ChicagoQuest is an adaptive agent screening and training process to create agents of change for an emergent world. It focuses on cultivating skills like problem solving, collaboration, communication, persistence, and adaptability through game-based learning experiences like missions, projects, challenges, and competitive/cooperative models. The goal is to develop self-aware, lifelong learners who can thrive in dynamic environments through satisfying work, feedback, and preparation for future learning.
EdMedia 2012: A Reality Check - Taking Authentic e-Learning from design to im...Marko Teräs
Full paper presentation "A Reality Check
- Taking Authentic e-Learning
from design to implementation" at EdMedia 2012 conference with Hanna Teräs, Jan Herrington.
Teräs, H., Teräs, M. & Herrington, J. (2012). A reality check: Taking authentic e-learning from design to implementation. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2012 (pp. 2219-2228). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/41058
Experience Driven Agile - Developing Up to an Experience, Not Down to a Featurekalebwalton
Releasing good features that don't quite add up to the right user experience? Struggle working with stakeholders to prioritize and roadmap? Know that incorporating user experience into your process is the right thing to do, but just don't know where to start?
After this webinar you will know how to drive agile development with user experience, helping you to smooth out many speed bumps along the way that are not addressed by traditional agile practices. We'll give you a glimpse of Experience Driven Agile at scale and provide you with two new agile survival tools that you soon won't be able to live without!
Demonstrating value with Communities Of PracticeCollabor8now Ltd
How do you demonstrate or even measure the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing? This presentation is based on over 7 years experience gained implementing on-line communities for the UK public sector.
This slide-show discusses habit 3 from the series: the 7 habits of highly effective decision makers. It shows how the great decision makers use the power of visualisation to combat complexity, clarify communication and catalyse creativity.
Making Business Human: Delivering Great Experiences in a Connected AgePeter Merholz
Slides from my talk at IA Summit 2012. Won't make much sense of you were there.
In it, I discuss how business must engage in humanist practices and values in this messy and complex Connected Age.
EdMedia 2012: A Reality Check - Taking Authentic e-Learning from design to im...Marko Teräs
Full paper presentation "A Reality Check
- Taking Authentic e-Learning
from design to implementation" at EdMedia 2012 conference with Hanna Teräs, Jan Herrington.
Teräs, H., Teräs, M. & Herrington, J. (2012). A reality check: Taking authentic e-learning from design to implementation. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2012 (pp. 2219-2228). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/41058
Experience Driven Agile - Developing Up to an Experience, Not Down to a Featurekalebwalton
Releasing good features that don't quite add up to the right user experience? Struggle working with stakeholders to prioritize and roadmap? Know that incorporating user experience into your process is the right thing to do, but just don't know where to start?
After this webinar you will know how to drive agile development with user experience, helping you to smooth out many speed bumps along the way that are not addressed by traditional agile practices. We'll give you a glimpse of Experience Driven Agile at scale and provide you with two new agile survival tools that you soon won't be able to live without!
Demonstrating value with Communities Of PracticeCollabor8now Ltd
How do you demonstrate or even measure the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing? This presentation is based on over 7 years experience gained implementing on-line communities for the UK public sector.
This slide-show discusses habit 3 from the series: the 7 habits of highly effective decision makers. It shows how the great decision makers use the power of visualisation to combat complexity, clarify communication and catalyse creativity.
Making Business Human: Delivering Great Experiences in a Connected AgePeter Merholz
Slides from my talk at IA Summit 2012. Won't make much sense of you were there.
In it, I discuss how business must engage in humanist practices and values in this messy and complex Connected Age.
2011’s HOT BUTTON TOPIC: ENGAGEMENT THROUGH GAMIFICATION.Merging Media
2011’s HOT BUTTON TOPIC: ENGAGEMENT THROUGH GAMIFICATION.
Speaker: Scott Dodson, COO, Bobber Interactive.
In just a year, Gamification has become the hottest and most engaging media strategy of the day, but are we just diving in and getting the most of Gamification or missing the mark? Can games change the way we engage film/TV audiences? US Gamification expert Scott Dodson shares some interesting insights into this new trend and provides some existing examples of good play!
