#games4ed Archive
#games4ed discussions cover ways in which gaming can be used in education. Games mirror the way the human mind was designed to learn. They motivate players to take risks and actions, persevere through failures, set and achieve increasingly difficult goals, and devote attention, time, and effort to acquiring knowledge and skills. All this while the game is tracking the player’s actions and assessing the player’s achievements and skills. Isn’t this what we want from education?
Thursday July 21, 2016
Welcome to folks! Today we’re going to talk about ARGs in education! Introduce yourself and share the game you’re playing atm!
Hi All. Welcome to . We are so pleased to have joining us tonight!
Doing some research about gamification soon. Excited for this chat.
Technology Facilitator, Pokemon Go
Intro: Introduce yourself, where you're from and the game you've played most this summer...
Paul, HS English and media studies, Toronto, Canada. all the way!
Steve from NJ - I teach game design and development to middle school students. Been playing
Kevin, 7th/8th history, SoCal. Most played.. Smite.
Nathan, and is making tacos a game?
Mark G, from Southern NJ, 5th Grade T, dual chatting w/ and hopping in on
Jim Pike Los Angeles Minecraft Glad to be here
John, CT, 7th/9th English, hmmm...probably Overwatch
absolutely! Making Tacos is a great game - i always win
Game I've played the most this summer, was Minecraft, but since last week, PokemonGo, its getting out of hand.
Hey Mark! Tell everyone I say hi!
Establishing a network of pros wanting in the classroom. ed.d student ; learntech ID Spec.
Courtney from Missouri, living in Canada at the moment. COD with my hubby the most this summer.
Hey - good to have you on board. You'll have lots to share!
Hey John? How's Overwatch? Considering it for our initative
Bruce Buethe,Ness City KS 7-12 Math. Learning for possible classroom use.
folks: chat going on right now!
Hey Ivan. Old school Doom or new Doom?
Becky Bogard, Cincinnati, Ohio, all the way!
Andrew Easton, English teacher Omaha Westside. I've been creating and playing training games for/with our xc team this summer.
Great for bonding for sure :)
Smite got one of my 7th graders way into studying Mayan gods and telling me about Chinese mythology.
I think and I are still playing settlers as we speak
Sounds super interesting. Very relevant to today's topic.
Sarah E, from east Texas. High school Computer Science. Been playing Rachet & Clank!
I have my set right here on the dining room table. My daughter made ugly sweater cat
Will do! Very excited for tonights chat.
Jim!!!!! Great to see you. Hope summer is going well.
Game I've played the most revisted Rome Total War the original (not the crappy Rome 2 Total War)
either way it is YOUR Doom
Danielle Hicks, northern VA...games...really just car games this summer.
Sounds interesting. Any examples to share?
Any HL2 deathmatch in your past?
A1:What does ARG include? Characters? Is it multiplayer? Object of the game? I know nothing..
Q1: What do you know or what would you like to know about Alternate Reality Games (ARG)? any experience? https://t.co/OodBwDONU2
We hope to answer all those questions tonight!
You came to the right place :)
Some here. I am super busy with Black Rocket. Hope everything is going well with CodeRev and
there are often characters within the story, players usually RP as themselves, usually a mystery of some sort!
A1: Pokemon Go is probably the first ARG I have ever experienced unless Minecraft counts.
A1 - Narrative based games that combine digital and real world elements to blur the lines between truth and fiction.
A1. I only have uninformed guesses. I think it may include pokemonGo.
I am super interested in ARG. Poke'mon Go is super big right now.
Hi! Sharon Clark from Tennessee. I teach 4th grade. This is my first time here.
A1: Everything I know about ARGs I learned from & - - started to build ARG element in quest based class
A1: It is a great concept; all I know is from reading up on Quest To Learn school.
A1: I really know next to nothing about ARG, but it seems really interesting.
A1: Played Prototype161 and built/ran my own with students. Would love to know how to manage it more easily.
What Paul said https://t.co/8cBW9faSwU
A1 - Narrative based games that combine digital and real world elements to blur the lines between truth and fiction.
a1 how do we know that we aren't living in an alternate reality and someone is controlling us
Randall from GameTrain in Redondo Beach. Hi , thanks for the invite to this!
Ashley Broocks. Preservice 7th & 8th grade science teacher. Tyler, Texas
Its also worth mentioning that ARGs are alternate reality games, Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game. They're often confused.
FYI: PokemonGo is Augmented Reality not Alternate Reality...but the two can (and do) have much in common!
we very well might be and I've spent much time pondering that very question
Who remembers the really famous commercial ARG that actually emailed you and called you in real life?
Pokemon Go is Augmented Reality, somewhat different than Alternate Reality.
I like AR games because it gets us unplugged for the screen and moving. Also it bring cartoons to life like roger rabbit
love having preservice teachers in the chat!
It's safe to assume we are.
A1 - The Beast was the first big ARG, used to market Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence.
Already laid out (but some ARG makers do adapt is it goes) as you'll see it blurs between digital and real life
I have too. Hey controller my special move is x x o up up down square squire left x x x O O
I remember - it was by EA Games and never quite took off - Magestic?
