Being Me Launches!

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.

Introduced to students as part of the Wellness curriculum, students began their Being Me experience by making and uploading representations of themselves and reflecting on their personal well-being. Within a day of its introduction, Being Me had already begun to establish itself as a vibrant space of interaction. As students logged on from home to post status updates, write blog entries and share media, the relationship between Q2L’s in-school and out-of-school learning spaces began to shift.

Being Me is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and developed in collaboration with Chicago’s Digital Youth Network.