Indiana U. Gets $1.8M MacArthur Grant for Kids World

Indiana University's School of Education has received a 3-year, $1.8 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to expand its kids world, Quest Atlantis, designed to teach students between 9 and 12 years old across all the disciplines. With programs using the world already in the United States, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey, and Singapore,  Sasha Barab, Associate Professor and Jacobs Chair in Learning Sciences and Instructional Systems Technology, hopes to use the new funding to expand his reach. “It’s been really exciting to feel like I’m part of this bigger movement,” Barab said. “In large numbers, multiple countries, moving from 2 or 3 thousand to 20 or 30 thousand kids and in these different countries start to help us learn what it means to connect kids from inner city North Carolina, to the beach in Australia, to downtown somewhere in Bombay.“

Barab began his work with a grant from the National Science Foundation and received $200,000 from the MacArthur Foundation two years ago. His goal, he says, is to take the high-quality interactions of traditional online games and apply them to education.

“Do I really want the storytellers that are educating my children to be Sony, Blizzard, and Electronic Arts?” he said. “I think there are a lot of wonderful games out there that have good messages, but I think we as educators need to enter that market and start to develop compelling stories that kids will want to adopt.”

The money will initially go to add staff and server capacity in preparation for expansion.