A1: I Love Bees, which was tied to Halo 2 was my first introduction, didn't play it though.
A1: is there much content for ARG? are companies releasing well made games and tools?
When I clicked that link, I received an error message from Twitter.
What are some examples of ARGs?
How can we get ARGs to teaches us about kindness and self esteem
A1 - I've also found that shares many elements of ARGs in a much shorter time frame.
Not really - there are some games that come out from time to time, but they're pretty niche.
Tonight you are learning from the best!
It's often an enthusiast genre but one active one is The Black Watchmen
Do you remember Magestic though? It was a flop, right?
of thingshttp://ow.ly/oni1302haFe
Is there a chat right now?
Was that the one with collectible cards?
ARGs are very, very team dependent. I'd say those two factors are auto-includes even without really trying.
Hey mark - nice to see you. and have created great immersive ARGs for their classes
It was indeed a colossal flop, and thus not only the first but last commercial ARG video-game.
were you able to get the link to work??
A1 I don't know anything about ARG, don't think I've ever played any, what's connection to EDU
A2 - ARGs genuinely blows out the classroom walls and can be incredibly engaging and dynamic.
A2 that's what I want to know
I stand corrected...last commercial ARG from major publisher.
A2: Extreme motivation. The kids who played my game did so afterschool by choice.
Yes I searched it in Twitter!
A2: Definitely provides opportunity for immersive learning experiences - puts students IN the game
A2 - Also hits all the 21t C learning skills: creativity, critical thinking, cooperation, etc.
A2: Forces Ss to solve a problem without the path being force fed to them, it's innovate, collaborate, and challenge no kill/drill
Look forward to reading about your experiences!
A2: I really think it could get my students excited about computer science and technology in general.
https://t.co/KUb1ztmejl
A2: Definitely provides opportunity for immersive learning experiences - puts students IN the game
CompSci, math and tech are PERFECT concepts and topics for an ARG due their puzzlish nature.
It's so easy to include tech related challenges, especially coding! Much of ARGs exist in the digital world
Awesome.. i am actually a first year teacher so I could use all the ideas I can get! Thanks guys!
Thanks to all of you willing to share your awesome ideas to help us find our way!
cant wait to check this out!
A2: Also good to have students create puzzles for an ARG
A2- I think it would be a really awesome way to immerse students in science without the danger of some of the lab equipment
Keep the links coming - this will be one of the richest curation of resources from a chat - great stuff
a2 allow students to see multiple solutions
A3: Fear that the puzzles could be too challenging or too easy or that I wouldn't come up with good puzzles :)
A3 Thinking they have to do EVERYTHING. You don't! Start small and build from what works.
A3: This looks like fun, but a lot of work!
A3: It can seem overwhelming until you take the plunge and the magic kicks in.
A3: Hard to quantify the learning within it. Also any failed puzzle in the chain can be a nightmare. Lots of moving parts.
great point - it can grow over time
There are a couple of roundtables on ARGs at the Revolutionary Learning conference in August https://t.co/M9kyCvOodA
A3 Is it extra work? Yes. Is it worth it? Unequivocally yes.
A3: The lack of equipment that is needed to support it.
definitely sounds overwhelming to think of embarking upon it !
A3 in ARG an educator is not going to have the answers. Have students experience the journey
A3: Any administrator blow-back?
I agree on the fear of the failed puzzle / chain but I guess that's where teacher becomes Dungeon Master
All good points. Always good to have multliple paths, so if one fails, other routes are available.
Yes. There is a session on it at Serious Play
A3- not fully understanding the technology or being able to troubleshoot
A3: Not feeling 100% confident that I am doing the "right" thing
So many! But sometimes the rough edges are great opportunities for Ss seeing how design/creativity works
Always advisable to start small and evolve to comfort
Enlisting the students also works well. I often get them to unwittingly help me design the game.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a group of us plan a multi-school ARG?
For those of you who have designed eduARGs, about how many hours per day of gameplay did it take you to design them?
A3-Time and lack of understanding
A3 Other Ts perceptions, OMG THEY'RE PLAYING VIDEO GAMES !?
I never asked permission. Once they saw I had kids staying afterschool just to play - then I told them.
The funny thing is that you can run one invisibly. So much of it can exist underground.
I don't count design time (it's fun!) but I worked on it for weeks. It played out over about 10 hours.
Me too! Just did it and other Ts were shocked at the student response
A3: Not having the support or time to implement.
Would love to livetweet / cover the Revolutionary Learning Conference if there are media spots available
I got the same answer from Chris Aviles when I asked him about how he got DGBL into his class...
...but that's more ARG than actual reality in most schools!
I played Prototype 161 at a huge gaming convention. 99% of attendees had no idea the game was happening.
It's all about the journey / constructivist learning
Definitely a concern, but it takes a life of its own. Once you plan the first one, all subsequent ones are much easier
Impossible to tell - it just kinda happens! and I worked on/off for two years for our latest one
Time is hard to come by. Implement a little by little
Just saw you were here! Welcome. Good to have an expert on board.
