\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Too often, we hear the lament that school is boring, learning is hard work and no fun, and online learning in particular is overwhelming and isolating. Sasha Barab is a professor at Arizona State\u2019s university whose work explores learner engagement in a digital world. Dr. Barab\u2019s extensive history in the field of education and technology has focused on games for learning, transformational play, and online communities designed for social change, among other topics. His <\/span>personal website<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Barab, 2020) offers a broad overview of his work, including past and current endeavors.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In 2009, Barab was involved in a project called <\/span>Quest Atlantis<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/span> (Barab, 2020), introduced in <\/span>this short video<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Caldwell, 2021), that allowed learners around the world to participate in inquiry-style \u201cquests\u201d within a multiplayer game environment. The host application, Virtual World 3-Dimensional Universe, was taxing on hardware and internet services available in this era, yet it offers remarkable tools for building social presence. I had the privilege of teaching in some custom-builds using this application from 2015 to 2019, and experienced firsthand how engaging an environment like this can be. Pedagogies such as design thinking, inquiry, and problem or project-based learning are ideally suited to these innovative environments. Even just five or six years ago, this type of technology proved to have a \u201chigh threshold of participation\u201d as Weller (2020, p. 99) would say, meaning that there were barriers to participation such as the complexity of user experience or insufficient infrastructure for use. I wonder, with the progression of hardware, software, internet service, and technological fluency, if the era is dawning that might allow broad adoption of fully interactive social learning contexts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Barab\u2019s more recent project, <\/span>ThriveCast<\/span><\/span><\/a> (Lifelab Studios, n.d.), is an intriguing combination of social media, communities, and stories. These are common threads through much of his work that resonate deeply with me.<\/span><\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Barab, S. (2020). Sasha Barab. <\/span>https:\/\/sashabarab.org\/<\/span><\/a> https:\/\/sashabarab.org\/projects\/quest-atlantis\/<\/span><\/a> I am not a gamer, and yet… \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Too often, we hear the lament that school is boring, learning is hard work and no fun, and online learning in particular is overwhelming and isolating. Sasha Barab is a professor at Arizona State\u2019s university whose work explores learner engagement in a digital world. Dr. Barab\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span>Barab, S. (2020). <\/span>Quest Atlantis. <\/span><\/i>Sasha Barab.
\n<\/span>Caldwell, S. (2010, August 10). <\/span>What is Quest Atlantis? <\/span><\/i>[Video]. YouTube. <\/span>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ad6gLQN0tBY<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/span>Lifelab Studios (n.d.). ThriveCast. <\/span>https:\/\/info.thrivecast.org\/<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/span>Weller, M. (2020). <\/span>25 Years of Ed Tech<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Athabasca University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"