“Preparar a Liderança do Futuro” é o título da Conferência Human Habitat que terá lugar no dia 5 de Novembro no Auditório Mar da Palha do Oceanário de Lisboa e terá como orador convidado Menno Van Dijk, cofundador e diretor geral da THNK, Escola de Liderança Criativa de Amesterdão, centrou a sua carreira profissional no desenvolvimento de estratégias empresariais, na inovação e no crescimento e, no âmbito da THNK, apoia o desenvolvimento dos líderes criativos do futuro, para que tenham um impacte social significativo no planeta.
O que é a THNK?
THNK, Escola de Liderança Criativa de Amesterdão, apoia o desenvolvimento dos líderes criativos do futuro, para que tenham um impacte social significativo no planeta. A THNK oferece um programa para liderança criativa, a um grupo de participantes internacional, criteriosamente selecionados e com elevado talento e criatividade nas áreas do empreendedorismo social e económico como na inovação empresarial.
O programa tem como enfoque a identificação dos problemas da atualidade e os novos modelos para abordar a respetiva solução, estando ao abrigo do mesmo integrado projetos reais.
Does your mission statement differentiate your nonprofit clearly and concisely? Could it describe any of several other organizations? If you're clear about your value to your community, stakeholders and/or cause, why bother to “wordsmith” your mission statement? The answers to these questions can make the difference between sustainable success and failure in several ways. Join us to see what a rigorously crafted mission statement can do for marketing, fundraising, strategy, and sustainability.
Slides (mix of Dutch and English) I used for the seminar "Rules, ludic spaces, and experiential learning" at Nyenrode Business Universiteit on June 20, 2012.
Devising intranet incentives: rewards and conditions for knowledge exchangeHazel Hall
Hazel Hall's invited paper presented at the 25th International Online Meeting, London, 4-6 December 2001. The full text article on which this presentation is based is available from Knowledge Board at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/lib/3259. The material presented here draws on early work for Hazel Hall's PhD, the full details of which are available from http://hazelhall.org/publications/phd-the-knowledge-trap-an-intranet-implementation-in-a-corporate-environment/
Nudging the Culture of Wellness: Evidence-Based Approachguest589257a
WEBINAR FROM
http://www.nationalwellness.org/index.php?id_tier=128&id_c=225
(Can listen to audio there)
Healthy work cultures are not "built" as much as "nudged" over time. Nudge means gradual, intentional, peer-to-peer positive interaction and encouragement. Recognized in the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP), "Team Awareness" (TA) has provided nudge training to over 10,000 workers in various industries. Join this session to learn how any culture of health effort must consider the work group, leadership, and social health.
We will explain how TA works, how to start using quick tools from TA, and three tenets of wellness cultures: (1) Costs are incurred if you only invest in individual health when the work culture is toxic; (2) Strong wellness program don't guarantee worker engagement; (3) The strongest workplace influence on employee health is his or her immediate work-group and supervisor.
This third tenet is a force-multiplier which you can jump-start by empowering work groups to know their health benefits, coping skills, tolerance levels for unhealthy practices, by reviewing basic listening skills, and through NUDGE: Notice who may need your encouragement; Understand your role; Decide if you should say something; if so, use GUIDELINES for communication, and then Encourage!
Following the webinar, participants will be able to:
describe the six modules of Team Awareness and why it has been so effective
use tools from the Team Awareness curriculum
understand the basic steps of nudging
Webinar: Enterprise Social Networking to Foster Employee Engagement tibbr
Join us to hear KPMG explain, how a social computing platform has accelerated the circulation of intelligence, enhanced productivity, and, empowered better solutions for its clients.
Marcia Conner from the Altimeter Group also sheds light on the top global trends driving the adoption of enterprise social computing.
For more information, please visit http://www.tibbr.com/
2011’s HOT BUTTON TOPIC: ENGAGEMENT THROUGH GAMIFICATION.Merging Media
2011’s HOT BUTTON TOPIC: ENGAGEMENT THROUGH GAMIFICATION.
Speaker: Scott Dodson, COO, Bobber Interactive.
In just a year, Gamification has become the hottest and most engaging media strategy of the day, but are we just diving in and getting the most of Gamification or missing the mark? Can games change the way we engage film/TV audiences? US Gamification expert Scott Dodson shares some interesting insights into this new trend and provides some existing examples of good play!