I normally try to get Ss to talk to teachers about tech we use to get Ts more on board, so don't want 2b underground
I don't know what any of that means either
Anyone here heading to next week? how bout or - it's conference season!!
a very good point. I usually share after the fact. T's become curious when they sense something is amiss.
come join Steve and I afterwards to play a game
Ts in my school are pretty anti-tech, so I must delicately choose activities, and get Ss to advocate
Yeah, I'm guessing about 3-5+ hours of design per gameplay hour
Even when I did Hour of Code last year, OMG THEY'RE PLAYING ANGRY BIRDS!!!!
That the "alternate reality" part. The game is played in the real world. Only players see the puzzles.
Q4: ARGs often incorporate smaller games within the larger game. Do you have experiences to share? https://t.co/ylLzh41AdO
Can't wait to see everyone at https://t.co/ZDKZzIg7jI
Anyone here heading to next week? how bout or - it's conference season!!
I think it becomes a fun hobby, that just happens to really benefit the kids
Depends on how real you want it. Most of my dev time was on building websites, setting up auto-emailers,etc.
ARG, I'm being told to get off and do the dishes :-(
I need to check out the archives of when is over. It keeps distracting me w/good stuff!
A4: Working on "exploding" my game to get into curriculum in my district.
A4: I have some experience with :) my students design and develop their own game s- we analyze a lot of games for mechanics
Fortunately, ARGs are generally all design so you don't need programming skills or a large tech team
A4 interested in for this element, escape rooms are a greay way to bring the game into the physical space of Ss
I hope you can - what an asset to your school district!
A4: I'll repeat that would be a great addition to any ARG. Tons exist already.
Have you tried Conducttr?
A4: I use a common deck of cards for a few of the mini-games.
auto-emailers? I need that! So. Many. Emails. But I have redesigned puzzles to be more automated.
Don't have any GBL experience, but I am researching and hoping to transform more tech activities
really makes the idea of bringing games, ARG elements, etc into the classroom!
A4: Really, any game can be woven in if it makes sense with the learning outcomes, narrative, etc.
I've spent all of this time reading about Gone Home and Journal of Odysseus. This is amazing.
I have used a deck of cards for numerous Math games. Fun stuff
Easy. Just set up an away message or a rule on outlook on an account. Completely automatic then.
A4: ARG I'm building is set in a school & Ss need to find clues to fill out a pass to P's office to retrieve a confiscated phone.
Just popping in late as is going off on my feed - exited to read what I have missed
There will be a video on the phone of incriminating evidence against the fictional principal.
A4 we play games like the Disneyland game on Xbox which has mini games inside
A4: What's great about ARGs is they absorb anything you can create - if you can thematically connect it, it'll work.
I love it! So clever and very ARG.
Your game sounds interesting! Seem relatable
One of the office staff was a clue giver in my game. Was hilarious to see 15 kids walk in as a group to find her.
Q5: What freely available tools might contribute to creating an immersive experience like an ARG? https://t.co/CmQIwXyunR
Agreed : they're modular systems that can incorporate just about anything. Only limited by creativity.
BTW the joke's on everyone. Right now you are participating in an ARG. has been steering the ship.
A5: I use Twitter, Facebook, etc. to create credible fictional characters and sites to deploy clues, etc.
A5: The more you can invade the spaces that the Ss inhabit, the more immersive the experience.
That's awesome! Welcome to the dark side!
A5: iMovie, Pages, QR code generators, social media, email accounts created just for the game to deliver clues/puzzles/story
A4- I have very limited experience in but reading these responses is great for know what to expect
Remember to follow all the people you have been engaging with on the chat - grow your lot of great people here :)
A5: wikispaces, any free social media accounts, and my fave, google telephone.
A5: Lots of common Web 2.0 tools are also useful.
we saved the princess! and with 9 minutes to spare!!
A5: Think my favorite "character" contact in my game was an Xbox Live account.
Q6: What steps would you take to weave an ARG into your practice? Any ideas percolate from tonight's chat? https://t.co/kT4nRGFrhe
A6: ideas percolate every time I have the opportunity to interact with this community and and
A6: No question it could foster deep learning. Good resources here tonight I will look at closely.
A6: I'm reminded (again) how important narrative is. Haven't worked much on integrating mine enough. Back to it.
A6: I teach a choice / quest based course so building narrative and ARG elements is a great fit
Agreed - narrative is key.
A6: Definitely lots of research and communication with the IT team!
A5: I'm thinking an ARG for Digital Citizenship.
A6: I want to learn more/investigate and read, but I definitely want to try some of this next year
IT partnership really helps!
Having a good relationship with IT is key for the games I've run.
As the chat winds down (time sure flies) let's go with an outro: name, location, role, takeaway from tonight's chat
I'm actually still technically a member of the IT team too! lol. I'm part-time teacher, part-time IT.
Here is our eduARG design framework for anyone thinking of designing their own ARG for learning https://t.co/5Mw7072BSF
A6: Prepping to launch a choice novel sci-if ARG in November, & the theatre teacher is on board to play the principal in vids 😂
I am thinking sticking to simple puzzles to start off with. Then move towards decoding?!
Steve from NJ - I teach video game design and development - Big takeaway - WE CAN DO IT!
