The ARG is dead - long live the ARG

Well, the marking is mostly done and scores are being entered into spreadsheets and the ARG adventure is over.

When I started this project I wanted to find a way to have the students more engaged in a learning task - and, in theory, get a better product from them. I wanted them to create work for a purpose rather than just do an essay. Have I been successful? Probably not.

The feedback forms I have received from students have suggested that the ARG format did not motivate them to produce better work - although it certainly kept them more interested than a regular assignment. Wetpaint seems to have had mixed reviews from students - some finding it frustrating and others confused. A few had no issues.

You can see the full results (updated - google tells me) here.

From my perspective the issue is bang for buck.

I worked pretty hard to set this up, layout the structure, create characters, write media releases and get other teachers involved. Also, we had a fair amount of lab bookings for the students to work on this assignment so that took us away from 'normal' classtime. Oh, and I nearly forgot, we had 23 visitors from Nagasaki for a week!

At night I logged into the fake Dr Frank Tonkin account and the fake Dr Simone Schama accounts to answer any student emails and, of course, I checked each page of their wikis regularly and posted comments. I know that a couple of students noticed these comments but I don't think any actually used the comments to improve their work.

Another hard thing was the stupid lying about me not being Dr Frank Tonkin. Students, if you are reading this - ごめんなさい.

The wikis that the students did were mostly OK. Some were exceptional but I think the choice of technology was a problem. Wikis are at their best when they are collaborative and the students didn't really have to use this aspect to refine their responses to missions. I suspect a blog or even a simple email might have been better. I could have asked them to work in teams but I wanted them all to have some formal writing practice and was worried about 'social loafing'.

One thing I would change in terms of the story structure is to give the students more choice inthe missions. The missions were non-negotiable. Do this. Write that. It was only on the last mission that it occurred to me that games involve choice so I let the students choose to save the samurai or get rich.

Would I run one again? Maybe. The amount of work for me (reduced if I repeat most of it) did not get a substantially better product from students. You'll notice that one of the questions asks them if they want to do an ARG or essay in the future and most picked "A 3rd option".....


What is the 3rd option? I dunno.

It has been fun running the ARG and the kids were definately more engaged than a regular research essay.

Maybe I could be tempted.

Maybe

The ARG finishes

Hello -

Sorry it has been a while.

The ARG ended and I've started to assess the wetpaint wikis that my year 9s and 10s created. So far the first few I've looked at have been excellent. The students researdhed well and used the technology of wetpaint effectively - which is great.

I've seen a couple which are, at best, pretty weak but thats the way it goes. I gave the kids a choice inthe last mission - to save the samurai or to let him die and make heaps of cash....welll thats what they thought.

They were offered 'half of all the profits' - but as some of the students realised...half of zero is zero.....

We had a few interuptions to our term which made the focus on the ARG blurry at best but that is something that is unavoidable in most schools. The ARG format would be better with dedicate time being allocated - likewise for the teacher who has to check student work all the time.