“Preparar a Liderança do Futuro” é o título da Conferência Human Habitat que terá lugar no dia 5 de Novembro no Auditório Mar da Palha do Oceanário de Lisboa e terá como orador convidado Menno Van Dijk, cofundador e diretor geral da THNK, Escola de Liderança Criativa de Amesterdão, centrou a sua carreira profissional no desenvolvimento de estratégias empresariais, na inovação e no crescimento e, no âmbito da THNK, apoia o desenvolvimento dos líderes criativos do futuro, para que tenham um impacte social significativo no planeta.
O que é a THNK?
THNK, Escola de Liderança Criativa de Amesterdão, apoia o desenvolvimento dos líderes criativos do futuro, para que tenham um impacte social significativo no planeta. A THNK oferece um programa para liderança criativa, a um grupo de participantes internacional, criteriosamente selecionados e com elevado talento e criatividade nas áreas do empreendedorismo social e económico como na inovação empresarial.
O programa tem como enfoque a identificação dos problemas da atualidade e os novos modelos para abordar a respetiva solução, estando ao abrigo do mesmo integrado projetos reais.
Does your mission statement differentiate your nonprofit clearly and concisely? Could it describe any of several other organizations? If you're clear about your value to your community, stakeholders and/or cause, why bother to “wordsmith” your mission statement? The answers to these questions can make the difference between sustainable success and failure in several ways. Join us to see what a rigorously crafted mission statement can do for marketing, fundraising, strategy, and sustainability.
Slides (mix of Dutch and English) I used for the seminar "Rules, ludic spaces, and experiential learning" at Nyenrode Business Universiteit on June 20, 2012.
Devising intranet incentives: rewards and conditions for knowledge exchangeHazel Hall
Hazel Hall's invited paper presented at the 25th International Online Meeting, London, 4-6 December 2001. The full text article on which this presentation is based is available from Knowledge Board at http://www.knowledgeboard.com/lib/3259. The material presented here draws on early work for Hazel Hall's PhD, the full details of which are available from http://hazelhall.org/publications/phd-the-knowledge-trap-an-intranet-implementation-in-a-corporate-environment/
Nudging the Culture of Wellness: Evidence-Based Approachguest589257a
WEBINAR FROM
http://www.nationalwellness.org/index.php?id_tier=128&id_c=225
(Can listen to audio there)
Healthy work cultures are not "built" as much as "nudged" over time. Nudge means gradual, intentional, peer-to-peer positive interaction and encouragement. Recognized in the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP), "Team Awareness" (TA) has provided nudge training to over 10,000 workers in various industries. Join this session to learn how any culture of health effort must consider the work group, leadership, and social health.
We will explain how TA works, how to start using quick tools from TA, and three tenets of wellness cultures: (1) Costs are incurred if you only invest in individual health when the work culture is toxic; (2) Strong wellness program don't guarantee worker engagement; (3) The strongest workplace influence on employee health is his or her immediate work-group and supervisor.
This third tenet is a force-multiplier which you can jump-start by empowering work groups to know their health benefits, coping skills, tolerance levels for unhealthy practices, by reviewing basic listening skills, and through NUDGE: Notice who may need your encouragement; Understand your role; Decide if you should say something; if so, use GUIDELINES for communication, and then Encourage!
Following the webinar, participants will be able to:
describe the six modules of Team Awareness and why it has been so effective
use tools from the Team Awareness curriculum
understand the basic steps of nudging
Webinar: Enterprise Social Networking to Foster Employee Engagement tibbr
Join us to hear KPMG explain, how a social computing platform has accelerated the circulation of intelligence, enhanced productivity, and, empowered better solutions for its clients.
Marcia Conner from the Altimeter Group also sheds light on the top global trends driving the adoption of enterprise social computing.
For more information, please visit http://www.tibbr.com/
Design visualisations are information products that communicate how new products or services will work. The way they do this is by showing the new product or service in action, using a combination of text and pictures to tell the story of the future user experience.
Multi-dimensional: Building 21st Century Experiences for Financial Outcomes Harriet Wakelam
This presentation was given as a keynote at UX Finance, Istanbul Turkey 2013. It looks at the frameworks and key challenges of designing multi-channel customer experiences that deliver to financial outcomes, not just business outcomes.
