“Persistent virtual worlds literally support
hundreds of thousands of users each day, consuming hundreds of millions of man
hours per game, sporting economies that surpass the gross national product of
many actual countries.”
I chose this
quote because the first time I read it I had to go back and read it again
because I thought I misread it; those numbers are really surprising. I knew a lot of people played video games,
but I wouldn’t have guessed the number to be in the hundred thousands of people
playing each day or that the number of hours played per day was in the hundred
millions. It seems impossible that that
much time would be spent on a video game.
If we could find or design games that could captivate students like
these games do, they could be really effective in student learning.
“Completing quests requires that students
participate in real-world, socially and academically meaningful activities,
such as conducting environmental field studies, interviewing families and
friends, researching community problems, examining current events from multiple
perspectives, writing autobiographical anecdotes, producing advocacy media, or
developing real-world action plans.”
This quote intrigued
me because I couldn’t believe that students could get so much from one
game. There are multiple types of
formative assessment that engage the students in different intelligences. They are inquiring, writing, interacting with
the community, examining artifacts, problem solving, and much more. There is something to reach every student;
and teachers can use the ongoing assessment to see what the students have
learned. These activities aren’t just
busy work; these are skills the students will use in the future.
“QA scored significantly higher on the sum of all
four dimensions than any other activity in which the students engaged (e.g.,
non-QA school work, playing with friends, reading books, etc.) The fact that
children regard QA as a form of play even though they are doing school work,
and that they rate it almost as highly on this dimension as playing video
games, is particularly interesting, given that a significant amount of QA
activity involves doing academic work.”
I really like
this quote because it proves that if you can get students interested in what
they are learning, they will want to learn and enjoy learning. These students were so engaged with the QA
activities that they didn’t even notice how much work they were actually
doing. This is the perfect example of
students being engaged; these activities meant something to them. They were motivated to complete them and proud
of the work they had done; they even rated it almost as highly as actual
playing.
Additional Resource
After reading
this article I was really intrigued about Quest Atlantis. Since the article was so long, and sometimes
used technical talk, I didn’t feel I had the clearest picture of everything
that QA had to offer. So, I went and
searched for some videos that could condense the information I had read and
also show me some pictures of what the game looks like. I found the video Quest Atlantis on the Learning Channel and it was really helpful.
In this video, the doctor explains the benefits of QA and how it is
being used in schools. What I really
like about this video is that they interview the students playing the game, so
you can get their perspective on what they like about the game and what they
are learning.
I think this game
would be a great tool to integrate into your classroom. I’ve looked at the website, and I know you
have to be a subscriber in a classroom to play, but I would love to play around
with it and see all of its features firsthand.
I don’t know of any schools around here that use QA, but I think it
would be a great investment to look into.
Source
