SGER: Quest Atlantis Project

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This project will take advantage of advanced technologies and strategies proven successful in online role-playing games to create exciting opportunities for children in an after school context. There are almost no examples of learning environments that build on lessons and strategies from the commercial success of 3D online, role-playing games, environments that are populated by tens of thousands of users each day. Leveraging 3-D technologies and principles so successful for the gaming community to develop educationally meaningful environments is a topic of which we, as an educational community, know very little and which has much potential to engage typically underrepresented groups in SMT learning. This work is exploratory and has exciting potential both in terms of its direct service to the disadvantaged children at the local Boys and Girls Clubs and in terms of the broader implications of the research to inform the education community. Our 18 month relationship with the Boys and Girls Clubs is currently strong and recently Compaq and Microsoft donated $100,000 in equipment, software, and service to both local Boys and Girls Clubs to create Technology Centers. The Quest Atlantis program is viewed as an exciting opportunity to integrate the computers in Club programming, and staff, and space will be committed to the project. Continuing this relationship and leveraging this still-new technology and the current interest in innovating with this equipment and software creates a timely opportunity.