A
Quest
But what if your entire classroom experience drew upon the trick that made your favorite grade school teacher a cut above the rest? What if her ability to make learning more like a game was incorporated into the very fabric of the classroom experience? A new movement afoot in education circles called game-based or quest-based education is doing just that. Driven in part by Boise State research, the method allows teachers to link any subject or topic to the modern student’s familiarity with online games and provide alternatives to students who may not respond well to traditional classroom settings and methods. Dr. Lisa Dawley is an educational technology professor who is a leading national expert on questbased and virtual learning environments. She, along with Chris Haskell, a lecturer in the Department of Educational Technology, is exploring how gamebased learning, virtual worlds and simulations populated by student online identities called avatars can be meshed with traditional curriculum and modern education standards. “Many people are talking about gameplay as a new form of literacy – as a new way to think and process information,” Dawley said. “Ninety-seven percent of today’s teens are gamers or have played online games. For them the classroom setting is the only context where they have to sit in a room for an hour and take notes. It’s really out of context for their overall life experience. But gaming, they understand that.” Together, Dawley and Haskell developed and are refining an online gaming, quest-based learning platform called 3D GameLab where assignments become “quests,” success is rewarded with experience points, badges and achievements (called “leveling-up”) and grades become point totals. It is an environment that would be familiar to any “gamer” – an avid online game player – or anyone who has engaged in multiplayer online role-playing quest games like the popular “World of Warcraft.” 12 | BOISESTATE.EDU
SCREEN SHOT COURTESY LISA DAWLEY/JOHN KELLY PHOTO
Everyone knows that learning should be fun. Just as equally, everyone knows that school lessons are often a chore.