Agile teams perceive architecture-centric approaches as paper-driven, heavyweight, insufficiently focused on business results, and delivering systems that align with standards not relevant in the context of fast changing business challenges.
Enterprise architects often criticize Agile methods as they perceive them as lacking architectural control or governance. Software Architecture Retrospective is a thinking tool for an enterprise to blend reflections on architecture with agile delivery for balancing quick term business goals with long term architecture initiatives.
Keynote presentation to the Transmedia Living Lab, Madrid sponsored by Telefonica.
The presentation introduces a methodology for participatory storytelling and illustrates with examples from my work a
Audio available at: http://snd.sc/ZxALBT
The LRMI is to the Dewey Decimal System as a motorcycle is to a bicycle—designed for a new era to change the very nature of where we can go with instructional resources and how we get there. Platforms and technologies that take advantage of this new tagging standard will drive the future of personalized learning. The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative enables the use of rich, education-specific metadata that not just describes a resource but how it can be used to support learning. You'll learn from those who are evolving this initiative, including both producers and consumers of LRMI metadata, how it connects to big data initiatives like the Shared Learning Collaborative and the Learning Registry, and how it works with other existing and emerging education data standards. Whether you’re an educator, platform developer, or publisher—or you’re like billions of others who search the internet—you’ll benefit from this close-up look at the engine that will drive 21st Century learning.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Safalta Digital marketing institute in Noida, provide complete applications that encompass a huge range of virtual advertising and marketing additives, which includes search engine optimization, virtual communication advertising, pay-per-click on marketing, content material advertising, internet analytics, and greater. These university courses are designed for students who possess a comprehensive understanding of virtual marketing strategies and attributes.Safalta Digital Marketing Institute in Noida is a first choice for young individuals or students who are looking to start their careers in the field of digital advertising. The institute gives specialized courses designed and certification.
for beginners, providing thorough training in areas such as SEO, digital communication marketing, and PPC training in Noida. After finishing the program, students receive the certifications recognised by top different universitie, setting a strong foundation for a successful career in digital marketing.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Honest Reviews of Tim Han LMA Course Program.pptxtimhan337
Personal development courses are widely available today, with each one promising life-changing outcomes. Tim Han’s Life Mastery Achievers (LMA) Course has drawn a lot of interest. In addition to offering my frank assessment of Success Insider’s LMA Course, this piece examines the course’s effects via a variety of Tim Han LMA course reviews and Success Insider comments.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
4. A learner is…capable of adapting itself to the
sorts of new and diverse circumstances that
an active agent is likely to encounter in a
dynamic world.
-Brent Davis, Dennis Sumara
Complexity and Education
6. Problem Solving
Foresight and
Communication
Afterthought
Agent
of
Collaboration
Change Self-awareness
Persistence Adaptability
7. An adaptive agent is constantly playing a game
with its environment.
-M. Mitchell Waldrop
Complexity
8. Boss Levels
and High
Challenge
Projects
Missions Game
and Project design and
Based systems
Learning thinking
Problem
Solving
9. …kids…have developed another skill, one that
almost looks like patience: they are more
tolerant of being out of control, more
tolerant of that exploratory phase where the
rules don’t all make sense, and where few
goals have been clearly defined.
Steven Johnson
Emergence
10. Shifting
Scenarios
Secret
Missions and Subject
Surprise integration
Activities
Adapting
and
Predicting
11. Challenges that
Stretch
Long term Peer review
projects, multi- and open work
stage projects model
Persistence
12. Being me social
Agent Profile
network
Professional
interactions
Webinars
with community
partners
Email, logs, and
Presentations Communication design notes
13. Competition and cooperation may seem
antithetical, but at some very deep
level, they are two sides of the same coin.
