Once upon a time I created QuestAssess (which I intend on branding as MimWorks QuestAssess™) a rudimentary tool to enable games to be created in Second Life and OpenSim to create immersive learning 3D environments that had a learning objective. Different criteria could be met and detected by QuestAssess sensors placed throughout the sim that would report up to a central web site where progress and activity could be tracked in a normal way familiar to any educator, even exported to spreadsheets. Imagine walking around a historically accurate sim of any moment in history and being able to assign this as homework. In this way, people would find the educational content more palatable while providing solid insight into what learning was actually happening.
I regret never having released QuestAssess. It is still something I may one day approach. The computing resources are simply not there for most to implement it.
However, the concept of creating an independent QuestAssess API that would allow embedding assessor nodes anywhere, be in in a 3D sim, or a web page, or container-zed learning lab, still has merit. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was inventing the Kubernetes of learning. I want orchestrate multiple independent learning activities and resources into a single manageable system for which anyone could create resources.
I still want to do this. In fact, my work on the Beginner Boost, combined with my anticipated gamified work on the new SKILSTAK site, will fall within this nicely as the first example of what I mean so that I can demonstrate it to others. While writing MUDL rooms I realized that I need a way for people to coordinate their progress and see that they are in the same room. This lead to the realization that the very system of progress tracking I envisioned for QuestAssess meets the needs of MUDL coordination perfectly.
So, rather than focus on any sort of progress tracking and mapping at the moment, I’ll hold off and use the concept of MUDL rooms, with different entrances and exits, mostly in a rooted-node (skills) tree, until I get a few more rooms finished and get the feel for navigating it as is. Then, when it comes time to start mapping and visualizing how all the content ties together, and later add the ability for learners to see what they have covered, I’ll put all that work under the QuestAssess umbrella. This can include all the concepts of learning expiration and renewal times that I’ve always included in other designs. The big breakthrough is that the finite unit of the MUDL is the room concept. Each room will have different properties including knowledge expiration. The result will be a fucking beautiful visual of everything a person has learned along the way.
Even better will be the connection of different MUDLs to each other. Entry points into other MUDLs can be added and if all of them using the MimWorks QuestAssess™ standard will be able to combine their progress status and visualizations. The standard and minimal tools will always be free. But the organizational version (schools and such) will be much more extensive and be priced accordingly.
Now that’s how you shave a yak.
#ideas #mudl #edtech #pedagogy #gamification