and had also experienced how much of the curriculum in school was failing to do so and even turning them off. Therefore, I wanted to produce a suite of curricular opportunities that would allow teachers to engage their students in powerful life narratives that required understanding academic content all in the context of their classrooms. When I learned that NSF was going to support our efforts I knew that science would also have to take a front-row seat, and met with the team to determine what designs had to be put in place to ensure that the broader QA Social Commitment agenda would not be lost (see manuscript on critical design). For, while I was excited about the support, I feared that we might lose the heart of the project as we optimized experiences to support science content learning. As it so turned out, the Shardflower was born and this science unit engaged children in a form of socio-scientific inquiry that was as much about the role of science in solving socially significant problems as it was about understanding, for example, what is an appropriate level of phosphates in a body of water (see manuscript on socio-scientific inquiry).

Moving Forward. Well, as many of our veteran teachers are aware, this desire to ensure that the game fostered a disposition for social action led to the birth of the Shardflower and the idea that players, through the manifestation of wise acts, could earn lumins. Wise acts contain knowledge, attitude, and behavior: an important combination that is central to the newly released Epic trajectory. As players complete various missions and earn lumins, they eventually are able to luminate on each of the seven petals and outer leaves of their Shardflower. The Shardflower itself provides a metaphorical key to unlock important backstory elements that drive the game forward. Well, it has been a real challenge to provide an experience that is educational but not didactic, that is entertaining but not a casual game, and that is socially illuminative but not evangelical (see original Games W/Out Guns published five years ago). Importantly, and for those not familiar with modern videogames, they often contain rich stories in addition to fun gameplay, and every story needs a protagonist. More than a book to be read, in a game, the player has a form of dramatic agency. And, in a pedagogical game, or what we refer to as a curricular drama, the player is often protagonist at one point and audience member or simply participant at another point (see manuscript on the notion of curricular drama and one on transformational play). While we originally had a novel and had the player unlock chunks of dialogue communicating the backstory in game, it wasn’t very gamey (fun) and was narratively quite thin. Due to the countless hours and commitment of our team members and the ongoing feedback from the community, that has all changed this week.

The Present. We always had the core character of OTAK, but in the recently revised set of epic missions, Otak, a new character Maq, along with the Quester, take on significant protagonist roles designed to communicate the power of Social Commitments and the importance of the Quester in realizing them through their wise acts. At no other time in the history of QA has this story been so well crafted to be unlocked by the player. Due to the tireless work and dedication of our team, we now have an epic trajectory designed to embed the player within a rich backstory where he or she experiences the power of Social Commitments and the value of his or her work in QA. [Spoilers here]. It all begins with a distraught Maq who fled from a morally broken Atlantis with only his sorrow and a crystal salvaged from the tattered shards of the old Arch—all revealed in a beautifully illustrated set of comic pages (see legend PDF and video of backstory).

Following this description of the history, the player takes on a more active role in New Atlantis where they are recruited by the displaced caretaker, Maq, and the reluctant new caretaker OTAK. Together, the three go on an adventure as the player experiences another area (Aegea) of New Atlantis that has fallen to into moral apathy and that becomes overzealous at the belief that lumins might provide the key to mending their world—a belief that the Quester unintentionally seeded. Through this adventure, Maq, OTAK, and the player all come to understand what the lumin truly represents, and what a world without Social Commitments can end up becoming. Because this is not a book or movie, each of which has merit towards certain ends, this story is played out as the player solves puzzles and takes actions, experiencing the consequences of the particular choices they engaged. We encourage teachers to participate in this adventure along with their students by asking questions, supporting class discussions, and even playing along through the five Epic Missions unlocked through lumination moments. We hope that you all find the new experience as powerful as we hope it to be, putting a significant meta-wrapper around the more academic missions and units that you and your students complete. And, as always, I thank all the team members who worked so hard to make this happen.

To prepare for the new transition, I just want to let everyone know where we’ve been and where we’re heading.

Recently, we’ve reached a mission milestone. There have been over 100,000 missions completed by 50,000 Questers. That doesn’t include Quests and units! It’s great to see how well the program has been taken up by kids.

We have active schools in 18 countries. This is a wonderful opportunity for your students to work with others. If you would like to be set up with a partner class or co-Quest, please let your QA Buoy or a team member know.

Students have completed over 1750 jobs in the OTAK village, earning anywhere from 5-30 cols. They have many options when it comes to spending these cols, but Qville is probably the most popular. And these past few months have seen every Qville lot be rented out by Questers.

During the new introduction, Questers will go to the mountain top to meet OTAK, touch the Arch, and activate their own personal Shardflower.

There have been 10,700 votes at the polls, and more posts than we can count on the bulletin boards.

Of course, when it comes to numbers bigger doesn’t always need to mean better. We will be releasing a new intro later this month that should take less time for your students to complete. This will get them chatting, exploring, and working on your assigned work even faster! Be sure to keep an eye out for more information soon.

We look forward to collaborating with everyone soon and continuing the numbers game.

The theme park in Taiga provides both content and game support to teachers.

Well, now you can!   We’ve recently introduced our PD theme parks, areas in Teacherville to help teachers experience an abridged version of the Unit while learning how to best support their students’ use of the curriculum.  Each theme park will allow teachers to try out a special Mission based on the Unit where they can learn about the narrative, the most consequential student moments, as well as gain insights into how to best support students in their understanding of the material.  Teachers can try the Unit on for size, literally, as they put on a  Native American outfit in Mesa Verde or try on the campaign hat in the statistics Unit.  How fun would it be to join your students in the 3D space wearing a Native American outfit as a teaser?  Seeing your teacher wearing a news reporter hat or a squash blossom necklace might be just the ticket to generating a little more excitement about an upcoming QA Unit.

