Quest Atlantis

Project Director: Sasha Barab

Quest Atlantis is a National Science Foundation (NSF) -funded learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9 to 12, in educational tasks. Currently over 4,500 registered users from five continents use Quest Atlantis in formal school environments as well as in after-school settings. Building on strategies from online role-playing games, Quest Atlantis combines features used in commercial gaming environments with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. The core elements of Quest Atlantis are: 1) a 3-D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE); 2) learning Quests and unit plans; 3) a storyline Ð presented through an introductory video as well as novellas and a comic book Ð that involves a mythical Council and a set of social commitments; and 4) a globally-distributed community of participants.

In the last year, we have been funded again by NSF to continue our design-based research work and have begun gathering data around new science and language arts units, as well as beginning a fruitful partnership with computer-mediated communication (CMC) researchers based in SLIS. QA team members have recently published articles in Educational Technology, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and Educational Technology Research and Development, plus a couple of book chapters, and a number of former GA's have settled into faculty positions elsewhere. Locally, nationally, and internationally, the QA participant community has continued to grow, with new schools and collaborating researchers all over the world.

For the next year, following on the heels of significant developments regarding the narrative backstory and curricular offerings of QA, the team will take on the further refinement of critical technical and curricular structures. Additionally, significant attention will be focused on supporting our growing participant community, especially in-service teachers. Research and design will continue to develop around our central funded questions, where we continue to dissect the complex variables that constitute an online learning, playing, and socially conscious experience. Specifically we will look at the importance of the narrative in supporting deep learning of science content and the role of community in supporting these understandings.