[arg_discuss] Using Alternate Reality Games in language education

[Kindersite Joel]

r.e. European Union funded education project



ARGuing for Multilingual Motivation in Web 2.0  (ARGuing) is a European 
Union education project.



The project has created the first use of an Alternate Reality Game for 
motivating secondary school students to learn languages. The project has 
also learnt how an ARG can be adapted to almost any area of education.



The game that was created was called ' The Tower of Babel' and included a 
story designed to engage the target student group. The students had to save 
the planet by completing specific quests, collaboratively and 
internationally. The project has been a huge success with over 400 teachers 
and students from 17 countries playing the game ' The Tower of Babel'. In 
the final pilot over 9,000 quests were answered and 800 files uploaded.



The project has created a number of resources that are available online, 
these include:

  1.. A re-usable game platform (on a Moodle platform) that includes 
multiple languages http://ictthatworks.net:8080/moodle/ - you can view 
inside the platform by sending an email to me. Please place in the subject 
line of the email – TofB platform
  2.. A project website with additional information 
http://www.arg-education.eu . On the website are papers to download 
including:
    1.. A methodology to make and use Alternate Reality Games in education
    2.. A set of case studies of other ARGs and serious games with empirical 
evidence of results
    3.. A set of use case scenarios that show examples of how ARGs could be 
used for other subjects or cross-subjects
    4.. An online teacher training course to enable educators to use the ARG 
the project produced
    5.. Summaries of papers on the pedagogy, evaluation and the technology 
employed. (full papers are available in the conference proceedings of the 
3rd European Conference on Games Based Learning 
http://academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2009/ecgbl09-proceedings.htm )


The project team are also offering consultancy services to other educators 
interested in using ARGs in education.



Please feel free to contact us with any questions.



Prof. Thomas Connolly

Coordinator ARGuing EU project

University of The West of Scotland

Thomas at arg-education.eu

http://www.arg-education.eu/