ARGs in Education

I’ve been invited to speak at the Media Network conference at St Hilda’s college in Oxford in a session about educational writing. Saturday 12th April 2008. Details sketchy at the moment, but once I know more, I’ll be back.

My course buddy (and sometime colleague) Sai very helpfully sent me the link this article today from Futurelab about the potential of ARGs in an educational context. How very apt, I here you all cry. I concur. Especially as I have firmly decided to do it for my dissertation. Actually, its not a dissertation any more, it’s a report of between 9,000 – 10,000 words. In case you are interested this academic year I’m also doing Children’s Media Culture and Learning in Galleries: Engaging with Visual Culture.  Should be a good way to end the MA methinks.

I’ve recently joined Facebook, after being sent a link to see something funny someone had posted on it about three weeks ago.

Since, then I have been hooked. The pleasure is not *really* gained from presenting yourself, like MySpace or a blog, but rather getting in contact with old friends, and networking with other, like-minded people (in my case, people who enjoy Bear Grylls and Labyrinth) and letting the world know what you’re up to now, and in the future. I’ve noticed that there is an element of competition in getting friends – indeed, a colleague and I compare numbers every morning.

It is a very public way of communicating, and a function known as the wall displays public conversations, which left unchecked could cause problems, say for example, if a prospective employer want to find out more about you. I don’t know if this is an urban myth or not, but I know its something I would do, if I was in that position.

So, Facebook and educational resources…I’m not sure. It would be good to use some of the functionality in a controlled setting for a relevant subject, but using the software as it stands throws up issues of ownership and control. While it’s fun, I don’t think it would necessarily add any more value a blog would. It doesn’t mean it isn’t good fun, and doesn’t have a place in education at all. It would be quite interesting if each school had a site, but what would be different to a specialised VLE? Not much.

This article raises some crucial points about blogging and education. I’ve commented on a couple of key quotes from an educational resource producer’s perspective.

‘Blogs are used to “archive and publish student work, learn with far flung collaborators, and ‘manage’ the knowledge that members of the school communities create.”’ 

The Blog-o-sphere certainly allows users to forge relationships with people they would not normally have made contact with. In my first blog ARGs in Education, I managed to link to, and therefore contact like-minded people that I have been able to have a dialogue with, who will certainly aid my creation and assessment of an educational ARG.

I am currently trying to implement a blog into a conference I am producing for work about climate change. Schools which attend this conference will create a report, which will be upload to a dedicated site. I will then hopefully (CMS permitting) allow other attendees of the conference to comment on the reports, and give their feedback. In addition to appreciating each others work, the students are also making links with each other – students they would not have met under any other circumstance, but who share a common interest.

As Downes says:
‘…Blogging, however, offers students a chance to a) reflect on what they are writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and c) engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that leads to further writing and thinking.’ 

This is how I envisage my pre-conference blog working.

However, the freedom to comment does have potential issues, especially when this work is being sponsored by a client, with a commercial perspective. While we must encourage students to be open, free and honest, we would almost certainly have to remove posts that were derogatory to the client and their field. This, I suppose, negates the whole ethos of the blog, and questions whether this would really be blogging – or rather a representation of blogging. A faux blog. Here is an example of a faux blog. Its insincerity is obvious from its unrealistic range of contributors (although it is presented as a group blog), and the fact that all posts have appeared on one certain day (the day of the event they were promoting [which was success by the way]).

As a promotional tool, I do not think it works. It is not engaging and does not encourage engagement. I must say it is exciting and interesting to see that the techniques are being employed in educational resources, and their use can only become more sophisticated and effective, the more it is used.In terms of ARGs, the cross-platform game I wish to create for my dissertation, a faux blog is used quite extensively as a ‘meeting place’ or ‘home’, The blog is proving to be an effective ludic device. Players return to the blog to receive new tasks and recap on events that have passed. This blog is from a current ARG, being produced by Mind Candy, a London-based company who specialise in the creation of ARGs. You’ll see that it looks like ‘normal’, with the exception the player cannot comment. This is the essence of the ARG – you question whether it is real or not. This concept is known as This Is Not A Game, or TINAG – the developers, or puppet masters preserve the curtain of the faux reality by maintaining that the events happening within it are real.

To conclude, a mediated/negated form of blogging definately has a place in the creation of educational resources, but commercial input and potential ludic structures mean that the blog is not ‘organic’ or true to its form.