All too often the great tales of momentus Quest Atlantis value are left in the classrooms from where they emanate. In 2011 we will move to strengthen our sharing of practices. Our Teacher Connection Meetings continue on the first Thursday of the month, in three timezones (Asia-Pacific, USA/Canada and Europe) over skype and inworld. In these meetings we often troubleshoot, share stories, invite guest speakers and generally enjoy the company of other QA educators. The 2011 kick off  meeting will take place on February 3rd with invited guest speaker teachers in each region sharing their expert practice.

In the early part of this year we will be offering training for teachers wishing to use our new interface to develop and share their own Quest activities in the world. Teacher contributions will keep the curriculum of QA culturally diverse, dynamic, topical and globally relevant. There will also be a virtual buoy camp to gather all our facilitators together in a refresher/celebration of the global distributed leadership of Quest Atlantis.

Questers in our Student Congress, a world built and designed by students, are are working  hard right now to prepare for a February launch of that world. This is a place for students to step up and be the designers, leaders, and managers of their own virtual world experiences and learning. Watch out for announcements on this as it promises to be one of the most exciting additions to our Quest Atlantis community.

From my perpective this Edublog award represents so much of what makes QA exciting, and is a much deserved token of how mature our program and community are.  

Let’s all pull together to make 2011 another winning year!

Every school day in Quest Atlantis, hundreds of students submit responses to Quests, and teachers all over the world review those responses. And every workday, I receive several notifications from teachers who want to highlight an extraordinary response submitted by one of their students. I always get a little thrill when I read those nominations, because I know that these are efforts that make teachers proud… and a proud teacher is a happy teacher! There is no feeling on Earth to compare with seeing that spark … evidence that a student “gets it.” Being a former schoolteacher myself, I know that feeling. When one of my students turned in an assignment that knocked my socks off, I wanted to go door to door or shout it from the rooftops!

Until now, though, our QA teachers were bragging to a pretty small audience: the QA staff. Although I try to pass on highlighted Quest responses to the writers and designers who created the Quests in the first place, it just didn’t seem like enough. These teachers deserve bragging rights… a kind of virtual break room in Quest Atlantis where they can share with their peers the wonderful things their students are doing in Quest Atlantis. And there are benefits on the flip side, too. We know that other teachers get ideas of their own when they see how students and teachers around the world take up the QA content.

In the past, Quest Atlantis Core Worlds were littered with little sculptures like the one you see here. Those sculptures, when clicked by a Quester, delivered a “Highlighted Quest” that had been nominated by a teacher. The hope was that Questers would benefit by example and work harder on their own responses. But we haven’t added new exemplary Quests to those statues for some time, because there was some concern that enterprising (but perhaps less-than-ethical) Questers might be tempted to copy the Quest contents and submit them as their own… kind of goes against the Quest Atlantis social commitments, I think you’ll agree! So we no longer share highlighted Quests in the 3D space for Questers.

But that leaves us with the question of how to share those highlighted Quest responses. We wanted a fun and easy way to allow teachers to celebrate their students’ extraordinary efforts with others. The problem? Finding a way for teachers to share student work in a way that is easily accessible when they want to see them.  After a lot of discussion and brainstorming the QA implementation team has come up with a couple of possible solutions. We’re interested in your thoughts.

First, we decided to separate Quests that stand alone or are part of small Missions from Quests embedded in the major QA Units (Taiga, Plague, Ander City, Mesa Verde, and so on). Those exemplary Unit Quests are given special treatment, and can be found in the PD Theme Parks for each Unit, in Teacherville. Teachers interested in finding out more about those Units can visit the theme parks at any time. They can even go through PD Missions for a quick overview of the Units… but that’s a story for another time.

Unit-based exemplary Quests are stored in Madame Questar booths like this one, fashioned in the style of the old “Zoltar” fortune-telling booths from old-time carnivals and fairs. Madame Questar allows interested teachers not only to check out exemplary Quests nominated by their peers, but to nominate exceptional Quests of their own, like this one I nominated for the Virtual Mesa Verde Unit. Look for the Madame Questar booths in any PD theme park in Teacherville.

Now we’re working on another way to share the rest of the highlighted Quest responses. Here’s one idea: Also in Teacherville, there is an area —called the Midway, in keeping with our theme-park atmosphere—where we’ve placed carnival booths, benches, and a large fountain. The booths are places for QA teachers to get quick “how-to” tips on things that they may have forgotten (again, that’s a conversation for another day). But inside the Midway Fountain lives the Oracle, a character who will share a highlighted Quest with any teacher who steps up to the fountain and asks to see one.

