A new public school is to open in New York next month, which will use video games and software packages such as LittleBigPlanet and Maya to teach its pupils, as well as board and card games.
Named Quest To Learn, and funded by non-profit organisation Institute of Play, the idea is that children will find it easier and more enjoyable to learn from the interactive experience provided by games. However the school will still have to meet the same requirements as any other New York school, so traditional math and English lessons haven"t just disappeared.
A look at the sample curriculum reveals the use of familiar games and applications such as LittleBigPlanet, Fl0w, Spore, Flash, Photoshop, Maya and Google Earth.
According to Metropolis Magazine, the school is even going to use gaming structure and terminology. Each child in a class of 20 to 25 will have access to a laptop and will attend four 90-minute sessions a day devoted to "domains" like "Codeworlds" (math and English), "The Way Things Work" (math and science) and "Being, Space and Place" (history and geography), rather than studying individual subjects. Each of these "domains" will end with a test that is aptly called a "Boss Level."
Quest To Learn will only be taking on sixth graders when it opens next month, but expects to grow annually.