-John Holland
14. Teams – shifting
and stable
Professional
Personal best
interactions with
competitive
community
model – High
partners & game
score
designers
Peer review and
Group missions
Collaboration open work
and boss levels
model
15. Roles and
responsibilities
Mission
Agent profile
briefings
Self-
awareness
16. The culture of a school is an
emergent system built on the
nature of interactions
between agents
17. Student-
Instantaneous
teacher
feedback
collaboration
Satisfying
Gamefulness
Work
Dynamic
School
Culture
19. Service and
Community
Real world Instantaneous
Problems Feedback
Satisfying
Work
20. a game is “the voluntary effort to overcome
unnecessary obstacles”
Bernard Suits
Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia
21. Instantaneous
Feedback
Quests and
Agent Profile
Missions
Professional Student- ChicagoQuest
teacher
Development Collaboration Wiki
22. ...a designer introduces new…strategies into
the world.
-Robert Axelrod, Michael Cohen
Harnessing Complexity
23. Rare and Unique
Items
Quests, Missions, and Game designer
Boss Levels collaborations
Secret Missions Gamefulness Agent Profile
24. “Three things, then, are involved in active
learning: experiencing the world in new
ways, forming new affiliations, and
preparation for future learning.”
James Gee
“Semiotic Domains: Is Playing Video Games a Waste of Time?”
25. ChicagoQuest
Mission Logs
Wiki
Mission Email, Being
Briefings Me
Agent Profile
Instantaneous Gameful
Feedback Assessment
33. Together we are embarking on an epic quest, a
quest to change education and to change the
world…
Editor's Notes
Welcome and thank you for choosing to become an agent of ChicagoQuest. You are now participating in ChicagoQuest’s Agent Screening process (CAS). Through this briefing you will gain a better understanding of your mission and the missions of your fellow agents.
ChicagoQuest agents include students, parents, teachers, staff, community partners, and indeed the entire community.
Learning is not an accomplishment…it is a way of approaching the world. A learner is flexible, a problem-solver, persistent in the face of difficulties and challenges, and is aware of their own capabilities and current state. An agent of change must also be able to communicate and convince in a variety of media, and collaborate with others to accomplish tasks. He or she must know how to prepare for life’s missions and how to assess what has been accomplished. To be agents of change, our students must develop these skills and habits for approaching their lives and the world.
As an agent, you are part of something bigger than yourself, an epic adventure. While you will certainly enjoy yourself, you are also doing serious business, the business of learning.
An agent of change is able to predict the future and develop strategies for dealing with it. At ChicagoQuest, students will engage in project-based learning on the model of quests and missions. They will also operate at the higher level of design and analysis, to understand how missions and quests are developed. These activities teach agents the skill of problem solving.
An agent of change is adaptable and able to build models for possible strategies. At ChicagoQuest, specific activities will help to develop students’ ability to adapt and predict. Secret missions and surprise activities will allow students to experience the unexpected and to learn to look for challenges. By handling shifting scenarios, students will learn that problems do not always remain static, and they must learn to adapt to new realities. By integrating subjects, we help students to understand that problems do not always present themselves in a particular form, and we have to be prepared to use all the tools at our disposal for solving them. Over time, students develop the ability to predict what tools are needed for a particular problem and prepare themselves appropriately.
The persistence of game players is notorious, but this skill is less developed in the academic realm. By taking a cue from games, we can develop the persistence of students to overcome obstacles. Long term, multi-stage projects teach students that not every scenario is simply a case of problem – solution: sometimes solutions create new problems that must be dealt with. Overall, our goal is to create challenges that stretch a student’s abilities and indeed, allow for failure. A student that is operating safely within their comfort zone is not being pushed to their full potential, nor are they developing the patience needed for complex problems. The open work model is one that encourages students to work together on difficult challenges, and to struggle collaboratively with their personal weaknesses. A supportive community is essential for students being able to trust each other during challenges.
Communication is central to creating change in the world. It is the interaction between agents and ideas that creates emergent strategies, and communication is the oil of that interaction. Students will give presentations in a variety of formats to gain experience in communicating their ideas and in facing challenges to their arguments. The Agent Profile is a record of the students strengths, weaknesses, epic wins and failures, as well as expressing their personal style and passions. This Profile is one way that the student communicates with our community. By learning to interact in a professional manner with adults, students grow in maturity and learn to see adults as a resource for problem solving. The Being Me social network provides a format for constant feedback and interaction. Design notes are a method for students to record their thoughts, strategies, and processes in order to learn from their successes and failures and to gain greater predictive and adaptive skill.