Some questions remain to be addressed. For example, with the number of highlighted Quest responses we see daily, it would be too time-consuming to reformat these Quests like we do with the Unit Quests. What we can do is place these Quests into a database that will then draw one out at random whenever a teacher asks the Oracle to see one. What teachers will see is the same view that Questers find when they open an accepted Quest: the student’s response to both the main Quest goals and the reflection, and at the bottom, the teacher’s comments. I can’t show the format in this blog, but here’s an example of a highlighted Quest I just received from a teacher in Australia today.

We’d really like to hear your thoughts on these ideas. Do you think this will satisfy teachers’ need for bragging rights? Do you go to Teacherville when you’re planning your QA curriculum? Would you find it helpful to examine a random sampling of an exemplary Quest response? Tell us what you think!

Come share your ideas on a Student Congress.

An idea had been mulling for some months now about creating a world in Quest Atlantis where students can take up ownership, leadership and have opportunities to share their lifeworld experiences in the QA social commitments.

The first formal meeting of our steering group happened this week to focus on writing a design proposal for a new world where the particpants will be the designers. What will it look like? What will the students roles be? What will motivate students to come here? What passport will be required to get there? What resourcing issues will we have? What infrastructure will support the goals? Six teachers and our first very brave student member met to begin to answer some of these questions.

The Student Congress will evolve in a disused world once intended for teacher professional development.As such it has a shell of buildings and landscape that the currently forming team of students and teachers can leverage, adapt and reshape to suit this new purpose.

The basic  idea of the congress is that students, who have luminated to a certain level, would be able to access this world where they can take up leadership roles and further share their knowledge and commitment with Questers about the globe. There they will be the designers of activities, be able to teach each other new skills like machinima and take their online communication to a new and more reflective level.

If you are a QA teacher and want to explore the world in question you can find the teleporter by walking past Brianna in Teacherville, toward the grass huts to a sign that directs you to Student Congress.

You can join us or follow how this proposal and world are shaping up at the Student Congress Wiki. The audio of the team discussion is also linked inworld at the Teachers Lounge of Islandview Elementary, Teacherville.

We heard from some members who had recently implemented QA units. Teachers like Karen Mann (Kazzm) working in an Australian High School who, having completed the Plague Unit twice (both old and new) offered praise for the strengthened curriculum outcomes in the new version. We heard from Judy Tyler (judyler), having just completed the Taiga unit working with a Illinois middle school science class,  who shared her excitement about the learning gains made by students and the in-depth teaching and learning surrounding this unit.  Cheryl Hill (libbycat50) reported on how excited her elementary/primary students have been about their new co-questing.  Cheryl’s school in Australia is collaborating with Martha Eaton’s (meaton) whole grade 4 in a school in North Carolina to complete curriculum activities with remote buddies. The students have been emailing, blogging, videoconferencing and talking in preparation and even though the school year ends in a few weeks for the Aussie group, they have requested their teacher support them in further collaborations over the holiday break. We hope to hear from some of these teachers as guest bloggers right here in the very near future. They certainly have stories that you will want to hear.

In light of each of the teacher reports we discussed how integral teaching is to the success of QA and how important quality planning, preparation, scaffolding and feedback are to student engagement and learning gains.  The teachers mentioned here are masters of these skills but we need to know more about the ways teachers enhance the program. That’s why we have 2 research projects happening in the Mesa Verde and Plague units to see in more detail how and in what ways contexts and teaching impact the value of these units.  Special teacher connections will be held in December and January for these global projects so watch out for those announcements.

We also heard back from our new buoys who have been developing local teacher training programs.  Mary-Ellen Davis (soulstar) in Virginia Beach had run her first face-to-face training and a highly praised VSTE conference presentation while Jesus De Leon (MrD) and Janine McGrath (Mcgrath4th) were preparing to start their first blended teacher training program for Seminole County in Florida. This distributed leadership has become vital to QA’s scalability and we are eternally grateful to all our buoys about the globe who voluntarily give their time, expertise and high standards of professionalism to the program.

Some initial discussions also took place in the UK connection and later over twitter to develop strategies to attract more schools in the UK.  We are looking to the local expertise of colleagues Drew Buddie (wellfan) and Dale Jones (djones ) and the MirandaNet educational community to bring leading UK schools and districts into QA.

To know more about these events and the projects that QA teachers are currently engaging in, come join the Quest Atlantis Teaching Wiki where you too can take up a leadership role in our burgeoning community.

We host the Teacher Connections in 3 time zones traveling about the globe in QA’s Teacherville and over Skype.

