This week marked the launch of an online social learning network, custom-designed by the Institute of Play for the game-based learning school, Quest to Learn. A creative, resourceful and stalwart team of designers, programmers, project managers and wellness experts collaborated to bring Being Me to life. Being Me’s features enable students to engage in a range of practices from self-reflective moments where they track how they’re feeling to more community-oriented activities where they participate in online discussions or share perspectives. Being Me supports Quest’s trimester-long focus on team work and how elements interact to create relationships within systems. It will also have an active role in Q2L’s afterschool space, providing opportunities for students to post, rate and comment on their work with the support of their adult mentors.

On December 23, Quest to Learn's first Boss Level Challenge came to a successful close. The culmination of a semester-long investigation into the architecture of dynamic systems, the Boss Level is a two-week “intensive” where students apply knowledge and skills to propose solutions to complex problems. This trimester, Q2L students were invited to build Rube Goldberg machines or complicated machines that perform simple tasks.

After two weeks of tinkering, building, problem-solving and podcasting, it was finally time for Q2L students to not only show-off their machines but also demonstrate their understanding of rules, goals, elements and systems. Six teams introduced and ran their machines before a panel of prominent architects, game designers, television producers, designers and technologists. Joined by the Q2L community, the judges moved from room to room scoring the machines based on a predetermined set of rubrics including, performance, use of materials, ability to meet the predetermined goal, components, appearance and creativity. From toycars landing on keyboards to dominoes propelling scissors to cut string and trigger a lever, each machine was fueled by its own whimsical collection of found objects, re-purposed materials and inventive ideas.

Cinglevue and The Institute of Play have entered into an exciting partnership. Cinglevue will be working with the Institute of Play and Quest To Learn to pilot and develop CingleVue's Virtuoso solution for transformational learning. This solution incorporates a suite of web-based tools that include Oracle Student Learning, Learner Analytics, eSIS and Learner Enterprise. Together we hope to innovate around building shared wisdom, empowering the individual learner, engaging the entire extended learning community and enabling immersive collaboration.

• Oracle Student Learning is an enterprise level teaching and learning environment that allows easy high quality individualized learning paths with the ability to assess students against a multitude of assessment frameworks;
• Learner Analytics allows teachers, administrators and learners make sense of the all of the formative and summative data that is collected through Oracle Student Learning and provides comprehensive reporting capabilities to deliver a rich and holistic understanding of the individual learners
• eSIS is a fully web-based student information system.
• Learner Enterprise provides connected and open spaces where knowledge can be constructed. Communication and productivity tools enable efficiencies in the learning and teaching cycle.

For the past week, the Quest to Learn community has been participating in "boss levels," a concept inspired by video game boss levels in which players harness hard-won tools and skills to face an epic challenge. At Q2L, boss levels are a two-week intensive period in which students and teachers work collaboratively on a capstone project that integrates the skills, content, resources and experiences acquired during the previous 10 weeks of the trimester.

Building on the trimester's focus on the relationships between the different elements of a system, the inaugural boss level challenge is for students to build Rube Goldberg machines or complicated machines that accomplish simple tasks. Each team of 8-10 students is charged with building a different machine that will be judged according to their performance, appearance, creativity and use of materials. Some of the assignments include creating a machine to: feed a turtle, turn off a light switch, press play on a CD player, turn on a faucet, hit the spacebar on a keyboard and turn on a power strip. While students build in small teams each morning, in the afternoons they reflect on their practice—writing scripts, documenting their work, and creating video podcasts.

To see and hear the daily reports from the frontlines of the Q2L boss levels, check-out our archive or subscribe to the Quest to Learn (Q2L) Boss Level podcast!