NYC Metro Educators

Hey folks,

If you haven't joined the fledgling "Gaming Group" you might want to check it out. Today there was an, I think, "essential," article about Quest To Learn - a new video game based school in NYC. Frank Baker hipped me to the article.

Note: It is from the British version of The Economist so you'll read about "maths" and other such linguistic curiosities :)

An excerpt...

Periods of maths, science, history and so on are no more. Quest to Learn’s school day will, rather, be divided into four 90-minute blocks devoted to the study of “domains”. Such domains include Codeworlds (a combination of mathematics and English), Being, Space and Place (English and social studies), The Way Things Work (maths and science) and Sports for the Mind (game design and digital literacy). Each domain concludes with a two-week examination called a “Boss Level”—a common phrase in video-game parlance.
In one of the units of Being, Space and Place, for example, pupils take on the role of an ancient Spartan who has to assess Athenian strengths and recommend a course of action. In doing so, they learn bits of history, geography and public policy. In a unit of The Way Things Work, they try to inhabit the minds of scientists devising a pathway for a beam of light to reach a target. This lesson touches on maths, optics—and, the organisers hope, creative thinking and teamwork. Another Way-Things-Work unit asks pupils to imagine they are pyramid-builders in ancient Egypt. This means learning about maths and engineering, and something about the country’s religion and geography.

Full post here - I would love to hear what folks think about this school concept.

BTW - For the record - I'm awful at video games - even Pac-Man.

We'll be performing our radical media literacy rock show Thus Spoke The Spectacle tomorrow night (Saturday 9/12) at 7 PM in NYC at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus.

If you're around NYC and would like to attend, please RSVP to goodman@thespectacle.net and we'll put you on the guest list to get in free.

See more details on our Facebook page and please pass the word along to anyone you think may be interested. Hope to see you there.

Eric Goodman

Not sure if any of those in the group are NYC school librarians, but if so, please drop by and say hi at the fall conference on 11/3. I'm on a panel with Francoise Mouly about comics, and Abrams' new Reading Guide to the TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics will debut, too.