ARGs as Environments of Possibility
What I discovered is that ARGs are as varied as the people who design them and the circumstances that give them rise. “It is difficult to make generalizations of what an ARG is or looks like for learning….Designs could range from something very simple (e.g. a scavenger hunt) to something very complex (e.g. large scale problem-based learning experience)” (Olbrish, 2011, p 2). They serve as custom, scalable sandbox environments that can be tailored to specific groups of students and their learning objectives. By extension, social technologies (which encompass social media and other social software), are tools often leveraged by ARGs, and vary in their application case-by-case, both in extent of their integration, as well as applied function. Nevertheless, all the articles I examined used Social Technologies, at least to some extent in their ARGs. As one author found, this is because
a range of ICT and Web2.0 technologies…are freely available and therefore feasible and secure for schools to use. This is important because the overall feasibility of integrating ARG with teaching science or other disciplines rests on the ability of schools to access secure, easy-to-use technology that incurs no financial expense….one of the advantage of ARG over other forms of gaming is that it relies on the use of free or low cost software for mediating the online interactions (Bellocchi, 2012, p. 46)
Social Technologies used included wikis, blogs (edublogs, word press, etc.), free websites (such as wix), YouTube (in short video, vlog and webisode form), NING, Facebook, Twitter (using promotional tweets, character tweets, as well as “twitter novels”), Blackboard, online forums such as Unforum, a fake Kickstarter campaign, Google, Google Docs, Wikipedia, QR code technology, Augmented Reality technology, email, Prezi / PowerPoint.
Nevertheless, as Boskic reminds, “[w]e have to avoid the lure of bleeding-edge technologies without solid pedagogy behind it” (2011, p. 680). The best examples of social technology uses in ARGs approached such integration with deliberate purpose and explicit learning objectives that included technological literacy (Jagoda, 2015, p. 93).
Social Technologies as ARG Marketing Tools vs. ARG Narrative
Some of the examples I explored leveraged social technologies such as Twitter and Facebook to raise awareness of ARGs (particularly at the University Level), while some leveraged these and platforms such as wikis, blogs and YouTube to convey the ARG’s narrative to participants (particularly at middle school or high school levels, or smaller class environments, where participation was part of class curriculum and no added awareness needed to be raised). Some also sought to do both (not always successfully, as Whitton acknowledges).
Using Social Technologies to Co-Create ARG Artefacts
By employing different media, designers created a distributed narrative that was reflexive, and changed as it responded to player contributions. Social Technologies, and specifically social media, offered ARG designers (often teachers or professors) with opportunities to engage with participants in real time and to customize the experience for some of them (Jagoda, 2015, p. 81) – perhaps another take on enabling differentiated instruction.
In such narratives, fact and fiction frequently merged, as participants added their own solutions, narratives, and understandings to fictional storyscapes. Here, participants were also co-constructors of knowledge. The process was beneficial for several reasons: “Social media effectively enabled students to become more autonomous and develop metacognition” (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016, p. 18). Additionally, social media enabled participants to harness collective intelligence via the network and to seek out relevant expertise (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016, p. 23) – a transferrable skill that may benefit students in future learning.
Social Technologies as Potential for Change
Some of the most interesting examples in Social Technology integration leveraged such technology for social change, employing Youth Participatory Action Research frameworks, extending social justice initiatives, and engaging in socio-scientific issues, and more. Some participants in Jagoda’s study even leveraged this literacy further to pursue civic and socio-political activities (Jagoda, 2015, p. 93) and acquired real-world credentials. They earned digital badges that showcased their newly-acquired skills.
These badges could appear on their individual profiles, which could be accessed via the games central website. Most interestingly, the game designers treated these badges not just as extrinsic motivators in game-play, but as legitimate credentials that were linked to larger citywide summer education efforts, with the intent to link participants to future real-world academic opportunities, internships, and career paths. “The Source made available badges for web designer (website creation and layout), caster (podcasting and sound design), media socialite (social media ethics), blogger (news writing and interviewing for blogs) and documenter (visual-media production)” (Jagoda, 2015, p. 87).
The initiative was successful extended through another ARG iteration, called S.E.E.D.
For Educators Designing ARGs:
Chess & Booth make several suggestions for educators looking to create their own educational ARGs. Among them:
Make interactive and image-based visualizations of class ARGs. A simple outline cannot fully encompass the multiple structures and varied pathways an ARG can take. If you are going to have students rewrite your ARG or playtest their own in class, offering a fully interactive visualization of the game – either through Prezi, through a wiki, or even through a PowerPoint – provides students with a better understanding of the forking-paths and possibilities of ARG gameplay (Chess & Booth, 2014, p. 1015).
RESOURCES:
– http://www.argology.org/args-in-education-training/
– https://www.reddit.com/r/ARG/new/
Trailblazing ARGs (commercial as well as serious or educational ARGs):
- The Beast (arguably the first ARG, designed in 2001)
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- Aftershock
- I Love Bees
- Conspiracy For Good
- World Without Oil
- The Source
- The Ghost Storyscape
- Urgent Evoke
- Superstruct
- The Tower of Babel
- Traces of Hope
- Ghost of a Chance
- Humans vs. Zombies
sp*rk curiosity 