Project Based Learning

You’ve arrived at my Pepperdine University Learning Technologies doctoral blog. This space started off being about HCI, but has gone awry, that is, gone to where it wants to, where it needs to go. The initial Human Computer Interaction (HCI) interest has bent toward my passion, project-based learning, in real and virtual social spaces. My first in-school virtual exploration area is Quest Atlantis. QA is is an international learning project out of Indiana University. It uses a 3D environment in which younger elementary students undertake challenging tasks and solve problems, while role playing situations in which they actively help make Atlantis a better place -  through missions and quests based on social commitments.

This has been a natural progression for me. I’ve been joining, managing, or creating Internet and classroom projects for about 13 years. The classroom is my lab, a working, playing area where kids learn in social activities using various technologies, and connecting with other kids around the world. The word project to me is a philosophy, a way of being and doing. Establishing a project mode enables students to experience each others knowledge, and to be more conversationally receptive to each other - and let’s not forget the teacher. A teacher in a project-based classroom has a great job - it’s school, but not overbearing. Things are always happening, kids like being there, like the surprises, like the challenges and begin to adapt to the looser structure, responding in time as better problem solves.

Here is a link to an interview I did with Edutopia on project-based learning in February 2009.