The next Teacher Connections will happen Thursday January 7th in your timezone!

1. Asia-Pacific Teacher Connection 7.00pm – 8.30 pm Sydney **(09.00 am GMT, 9pm Auckland, 5pm Singapore, 5pm Perth, 5pm Kuala Lumpur, 5pm Beijing, 6pm Tokyo, 2.30pm New Delhi)
2. Europe and Africa Teacher Connection 18.00 GMT (London 8pm, 9pm Johannesburg, 9pm Zagreb, 10pm Ankara, 12pm noon Los Angeles, 3pm NYC, 7am Friday, Sydney)
3. Americas Teacher Connection 5.00 pm PDT/Los Angeles (01.00am GMT, 8pm NYC, 8pm Raleigh, 8pm Santiago, 5pm Vancouver, 12 midday Friday, Sydney)

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.

I became suspicious as the excuses grew more far fetched and looked up the family name on our QA database to discover there was as student with the same family name in one of last year’s retired classes. I asked the caller if this was him and he finally had to confess “oh pshhhhhh” yes it was him. The upshot was that he had changed schools, in fact states and his new school had not heard of Quest Atlantis.  He totally loves QA declaring “Sorry i’m really sorry. its just i’m really interested in QA! im like crazy for it and i really wana learn more about it“.  It seems my young Quester friend thought that if he were to do the teacher training he could bring QA to his new school. Well my heart rose from a my  adult annoyance at his presumption and cheekiness to being so totally chuffed that our program actually means that much to the learners who inhabit it.

And I know you are wondering what happened to our young QA advocate. I decided to sponsor him in QA myself and to give him a special role in the community, not quite as a teacher, but commensurate with the initiative he had shown. He certainly seems worth keeping around even if only for the warmth of this one day’s events

Let’s take a quick look at the possibilities afforded by one QA Unit—our newest release, Virtual Mesa Verde (VMV).

A review of the Unit Guide shows standards alignments for the main subject area covered in the Unit—social studies— addressing geography and world history concepts like the balance of resources with human needs and the characteristics of civilization.

But there is a lot more content that can be mined for standards correlations in many other subject areas. Although you won’t find these standards listed in our Unit Guide (we can’t show correlations based on what a teacher MIGHT do with the content), additional standards addressed in these Units is limited only by the teacher’s imagination and need.

For example, every QA Unit is narrative-based, and the storylines and characters are designed as interactive novels in which Questers become active characters in the story. Think of the language arts content standards that you can cover by examining the characters (motivations, personalities); plot (conflict and resolution, climax and anticlimax); author’s purpose, tone, and craft; and the characteristics of fiction, science fiction, and fantasy! And that’s not all—each Unit also has unique “mini-lessons” that can enhance instruction in many other disciplines. VMV affords possibilities in:

• Science: The VMV Unit is filled with possibilities for science exploration, from agricultural science (the three-sisters gardening process favored by many native cultures and dryland irrigation techniques) to the study of the effects of wildfires on ecosystems and wildfire recovery science, and even more possibilities too numerous to outline here.
• Language Arts: The Unit’s main character, Lorisa, tells Questers a simplified version of the Hopi creation story. Why not compare that story with creation stories from indigenous people in your area or from cultures you’re studying in social studies classes, aligning instruction to comparative literature and mythology standards?
• Math: A technician from CyArk (http://archive.cyark.org/) demonstrates the use of laser technology to create accurate three-dimensional digital measurements (using bearing, inclination, and distance). Students can explore 3D measurements and scale by creating models of cliff dwellings and kivas.
• Social Studies: In addition to the main SS content specified in the VMV Unit Guide, the time travel features of the Unit also lend themselves well to activities in time, continuity, and change. Or expand the storyline with an in-depth study of the importance of primary source materials like artifacts in historical research.
• Art: Ancestral Puebloan (sometimes called Anasazi) pottery is distinctive for its black-and-white geometric designs. Have students create their own pottery and design new variations of this technique. Or plan a lesson on Ancestral Puebloan glyphs and decorations, exploring not only the art but the meaning behind the symbols.

• Health: Lorisa is struggling with peer pressure that is affecting her behavior and her health. Use her problems as a springboard for discussions on the influences of personal beliefs, culture, mass media, and other factors on health and self image as well as ways to communicate care, consideration, and respect for self, parents and family, and the diversity of others.
• Careers: Explore the career possibilities in national parks services, including park rangers, archaeologists, and anthropologists.

