Portal 606 opens

I teach 8th American History at a college preparatory school in central FL.
It took awhile to get my students to sign up for 3DGameLab.  At first I asked them to just try it out and let me know what they thought.  Two students out of 92 actually signed up.  A fellow teacher said just make them do it.  So that is what I did.
I gave them a week to get signed up.  Before class I allowed them to enter their emails and invite themselves, others wrote their emails down on a piece of paper, and some emailed me their emails.  The next step was to get them to respond to the invite.  You would think this would have been the easy part.  This took a couple of days to accomplish.
Meanwhile I was teaching as usual with my standard lecture with PowerPoint slides.  However every morning I would ask them if they were "in the garden".  The is the terminology 3DGameLab uses to describe the individual groups that are set up by the teacher.  That it is a "walled garden"  that no one get into and that this is a safe place.  This little phrase started to catch on, I would hear student's asking each other whether they were "in the garden" or not (this reminded me of the phrase from Electric Kool Acid Test, you were either on the bus or off the bus)  I decided to make a quick quest just having them tell me they were in the garden.  It worked.
Finally, the day arrived that we were all going to the computer lab to do some serious questing.  I am pleased to report that only one student out 92 failed to get in the garden.  At the end of day I had 355 quests waiting for my approval.  I was pleasantly overwhelmed.  I had no idea how long it would take me to approve all of their quests.  It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I could approve a couple in between classes either on my iPad or computer.  They all completed the one quest that was required of them plus several more all in a 48 minute class period. By the end of the day I had read their submissions sending 55 back for a redo.  I awarded achievement badges, rewards, and wrote comments for them all.  The ability to respond so quickly to a student's work is definitely empowering.
Deal for next week is they can complete all the quests and earn the Forgotten History: Slavery in New England badge and quest out the test or take a traditionally test.  I have one student who has earned the Capt. John Smith badge having completing all my quests dealing with the Jamestown Colony.  She emailed yesterday to tell me that she had earned the Forgotten History badge also.
It has been an emotional roller coaster the first two weeks of school.  I think it will be a roller coaster ride for the rest of the year,  it's good thing I love roller coasters.
I am off to build more quests.

In response to the GBL quest I have created a series of ranks (progress bars) that will reflect the students progress.  I have chosen to use medieval terminology that demonstrates the various stages of the learner.  I have started out with the Apprentice Student with three levels.  Each quest moves the student towards the next level.  I go from apprentice student to journeyman student. At this level the student will be required to journey beyond their textbooks.  The next level will be the Guildsman level, here the student will have to produce an artifact and finally, the student will be awarded the title of Master Student.
I agree with Mr. Gee's notion of the necessity for a paradigm shift in how we educate our students. However the shift really needs to start in the primary grades and work its way up through the pre-college grades.  As stated by David Perry in an earlier video young children do not really see the distinction between TV, video games, movies, and comic books they are all blended into one huge multimedia event. As educators the challenge will be to bring this multimedia event into the classroom.  Here we can tape into our student's vast knowledge in this area more collaborative ways.  I feel like any major change in education it will be slow and painful. I teach at a traditional college prep private school.  The shift will take place in my classroom because I teach 8th grade American History.  I do not have to teach to any standardized tests at this grade level. I am cautiously optimistic about the results my students will have as they travel through the quests I have created for them.
What I was able to take away from Mr. Gee's insight is validation of my choice to introduce this paradigm shift in my classroom this year.  What he said really makes sense to me and has given me a real confidence boost to continue with the concept of GBL.
As the aging teaching population retires hopefully their replacements will be of the growth mindset and embrace the change and move forward.