Alternate Reality Gaming: Teaching Visual Art Skills to Multiple Subject Credential Candidates

Through Alternate Reality Games, students engage in narrative, play, cooperation, creativity, and joy by creating storylines focusing on one element of art. In 2008, the Luce Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented Ghosts of a Chance. The first Alternative Reality Game (ARG) to be ho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Art education (Reston) 2014-03, Vol.67 (2), p.19-27
Main Author: Engdahl, Eric
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actors
American art
Art Activities
Art Education
Art galleries & museums
Beginning Teachers
Cognitive Processes
Collaboration
Creativity
Design
District of Columbia
Educational Technology
Elementary Education
Elementary Schools
Games
Group Activities
Homo sapiens
Instructional Effectiveness
Interpersonal Relationship
Learning
Mind
Narratives
Preservice Teacher Education
Preservice Teachers
Professional certification
Puppetry
Scoring Rubrics
Social Media
Social networks
Student Surveys
Tattoos
Teacher education
Teacher Education Programs
Teacher Improvement
Teaching
Theater
Video Games
Visual Arts
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Summary:Through Alternate Reality Games, students engage in narrative, play, cooperation, creativity, and joy by creating storylines focusing on one element of art. In 2008, the Luce Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented Ghosts of a Chance. The first Alternative Reality Game (ARG) to be hosted by a museum, it was designed to deepen and expand the museum-going experience as well as serve as a marketing device to engage a younger audience. The game commenced with the appearance of a body builder wearing attention-seeking tattoos at an ARGers' convention in Boston. Players then entered the game world through websites, e-mail, in-person discussions with actors playing game characters, and activities at the museum and sites around Washington, DC. The author believes that future students will help educators discover the full potential of ARG, especially as the born-digital kids enter teaching programs. If the current generation of educators are, in Marc Prensky's terminology, "digital immigrants" (2001a, p. 2) then teachers must learn from the different brains, new knowledge, and experiences of the natives so that they can teach them more effectively. ARGs offer an exciting mode of learning for natives and immigrants alike, because the central components are what make us human--stories, sociability, playfulness, the use of tools, and creativity.
ISSN:0004-3125
2325-5161
DOI:10.1080/00043125.2014.11519261