Rethinking the Library Game: Creating an Alternate Reality with Social Media

Battles, Jason; Glenn, Valerie D.; Shedd, L.

doi:10.1080/19322909.2011.569922

Cited by 30 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…University of Alabama librarians designed an elaborate game that took place over the course of a month. Students played through Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress and used library resources to unravel a mystery (Battles, Glenn, and Shedd, 2011). This variety of orientation events and games shows that librarians recognize the need to make introductory activities accessible and meaningful for students by using social media and mobile technology.…”

Section: Library Anxietymentioning

confidence: 98%

#selfiesinthestacks: Sharing the Library with Instagram

Wallis

2014

Internet Reference Services Quarterly

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This article discusses a student-guided Instagram program for firstyear English composition classes at the University of Montevallo during Fall 2013. The activity engaged aspects of critical pedagogy by placing value on students' prior experiences as creators and users of information and encouraging a classroom environment guided by student input. Since the program was meant for students in their first semester, it was also designed to be fun and social. The Instagram program helped students encounter the unfamiliar academic library environment through the familiar medium of social media, alleviating library anxiety as they produced online content representing their experience.

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Section: Library Anxietymentioning

confidence: 98%

#selfiesinthestacks: Sharing the Library with Instagram

Wallis

2014

Internet Reference Services Quarterly

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“…A small number have already been developed with educational goals in mind, such as World Without Oil (WWO) [35], which asked players to imagine their lives in the midst of a global oil crisis, and Black Cloud, which engaged at-risk high school students in scientific investigations of climate change issues in their own local neighborhoods [29]. However, nearly all ARG implementations to-date, even in learning environments, have been targeted for players who are 18 years and older [5,26,34].…”

Section: Args As Authentic Transmedia Learning Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hansen

Kraus

et al. 2013

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

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An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is a form of transmedia storytelling that engages players in scavenger hunt-like missions to collectively uncover, interpret, and reassemble the fragments of a story that is distributed across multiple media, platforms, and locations. ARGs are participatory experiences, because players have a central role in reconstructing the storyline. Furthermore, players interact with the game as themselves, not via avatars. Although transmedia formats like ARGs have garnered increasing attention in entertainment and education, most have been targeted for adults 18 and older. Few studies have explored the design process of education-based ARGs for children. In this paper, we detail the design and implementation of an ARG for middle school students (13-15 years old). We describe the strategies we used to distribute story elements across various media and to encourage players to participate in an authentic inquiry process. We found that a "protagonist by proxy", or in-game character with whom players related closely, served as a strong motivator and a model for positive participation. We highlight student interactions and offer insights for designers who implement ARGs and similar immersive learning experiences.

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“…Project Velius, run at the University of Alabama, is another example of an information literacy ARG (Battles, 2014;Battles et al, 2011). The authors' reasoning for the creation of an ARG over a traditional game largely mirrors the reasons discussed in section 3.2.…”

Section: Educational Argsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Project Velius did not restrict targeting of the ARG to specific modules or courses, instead opening up play to the entire university. This lack of specific targeting hurt the participation of the ARG, which was only played by around 50 students based on feedback from web analytics (Battles, 2014;Battles et al, 2011). Web analytics, along with qualitative data from players suggested that the ARG was successful.…”

Section: Educational Argsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exercising library and information literacies through alternate reality gaming

Jerrett

Bothma

Beer

2017

AJIM

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PurposeTeaching students/library patrons 21st century literacies (such as information and library literacies) is important within a library setting. As such, finding an appropriate manner to teach these skills in a practical manner at tertiary level is important. As vehicles for constructivist learning, games provide a unique opportunity to teach these 21st century literacies in an engaging, practical, format. This article discusses the implementation of an alternate reality game (ARG) to teach these literacies through gameplay. ApproachAn ARG was designed and developed where the core gameplay tasks taught and exercised 21st century literacies. The game, once completed, was then analysed as a case study to determine the effectiveness of the game-based approach to literacy learning. FindingsThroughout the play of the game, players spent increasingly more time in the library, often using it as a common meeting point during play. Players reported that they learnt or exercised the skills that each game task focused on, additionally noting that the game-based context made the process of learning and exercising these skills more enjoyable. Value/OriginalityThe findings suggest that the creation of games, whether real world or digital, may be useful in engaging students/patrons with 21st century literacies as well as with their local library. The documentation of a successful ARG to teach 21st century literacies provides a model for future research to follow when designing engaging library-oriented games. Article ClassificationResearch Article

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Rethinking the Library Game: Creating an Alternate Reality with Social Media

Cited by 30 publications

References 2 publications

#selfiesinthestacks: Sharing the Library with Instagram

#selfiesinthestacks: Sharing the Library with Instagram

Playing for real

Exercising library and information literacies through alternate reality gaming

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