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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
ARG as a teaching tool?
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lhilt
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Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 55

 		ARG as a teaching tool?
I had a thought last night... What would the viability of an ARG n the classroom be?

A fun way to learn history/science with puzzles during to reinforce critical thinking and mathmatic skills, with drops all over campus?

My daughter's 8, and she loves little puzzles I put together for her, and it got me thinking is all..

PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:55 am
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ndemeterModerator
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 		My friend puts together little ARG/treasure hunts around Old Sacramento where supervised groups of little ones follow the trail and learn about the gold rush and the wild wild west days. The story is about an old 49er and his wife so it's a love story and the trailhead is the discovery of some really old letters.

The parents are always amazed at the retention of information the kids have after being presented history in this format.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:59 am
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Lunsford
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 		This is a very neat and different way to approach teaching. My sister is a teacher, and i shalll pass this idea along to her.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:43 pm
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Fishjp
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 		The Science and history museum in Columbus OH (COSI) used to do something like this. You would go into a large room and work your way through puzzles and adventures not unlike Indiana Jones. Learning about Archeology the whole time.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:22 pm
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notgordian
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Fishjp wrote:
The Science and history museum in Columbus OH (COSI) used to do something like this. You would go into a large room and work your way through puzzles and adventures not unlike Indiana Jones. Learning about Archeology the whole time.


Oh man I love COSI so much -- I still remember the "build a house" exhibit there where kids can connect a simplified version of the electrical system and plumbing and the like.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:57 pm
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RemixFiction
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 		Recommend you check out this link where they do a wrap up of an ARG that was played at an education conference. The multimedia link will take you to a replay of the adobe connect session with slides and discussion of using ARGs in an educational environment. (they have problems with the audio dropping out for a large chunk in the middle, but there is still some good information there)
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:34 am
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Knowles2
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Joined: 28 Feb 2009
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 		Thanks for the link interest ideas and thoughts bought up in the video.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:06 pm
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PinkCloud
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 		ARG for education
have you seen this? some ARG pilot for education, funded by the European union
http://arg.paisley.ac.uk/

PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:07 pm
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Mikeyj
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 		For info, Alex Moseley who was part of the Operation: Sleeper Cell team does use ARGs in education (and there's a fair amount of activity in the area) - he blogs about that kind of thing here: http://moerg.wordpress.com/ and there were some presentations at the Let's Change the Game conference available here: http://conference.operationsleepercell.com/ that include some reports on educational ARGs.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:55 am
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zizka
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 		What subjects and grade levels are you interested in? I'll be teaching 6 - 12 social studies and/or English beginning, ideally, this August.

I'm sitting in an Ed Psych class right now (we're on break--don't judge me!) and have been thinking about ARGs in middle/high school education for a few months now (oddly about as long as this thread has existed). My hope is to throw together a little something of a lesson plan for this class, which ends in two weeks.

If you're still monitoring this thread (or if anyone who is monitoring it is interested in this) I'd love to discuss how something of this sort would work. A lot of my thoughts at the moment are tied to the legal/policy feasibility of doing this.

I'll look over the links and other info provided and maybe come back here with a little more to offer once I get home.

I'm absolutely delighted to find an existing thread that is exactly what I came here looking for. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:54 pm
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teufelsdrochk
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Joined: 11 Aug 2008
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 		Re: ARG as a teaching tool?
lhilt wrote:
I had a thought last night... What would the viability of an ARG n the classroom be?


I considered writing a thesis on this--wound up writing one on using wikis for peer review. But MIT's center for collective intelligence WAS keeping track of what ARGs were being used for.

They wrote back,
Quote:
I haven't seen any documented high school ARGS, but here's the trailhead for a middle
school one:

http://www2.svsd.net/~lions/hexagon/teachers.htm

And for a collegiate one:

http://helpmesolveamystery.com/

And here's a curriculum related to an ARG already played:

http://worldwithoutoil.org/metateachers.htm


and they also gave me an absolutely bitchin' article written by Jane McGonigal, called 'Why I Love Bees'.

Here's a snip from my thesis, related to game concepts relevant to teachers:

Quote:
From this, it seems clear that game designers are re‐discovering constructivist principles from a new and informative viewpoint: collective Intelligence games gain hold on their players by involving them in an open‐ended mystery whose solution is determined by community consensus.

This theory of game design suggests a four‐step recipe for a successful puzzle. First, the puzzle should be constructed with sufficient ambiguity to allow for multiple interpretations. Second, users should be able to develop their own strategies and arrive at their own conclusions. Third, users should be involved in a low risk community where they can voice these conclusions. And, fourth, the community should critique the solution or apply it themselves, and give credit for the attempt.

The resemblance of such CI game design to the scientific method has not been missed: "This behavior—this sort of creative, collaborative, enthusiastic scavengering behavior—is something that we call by another name when we direct it, not to entertainment, but to the physical world. We call it science" (Dahlen 2007). But even as this recipe closely resembles the scientific method as used by scientists, it has less in common with the Hypothesis‐Data‐Conclusion version usually presented in schools....

..The reflective and conversational aspects of constructivism are ideally suited for social media. Wikis, in particular, are cumulative. They require multiple revisions which slowly grow into a much richer and more expansive project. Each of these revisions can be explicitly compared, giving a rich structure for students to "reflect on their learning and understand their own learning processes" (Chao 2007). Wikis are also deeply collaborative, which "means that they enact knowledge building with and for others, with the focus being on the community rather than on the individual learner" (Chao 2007). As texts, wikis are manipulative in a way no other text can be: unlike reading a World Book article, students can learn about a subject online and immediately re‐write the encyclopedia. This process of multiple revisions on wikis, "with their iterative real‐time redesign, are perfectly structured to provide . . . scaffolding challenges" (McGonigal 2008).


PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:33 pm
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teufelsdrochk
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Joined: 11 Aug 2008
Posts: 71

 		Re: ARG as a teaching tool?
lhilt wrote:
I had a thought last night... What would the viability of an ARG n the classroom be?


the hexagon link is now broken, but its author was apparently also a fan of McGonigal's. From her blog comes the comment:

Quote:
Jay D'Ambrosio said...
Good entry!

Over the past few years I have developed an educational alternate reality game for my ancient history classroom. Students will be challenged to develop their critical thinking skills, locate information using real world resources, and practice creative problem solving. Participants will attempt to solve an archaeological mystery by infiltrating a secret society, and answering initiation questions regarding history, science, mathematics, world languages, and the arts. They will need to contact various fictitious characters via email, telephone, text messaging, and instant messenger, who will provide clues that will allow them to continue their quest to discover the truth about a terrifying artifact known only as the Hexagon.

The Hexagon Challenge
http://www2.svsd.net/~lions/hexagon/

This format can easily be adapted to fit a wide variety of learning objectives. It can be a powerful tool for corporate training and instruction.


There's enough there to hunt down how things went for Jay, if you like. If you find out something, be sure to post back!

EDIT: BTW, my own research has suggested that adult's expectations for their kid's sophistication with computers is way, way too high. The truth is, kid's AREN'T naturally good with computers.

For the public school teacher, too few students have computers at home for an ARG to work. And, in most cases, administrators view web 2.0 communication as evil. Frankly, I believe I would be fired to communicating with students via text. And, communicating via social networking is literally ILLEGAL in some states.

That's why I picked wikis. They're easier, they're viewed with less suspicion, and they're more directly aligned with national science teaching frameworks. Plus you still get a little crunch from the CI stuff.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:42 pm
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