This week John Farquhar from Western Washington University, posted an email to the IL listserve about an upcoming alternate reality game designed to teach critical thinking and info lit skills. 
During the fall term of 2007, a team of faculty, librarians, instructional designers and student volunteers will be hosting an internet-based alternate-reality game (or ARG) designed to teach critical thinking and information literacy skill. The game will be targeted to college students, yet will be freely open and promoted in order to attract a broad range of participantsThe only thing I know about alternate reality games comes from Jane McGonigal's I Love Bee's success. I know very little about the entire concept behind alternate reality games, but I am interested in knowing more about what they hope to teach and how it would happen.
Since I'm habitually behind on my IL listserve (really who isn't), if anyone knows anything more about the project please let me know.
Posts
4 comments:
John,
It sounds like a very interesting project! There is a collection of ARG researchers/creators/hobbyists assembled through the IGDA. You're welcome to pose any questions to the mailing list here: http://igda.org/arg/
Evan Jones
Stitch Media
The trailhead will be http://HelpMeSolveAMystery.com.
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.
Hey, there's a great deal of helpful information above!
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