Questyinz 2.0 launches with new quests and new ways for kids to take part
Kids love being sent on journeys to get answers and solve puzzles, so the Allegheny County Library Association’s online game Questyinz will be back June 1 with all new quests for children in grades K-5 to undertake this summer. The game is designed not only to promote literacy but to motivate kids to want to read.
Kristin Rama, the Association’s youth services coordinator, says the game sent 2,741 kids last year on an average of five quests, involving 10 questions each, and they spent 2.5 million minutes reading to get to the end of their searches. In 17 categories, from math or science and nature to “Around the World,” “Pittsburgh” and “My Neighborhood,” each quest’s queries prompted the kids to seek answers by completing real-world activities, asking questions of adults and looking up items in libraries and on the Internet to earn points and badges.
With funding from the Grable and Benedum foundations, the Association has devised all new quests this year and focused on adding other new features to help kids be even more successful in maintaining and developing their learning skills over the summer. One new feature is an online quest journal in which the kids can bookmark their favorite questions and quests. “With this age group, they’re not big note takers,” says Rama, “so it’s nice for them to print something out and take it into the library.” Or just to have someplace of their own to keep and examine the materials online.
This year the Association’s mascot, the Reading Creature, will also be able to send “RC Mail” emails to kids, telling them they did a great job or earned a special badge, allowing the libraries to interact with kids and keep them motivated. A new “Read to Me” button lets the younger kids ask for the game to be read aloud to them.
Kids can now also add their own questions to Questyinz for other kids to answer, although these questions are not part of any specific quests.
The Association is continuing to partner with the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre to develop the quests, which allow students to interact with these organizations. But Questyinz’s developers are also hoping that schools see the impact of the program and how it might be used in their own classrooms. They believe that teachers will be interested in helping to devise quests that will promote skills that will help them in fall classrooms.
The overall goal, says Rama, is “to teach kids how to be lifelong learners and pursue what interests them. It models how you can go about pursuing your interests and go through your own quests in your mind, and it may even lead to kids being interested in certain careers.”
Kids can start their game by picking up a Questyinz game card at their local library.
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Kristin Rama, Allegheny County Library Association
