New Worlds Project begins tests in Utah

Post by **Frug** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:29 pm

New Worlds Project begins pilot-tests in Utah

Draper, Utah - 02nd April 2007: Last week, New Worlds Project, a new non-profit corporation seeking to promote the use of play-by-post in schools, took a major leap towards its objectives in Utah. Play-by-post is a collaborative writing method, used for many years by online creative writing games. New Worlds Project now seeks to adapt this method for use in classroom environments. To that end, it has launched a ten-week creative writing course in the Jordan School District (Sandy, Utah). The course will use game-based learning as the central motor for teaching making it the first time in history that the play-by-post method is being actively used in an academic context. The pilot test is crucial to New Worlds Project’s efforts to prove the academic viability of the play-by-post method. Despite research highlighting the potential of creative writing, role-playing, and science-fiction, few initiatives have managed to reach the pilot-testing phase.

“In launching our first pilot project, we have taken a giant leap towards our objectives of promoting the play-by-post methodology beyond the gaming community, “Alex Perry, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors exclaimed, “The ten-week course will be a critical showcase of the potential of play-by-post for mainstream use in educational contexts, whether they be vocation or otherwise.”

New Worlds Project’s US branch welcomed the Jordan School District’s willingness to pilot-test the course. The Jordan School District had agreed to publish in its Spring Catalogue a course that would use the play-by-post method. Since Thursday, the ten-week course has started, involving 8 intrepid students and an educator that has helped to moderate existing New Worlds Project role-playing games for nearly three years. “The first course was essentially used to dispel misconceptions about what play-by-post role-playing entails. We explained to the students that unlike other role-playing games that many had encountered, this one would give them full creative freedom. They spent much of the first class figuring out what their characters were going to be like and what roles they were going to play in the story,” said the course instructor Glenn D. Gregory.

“This is a major accomplishment for our US branch,” Acting Executive Director Kim Leonard Smouter commented, “This is a major breakthrough to be able to organise a pilot test in the vocational context. We hope that the students will find the play-by-post method to be a refreshing way to learn, but also an effective one. The information gathered from this pilot project will be crucial for our future projects.”

Asiona & Lateus · Post by **Asiona & Lateus** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:52 pm

Sweet! Man, I wish I had that in my school. That would be so fun. I think that'll work really well.

phoenixbyrd · Post by **phoenixbyrd** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:40 pm

Why Utah

Post by **Frug** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:46 pm

I have no idea. I know that the owner of NW, Kim, lives in.. uh... umm... Holland? Denmark? Somewhere in northern Europe. So he must have an associate in Utah.