Blogs

For the past week the Institute of Play has been hard at work teaching and supporting the Quest to Learn "Boss Levels," the final form of assessment in the Quest to Learn school's trimester. The term boss level is derived from the video game world. It's used to describe the culminating stage (or level) in a video game when a player not only synthesizes and displays the skills they've built up throughout the game but also plumbs their knowledge bank to learn combine pre-existing ideas with new ones.

This Boss Level is the culmination of a trimester-long focus on the relationship between elements of a system and how change affects how systems interact. The unofficial tagline is "What Story Will you Tell?" and the student's are challenged to work in small groups to create, write, design, act and perform an original play. Although the goal of the project is to create and perform a play, the focus of the Boss Level is collaboration, process and working together.

The winter installment of Q2L’s afterschool program Mobo Studio has been in full-effect since early February. Administered and developed by the Institute of Play, Mobo Studio’s themed workshops or “pods” have been led by two new and talented teacher-mentors, Inti Einhorn and Rosanna Lopez. Mobo Studio’s project-based learning environment creates an active, studio-like atmosphere where kids are encouraged to problem solve, learn new things and integrate mobile technologies in authentic and creative ways.

This trimester Mobo Studio has two offerings—Frankentoy and Video U. In Frankentoy, students become mad scientists and learn about resourcing and re-using materials and how things work by deconstructing and reconstructing everything from plush toys to legos. Ripping, cutting, stuffing, and sewing, Frankentoy is a truly hands-on and process-oriented environment, where students are creating “truly absurd and wonderful plush beasts” which they hope to bring back to life using stop-motion animation. Right now the focus is on creation and documentation, as students make objects and then invent fantastical backstories which can be posted on Q2L’s social learning network Being Me.

The Institute of Play has recently returned from Diversifying Participation a Digital Media and Learning Conference in San Diego, a three-day forum for educators, researchers, designers, scholars and other thought-partners.

The conference provided a great forum to learn about new organizations and initiatives and to re-examine the ways that a range of stakeholders are harnessing everything from locative games to virtual worlds in thought-provoking ways. One example, the Birmingham, AL-based education design firm, g8four, whose Changelab summer program uses challenge-based and project-driven learning environments XO laptops and the Scratch animation platform to help kids work with local leaders to problem solve around issues in their local communities. Another example is STARTL, a start-up incubator and accelerator that connects designers of digital innovative learning tools and products with entrepreneurs, investors and foundations.

This week marked the launch of an online social learning network, custom-designed by the Institute of Play for the game-based learning school, Quest to Learn. A creative, resourceful and stalwart team of designers, programmers, project managers and wellness experts collaborated to bring Being Me to life. Being Me’s features enable students to engage in a range of practices from self-reflective moments where they track how they’re feeling to more community-oriented activities where they participate in online discussions or share perspectives. Being Me supports Quest’s trimester-long focus on team work and how elements interact to create relationships within systems. It will also have an active role in Q2L’s afterschool space, providing opportunities for students to post, rate and comment on their work with the support of their adult mentors.