The suggestions above are just a small sampling of the standards correlations possible through a theme-based implementation of VMV. An exploration of your own content standards will spark ideas unique to your curriculum. As you can see, rather than a drain on your valuable instructional time, the QA Units can help you cover MORE content standards while engaging your students in transformational learning activities that build skills they can use for a lifetime.

Next time you’re browsing through the Quest Atlantis curriculum, check out the possibilities!

Collaboration for Florida QA teachers

 In addition, a private wiki called Quest Atlantis Educators of Florida provides a secured area for QA Florida educators to collaborate in the alignment of the quests and missions of QA with the latest Florida State Standards. The final product is a current aligned lesson which can be uploaded to the individual teacher’s school or county website to be used by other QA teachers. Florida teachers are invited to request an invitation to join this wiki which is managed by Jesus R. De Leon, one of the Seminole County QA teachers.

Facebook as well as Linked-in groups are also being formed to promote the Quest Atlantis Educators of Florida initiative…if you are a Florida educator or administrator please join our groups to continue to spread the QA news!

Finally, a professional workshop called “3D Virtual Worlds in Education: A Look at the Virtual World Experience of Quest Atlantis as a pedagogical approach to impact 21st Century learners“ is to be presented at the Florida Association of Teacher Educators (FATE) Conference to be held at the Advanced Technology College, Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, on Friday and Saturday, October 9th and 10th . The theme of the conference is The ART of Teaching New Millennium Learners: Access, Resources and Technology and it will explore how teachers, teacher educators, district professional development facilitators, and others work together to make informed decisions which impact student learning in virtual schools and promote collegial dialogue among instructional professionals at all levels regarding distance education.

Video teaser for FATE conference presentation

Quest Atlantis educators presenting in the workshop will include Roxanne De Leon from Full Sail University, Deborah Gordon from St. Mary Magdalen School in Altamonte Springs, Florida and Jesus R. De Leon from Seminole County Public Schools.

It is obvious that the Central Florida Quest Atlantis educators are excited, eager and ready to make a difference with the education of our 21st Century learners!

Recently I was leaving Indiana after a very fruitful time working in the Quest Atlantis team and I spied this t-shirt at the airport and just could not resist.

Tshirt bought at Indianapolis Airport

Those teachers who have trained online with me as will surely raise a giggle because some of our most fun professional development classes explore building in the 3D world where we partake of the joys of inworld cow tipping.

Part of what excites teachers, as they begin to learn all the facets of QA, is the opportunity they and their students have to construct, collaborate and develop.  While our cow tipping session is a bit of playful craziness it is emblematic of what QA offers and in more than just building in the virtual world. Teachers like their students are taking ownership and constructing more than simple 3D homes. Teacher teams have been forming to build in Free4All and this is proving to be a new and integral part of our teacher community development.

We also currently have teacher groups  working around the world on a Google Site for  Quest Writing to develop new quests to add to the worlds of QA. Quest are already being written in topics such as the social commitments, robotics, indigenous heritage and Modern languages – French and hopefully Spanish.

We are about to put together a proposal with a  small group of teachers to take  a disused world and re-purpose it as a student congress with several dedicated areas for such as Quester presentations, inworld machinima development, and Quester showcases.

Our successful monthly Teacher Connection meetings will restart on the first Thursday of each month and that makes September 3^rd our very next meeting. More notice of meeting times in your timezones will be coming to QA teachers through our email listserv, tweets and Quest Atlantis Teachers Facebook Group.

We have started building a wiki for teachers to develop a to map quests and missions to local outcomes and standards and to share out ideas for implementation.

If you are already a QA teacher, or keen to come join us soon in one of our online or face-to-face training programs, you are invited to join any and all of our teacher community activities and events. Many of these activities are just getting of the ground and they will become valuable and successful resources with the support of a critical mass of professionals like you!

~ Bron Stuckey

PS no cows were harmed in the training of Quest Atlantis teachers .

QA teachers from out of the audience

On the Tuesday, July 7th I was invited to be the ISTE guest speaker in Second Life to talk about Quest Atlantis.

The presentation came to life when 8 QA teachers in the audience came up to join me on stage and to describe their experience with QA and field questions about educational practices and learning for young students in our virtual world. More and more I bump into fantastic QA teachers who are sharing their experiences and drawing colleagues in to join us.

If you want to take a look at what teachers have to say about and how they are implementing Quest Atlantis take a look at our Visions of Quest Atlantis site. There you can see links to teacher blogs, slideshare presentations, youtube videos, wikis, flickr pics and tweets in a dynamic and ever growing collection.

~ Bron Stuckey