Teachers can submit exemplary Quests to share with others

More importantly, teachers get a full understanding of the Unit in a VERY short time!   These new PD missions take only 20-30 minutes to experience, but are chock full of teacher tidbits, videos and content.  In the theme park itself, we’ve even added additional supports, such as teacher forums where teachers can share insights from their use of the curriculum, examples of exemplary Quests and other background materials to fully prepare you for teaching the Unit.  We encourage teachers to post on the forums or submit these example Quests — either Quests that were wonderful from the start, or Quests that became wonderful after feedback.  This is one way teachers can share their successes with others in the QA community, as well as develop an idea of what kind of work can result from these Units.

A short immersive experience…additional resources…community support…the price of this ticket could be extravagant, but you’ll be admitted for free upon entering Teacherville!  These theme parks are always open, and after jumping a board to take the ride, teachers may find themselves better prepared to support their students in their exploration of the curriculum. 

Cotton candy is optional.

Consequentiality is a major part of all of our design work. Often this takes the form of character dialogue changing the way that character reacts to the player. Other times it is a hybrid of changes in the 3-D spaces and dialogue. A great example of this would be the new Plague Unit. Deciding the fate of the town of Ingolstadt changes the town’s inhabitants’ attitudes toward Questers and changes the town itself. By choosing to help the doctor or his creation, Questers either rid the village of darkness, slime and fog or doom it to even worse conditions. These changes are then explored by Questers by talking to characters who are personally impacted by those changes as well as walking around amid those changes. A dark, gloomy, slime-filled village, or a bright, sunny clean village. The choice is in the hands of the Quester.

This new build I’m working on seems to be filling in the missing portion of that spectrum by being mostly in 3-D. In a particular scenario, players will help a troubled teenage girl who is suffering the ill effects of a vicious rumor about her. The player learns that as her friend, they are the only one who can help her. Luckily, they have remarkable talents and abilities that allow them to see just how troubled their friend is. This special ability allows players to literally see their friend’s troubles floating about her head. As they give her advice, those troubles either improve or worsen. This is reflected in the 3-D world immediately upon making a decision. While the player is offering text-based advice to their friend by clicking on options that pop up before them, they are doing most of it in the 3-D space, as opposed to in a 2-D text window as would normally be the case in our, and most, games with dialogue.

*Note: Temporary image only. Will not be used in game.

I feel this helps to make the girl’s problems feel more immediate. It also clearly delineates the possible roads players can take the game down. Instead of two dialogue links on a 2-D page, the choices are in the 3-D space, to either side of your friend. Choose the right and maybe she feels better. The left, maybe worse. Each choice brings a consequence. In this example, I chose the “Right” on the left side of the screen. The game then shows me the consequence of that choice…a Responsibility that comes with using that Right.

*Note: Temporary image only. Will not be used in game.

The consequences of my action don’t need to be read in a 2-D text window. Players who aren’t as adept or as likely to read don’t have to read to know that something has changed. The 3-D world is giving them immediate and obvious feedback. While I am not convinced this is always beneficial in our materials, I think it will work nicely in some.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue of 2-D text or 3-D effects?

On a related note, here is a video produced by kids to state what they want. See the No Future Left Behind Video.
Too many disenfranchised students are being left behind in large-scale comparison studies that focus on moving the mean and that treat standardized test scores as the most important outcome goal. We need curriculum that repositions

• the role of learners (from consumers of someone else’s content to change agents who see and care about school content),
• legitimizes content to be learned (from facts to be memorized to conceptual tools that help transform personally interesting dilemmas), and
• provides contexts in which students have impact (from situations only relevant to adult mathematicians, scientists, etc. to compelling storylines whose outcomes are in the hands and minds of the learner).

We need a curriculum that creates an invitation such that ALL children can come to value academic content and see themselves as people who use it in legitimate ways.

This show aired on the Women’s Entertainment Network Friday at 7:30 a.m EST (Aug. 14) and Saturday at 7:00 am EST on The Learning Channel (Aug. 15) and then on local TV stations across the country through the remainder of August. You can also view the NBC video. on the making of this episode. I encourage all of you watch our segment, which showcases a 7th grade teacher, Beth, in North Carolina. Beth’s work with her students (and as a very successful pioneering teacher with this technology) is utterly inspiring. I just wish her teaching partner Kelly could have been with us the day the show was filmed. Their support of each other, their collegiality, is also inspiring. By the way – just in case you wondered who I am – my name is Glenna Musante. I’m working with OPEN in corporate communications, community relations and PR. In this capacity, I help in the effort to bring QA to new schools and new school systems. I also look for corporate funding to help pay for the expansion of QA in schools and school systems, and I work with reporters on stories about QA. My work often takes me into school districts that are pioneering this impressive new form of educational content delivery, such as the Durham Public School system. Here. I have had the moving opportunity to meet teachers at the forefront of a new era in education.

I am so impressed by their dedication, enthusiasm and willingness to explore this new territory – and also help their colleagues learn how to use QA to reach our children. With their help, we’re seeing great strides with QA. Students who had given up on school are catching up to grade level; teachers are finding new excitement in their work. “Designing Spaces, Back to School special” begins to tell this story. So I encourage you to tune in this weekend to get a sense of what we’re seeing in the field. It’s a new world, and a great one.

For the students who like exploration this was an opportunity. Then some of those who had been playing longer felt disoriented and unsure of where they were in the world. Since it has been a point of pride among the kids to help newcomers, they probably felt they no longer had anything to offer other students. Everyone is “new” in a sense and has been on the same playing field for the time being. However, as the majority of the game play remains the same, such as quests and missions, they will most likely adapt to the new Hub quickly and be able to help the income students.