Educational Leadership - September 2009

concepts than the traditional classroom students, showed higher engagement, and demonstrated increased intrinsic motivation (Arici, 2008; Hickey et al., in press). When these groups were tested two months later, the students who learned through the virtual game remembered more science content than the traditionally taught students did (Arici, 2008).

As one teacher who used the fractions unit in Quest Atlantis’s math world noted:

The kids [were] not [acting as] 5th graders. They had a task. They had a mission, and anytime you . . . invite the kids to be something other than a student, you’re going to automatically see motivational gains. There’s a lot more perseverance. There was a lot of reading to be done, but kids were sticking with it. If I handed them a textbook, I would not see the same endurance.

inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Once teachers assign the unit to their class, students can travel to a village named Ingolstadt. As they interact with local villagers, they develop a position about whether the local doctor (Dr. Frank) should be allowed to create an artificial life form in the hopes of finding a cure for the plague afflicting the town. Let’s look at how playing Digital Prometheus engages students in inter-

travel through town. As players encounter characters, each player can interview them about what has been happening. Each character responds with a programmed script describing that person’s experiences with the plague and giving an opinion about Dr. Frank’s effort to stop the epidemic.

The core tension is that the doctor has created a living creature; he is experimenting on that creature with the

FIGURE 2. Screenshots from the Digital Prometheus Game

Our virtual quests expand on strategies associated with project-based curriculums. We focus on building game-based learning environments in which students play an important role, using academic knowledge to make decisions that influence, for better or worse, the designed storyline. Thus, these virtual spaces transform learners in three ways: ( 1) they transform a person from a passive recipient to an empowered actor, ( 2) they transform content from information that the learner has to remember to a tool that the learner can use to accomplish desired ends, and ( 3) they transform context from an assurance that “this knowledge will be relevant in the future” to a present reality that responds to the learner’s actions.

The top scenes represent what the virtual village looks like if a player frees the creature; the bottom scenes, the outcome if the creature remains captive.

esting problems, makes curriculum content relevant, and teaches students that their content-influenced actions have consequences.

A Promethean Task

We can best illustrate our approach through an example of how students interact within one of our virtual worlds, Digital Prometheus.

Our instructional goal in this unit was to foster persuasive writing by immersing students in ethical dilemmas

Establishing a Meaningful Role

Transformational play begins with a scenario that sets a goal. This motivates players and demands a deep understanding of content. In Digital Prometheus, each player first reads a letter sent to his in-game e-mail from his or her mother, pleading with the player to visit Ingolstadt, which is being destroyed by a plague. The message asks the player to talk to Dr. Frank and the local newspaper editor.

Using onscreen menus, players enter Ingolstadt and direct their avatars to

hopes of finding a cure. The player’s role as a persuasive writer is established when the editor of the paper asks him or her to build an argument about whether or not the doctor’s behavior is ethical. Succeeding in this role requires that the player understand and apply persuasive-writing skills to collect appropriate evidence and compose a persuasive piece of writing.

Seeing That Content Matters

Knowledge connected to disciplines— such as investigative research and writing—serves as one of the most fundamental tools for making sense of the world and acting effectively in it.