Quest Atlantis

Would you believe the game in the video above could be used in schooling education?

This is the virtual world I want to introduce in this blog --- Quest Atlantis.

What is Quest Atlantis? Quest Atlantis is the former version of Atlantis Remixed. It " is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environments to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks".[1]

The most famous unit in Quest Atlantis is Taiga, students work together to figure out a serious ecological problem which has resulted in many fish dying. Students can move through the park (Taiga National Park)and talk with people(NPCs and other students), by which, they can collect clues, then conclude the reason of this problem, make a recommandation about suggestions to improve the environment. Does this sounds like a real life task which are always done by scientists? It is cool, right?

As a educational virtual world designed for schooling education, it provides "an immersive context with over 60,000 players worldwide".[2] These children have submitted over 50,000 Quests and completing 100,000 Missions, some of which are assigned by their teachers, others are done by children's own choice in their free time. Researches through analyzing these learners data have prove learning gains in science, language arts and social study. More importantly, it offers a totally different learning approach in classroom. The inquiry-based tasks requires students to act and think like professionals, to make a difference. During this process, not only academic knowledge student developed but also communication skills.

It is not easy to get students accessing this kind of opportunities in real life, because they are tiny people, they make mistakes, you will never want put hundreds of fish's life into teenagers' hands. ;) But you can do it in a virtual world, which could let students learn from their mistakes, it will not hurt anyone(any fish)!

Next week, I want to continue talk about Quest Atlantis and the rational under it.   

Oh! I almost forget the most important thing --- the designer!! Quest Atlantis Project is developed by Dr Sasha Barab's team. Now Dr Barab is a Professor in the Teachers College at Arizona State University. Before that he worked in Indiana University, that is why you will meet some invalid weblink pointing to IU when you scan Quest Atlantis website. Don't worry, you can google the title or key words, and find other equivalent resources.   


[1][2]: quote from http://atlantisremixed.org

It is free of charge to download Quest Atlantis from their website for everyone. It has both PC and Mac version.