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.

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 .