Quest Atlantis
11 October 2008
An Introduction to Quest Atlantis
At the Australian Computers in Education Conference in Canberra (ACEC08) I saw a wonderful presentation about Quest Atlantis, a project developed by the Indiana School of Education.
On the QA site, it is described as:
…An international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-15, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. It allows users to travel to virtual places to perform educational activities (known as Quests), talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae.
There were a number of things that I found impressive about QA:
- Students can only join QA after their teacher has registered them
- Teachers must participate in four sessions of training before they can register their students
- The training in conducted online using the QA software and Skype
- Rather than students being exposed to the philosophy of “I must earn more virtual currency to have more in my virtual world”, instead they participate according to the QA Values of Social Responsibility, Compassionate Wisdom and Environmental Awareness – just to name a few!
- Whilst there is a focus on Science and, in particular, the Environment, QA can be used across the curriculum
- It is FREE!
More information about Quest Atlantis can be found on my delicious links, including a great post by Steve Collis.