ChicagoQuest will allow students the opportunity to collaborate extensively with each other and with other community members. Group missions and boss levels will demand teamwork and collaborative problem solving from students. Competition will be encouraged with the goal being a ‘personal-best’ approach, where students struggle to improve themselves, encourage others to improve themselves, and the success of one of us is the success of us all. Students will operate in various types of teams, some with shifting membership and some with stable membership. Shifting teams allow students to develop adaptability, and to practice analyzing new problems and situations. Stable teams allow students to deepen personal relationships, grow networking skills, to grow in trust, and to tackle greater challenges. The open work model is one of trust and open communication. In game design, playtesting and peer review are essential, and the ability to face constructive criticism and use it successfully is an important educational skill. Interacting with community partners and game designers will give students access to role models for professional interaction, and teach them how to use adult resources appropriately.
Before you can be an agent of change, you must know your starting point. In game design this is called “Game State”. Agents will gain an initial understanding of missions and scenarios through mission briefings, which provide for them the framework of the challenge they are facing, and what resources are at their disposal. Through collaboration, students will learn to assign roles and responsibilities, and to assess what roles and responsibilities are appropriate for different individuals. This requires them to be able to both asses their own strengths and weaknesses and to asses those of others. The agent profile is another format for students to assess their own abilities, as well as their current progress and status towards becoming a powerful agent of change.
A school is a complex system that is created from the simultaneous interactions of many individuals, as well as the environmental space of the school. Complex systems cannot be created by an individual or mandated from above. Every individual has their role to play in the creation of the culture. By providing ways for community members to interact, and establishing systems for exchanging ideas, we allow the school culture the maximum opportunity for development and emergent qualities.
The ChicagoQuest culture we seek to create has a number of qualities. Gamefulness speaks to our central philosophy of games and game design as an approach to learning. We want students to see the world as a challenge to be tackled, and to use the strategies they are learning at school in their school and in their lives. Student-teacher collaboration is essential for promoting a school culture that is open, friendly, and collegial. Instantaneous feedback is one of our core goals in developing a powerful learning community. Game design shows us that the clearer and more instantaneously feedback is given, the more successfully the recipient can act upon it. Through game design structures and communication systems, we hope to push feedback to its fastest possible level. Finally, students and teachers must be engaged in satisfying work. One of the main problems with traditional school models is that the work students are doing has no value beyond its assessment. Our students will undertake tasks that are satisfying and real-world, that have value to the community and to the student.
A student sits down to do their math homework – a sheet of problems calculating proportions. Imagine if instead the student was working out proportions in order to create a scale model of a community center that will eventually be proposed to the city. The work that the student is undertaking now has real world meaning, gives service to the community, and is on an epic scale. The student knows that the worksheet is only an exercise, and will probably end up in the trash. Authentic work is satisfying work. Instantaneous feedback makes work more satisfying as well, because the students knows where they stand, what needs to be done, and what they can do to improve. When students are up in the air, they withdraw or give up hope, because they do not know what is expected of them. The lesson from games is – lots of feedback, and small rewards to encourage forward movement.
Student teacher collaboration is the lifeblood of a school, the critical point where relationships are built, expectations are set, pride is developed, and feedback is given. ChicagoQuest will provide a number of means for enriching this critical point and adding energy to this interaction. Faculty professional development will be created on a model very much like the one students are undertaking. Teachers will not only understand the student experience, but they will be able to share their own successes, failures, and strategies. Quests and missions provide an essential framework for student-teacher collaboration that develops an “Us-against the problem” way of thinking. Instead of teachers being the task masters that they must struggle against, teachers will be partners and allies in the mission, an experience guide to help them face the obstacles and challenges that come from the mission itself. Instantaneous feedback, as mentioned before, is essential to creating a spirit of trust and reliance between students and teachers. The agent profile is an ongoing dialogue between teacher and student about the students progress. Finally, the creation of a ChicagoQuest Wiki will allow all community members to share in an ongoing discussion of what our school culture is and what it should be.
