Education
Quest has a variety of uses in education, within a range of subjects and at a range of levels. It is free and open source.
ICT / Computing
Perhaps the most obvious use of Quest is within ICT/Computing. Quest provides a gentle introduction to programming concepts – variables, functions, loops, expressions, objects, etc. – and the visual editor means that students don’t need to remember commands or syntax.
Being text-based means that students can create complete games without needing to spend time creating graphics.
The Simple Mode in the Quest Editor, coming soon as part of the forthcoming v5.1 release, strips the editor down to the bare essentials so that even young students can get started creating their own games.
For older students, Quest has a full programming language behind the visual editor, which can be accessed by clicking the Code View button. And for even higher levels, the full source code of Quest is available – a large, active, open source project using C#, VB.NET, Javascript and more.
English
Playing text adventure games is an interesting alternative to reading a static book – encouraging students to engage more and understand what they have read.
Creating text adventure games is a way of exploring creative writing, and it’s easy to get started.
Modern Foreign Languages
Playing or creating games in another language – a great way to combine reading and writing in another tongue. Quest currently supports English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch, and it is straightforward to translate into other languages.
Examples
If you’re using Quest in education, I’d love to hear your experiences – please do get in touch!
- Kristian Still has been using Quest for English teaching at secondary school level, and has put together various resources on his website
- Chris Leach at Winchester House school has been using Quest with Year 7
- Brian D. Ballentine at West Virginia University is using Quest for ENGL 306: Humanities Computing – Narrative & Video Game Design
More information
The Education blog category has more details on the uses of Quest in Education.
There is a new Education forum for discussing Quest and getting in touch with other users.
If you’re thinking of using Quest in the classroom, please let me know! I’m happy to give you all the help you need.