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.

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