Gaming aspects are central to the ChicagoQuest model. Our vocabulary and thinking are built around the model of games and game design. Secret missions promote a true learning community, where challenges are sought out and taken on for their own sake, not just to earn a grade. The language of missions, quests, and boss levels communicates that students will be challenging themselves, that ‘do-overs’ are possible, and that a clear goal is in sight. I would propose a school economy where students earn points by completing missions successfully, and where they can use these points to purchase items. For example, a school store could be set up with donated items, school supplies, and school spirit shirts. Students could purchase these items with their points. One interesting possibility with this is the creation of unique and rare items – say a magenta school spirit shirt of which there are only a limited number available. Students would compete to obtain these unique items that will then further develop the gamefulness of the school culture. Through collaborations with game designers, students will learn design strategies and systems thinking that will allow them to approach the world as a game to be won. By this we don’t mean that they don’t take the world seriously – only that it is something they can understand and master. The agent profile is another game element that adds to the game-based culture of ChicagoQuest.
As has been mentioned, instantaneous feedback is a goal we strive for, knowing we cannot ever reach it. There will be a number of tools provided to teachers (and students), to allow them to give feedback. Agent profiles, mission briefings, mission logs, email, and the school social network are all ways that feedback can be provided in a rapid fashion. By creating tools for quick, succinct feedback, we are constantly enriching the school community. Gameful assessment refers to the goal of creating formative assessments for students that are quick, responsive and rewarding. Breaking down tasks into very small pieces allows students to receive constant feedback as they move through the process, ultimately developing the skill of breaking down tasks themselves.
When we looked at the skills and habits required to be an agent of change for students, we spoke of them as a goal our students are striving towards. We want them to strengthen these skills and learn strategies for improving in these areas. A teacher atChicagoQuest should be an individual who has successfully mastered the skills to be an agent of change, and is prepared to put these skills into action for the benefit of students, the school, the community, and the world. In hiring, we will look for these qualities in our teachers, and explain to them how these skills will be used in our community.
To continue their growth as an agent of change, teachers will participate in a number of development activities designed to deepen their understanding of the ChicagoQuest model, and to deepen their mastery of the skills of an agent. Four structures that will be put in place for teachers are the “Professional League of Champions or PLC”, the Danger Room, the Communications Command Center, and the “Be a Hero” initiative.
The Professional League of Champions is ChicagoQuests’ professional learning community. This organization is where teachers develop the skills to be powerful ChicagoQuest teachers. The model for the Professional League of Champions is deliberately self-similar to the model of education we provide to our students. Teachers will also undertake quests and missions, but theirs will focus on classroom management, curriculum development, technology, managing collaboration, and differentiation. Some of these challenges will be individual and some will be group. A game economy will be created for this professional development, with levels, rare and unique items, and badges. The critical friends group is central to the Professional League of Champions approach. In the CFG model, teachers work together to analyze lessons, student work, and classroom strategies. It is identical to the peer review and open work model that we expect of our students.
We want ChicagoQuest teachers to be heroes, for students to look to them as role models and sources of inspiration. Individually and as a group, we will undertake community service and use our talents for the benefit of the community. Providing guidance and mentoring to students through office hours and fun activities strengthens the connections between teacher and students. The Extraordinaries is an online tool for giving and receiving service from others, a model that I want to replicate at ChicagoQuest. Teachers can activate networks of students to accomplish tasks, give school service, give community service, or provide assistance to someone in need. This can be as simple as “send a secret message of encouragement to a schoolmate” or “lets gather in the courtyard to do some cleanup”.
One of the most challenging aspects of a teacher’s job is maintaining communications with students, parents, administrators, and the community. This can take up so much of a teacher’s time that it begins to affect the quality of their teaching, or sometimes communications are dropped. At ChicagoQuest, we will take advantage of the technology that is now available to us to streamline the communications process. Through such tools as Twitter, school management software, social networks, posterous, and others, we will create a command center that minimizes teacher updates and promotes instantaneous feedback. Teachers will be expected to be in constant communication with students and parents using these tools. Groundcrew is a software tool for organizing people that could be used to organize the school community in a number of ways – for instance, an ‘instant assembly’ could be called by putting a call out over groundcrew for everyone to gather.
Every super hero needs practice. The Danger Room is a meeting space where teachers present what they have learned, tackle scenarios, share ideas, and problem solve. As an aspect of the Professional League of Champions, the Danger Room promotes faculty communication.