Quest to Learn

In the September 15, 2010 NY Times article Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom, Sara Corbett investigates The Quest to Learn public school and asks the question, "WHAT IF TEACHERS GAVE UP the vestiges of their educational past, threw away the worksheets, burned the canon and reconfigured the foundation upon which a century of learning has been built? What if we blurred the lines between academic subjects and reimagined the typical American classroom so that, at least in theory, it came to resemble a typical American living room or a child’s bedroom or even a child’s pocket, circa 2010 — if, in other words, the slipstream of broadband and always-on technology that fuels our world became the source and organizing principle of our children’s learning? What if, instead of seeing school the way we’ve known it, we saw it for what our children dreamed it might be: a big, delicious video game? "

In 2009, the first public school based on the principles of game design opened in New York. Their innovative approach to learning attempts to create a "need to know" environment for kids through the context of video game design and game like learning with students completing missions and quests.






Hear more about Quest to Learn in this MacArthur Foundation talk from May 17, 2010 on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w81BA7s3bU and read more on Powering Up Education



Next up, see Out of this World