Project Based Learning

Dr. Barab discusses some of the prime reasons why virtual learning situations such as in Quest Atlantis are better received by kids than typical classroom learning situations. Concepts that intersect in QA are educational instances involving activity, narrative context, trying on identities, agency, and consequentiality. A key problem in schools might be described as a disconnection of students from real involvement in their learning. If schools continue with a disembodied methodology focused on testing, is there any real indication that drop-out rates will decrease or that the reform touted by the current rewards-based political Race to the Top will have any positive impact on students in American schools?

My own classroom experiences favor projects and technology, of which Quest Atlantis is a wonderful fit. Kids are constantly being told to stop talking in school, but we all know that talking is part of our social existence, and our social groups constitute our various instances of being in the world. Conversations in my classroom among kids “playing” Quest Atlantis are rich, questioning, focused, playful, and an excellent example of knowledge being distributed among students. The content of Quest Atlantis is contextualized, very real, very attractive. Kids remember where they have been, characters they have talked with, unsolved dilemmas - and along they way, they not only talk to students in the same room, they also talk to the avatars of students from school around the world, again a natural function of the urge to socialize. There are no avatars policing Quest Atlantis telling the students to stop talking.