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An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia to deliver a story that may be altered by participants' ideas or actions. The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses.

"Think of it as an alternate world Cold War era spy adventure, if that kind of thing included stuff like blood sacrifices packed with dark beings."- Andrea Phillips, Balance of Powers Kickstarter campaign video. Before Adrian Hon and Naomi Alderman took to Kickstarter to fund the mobile app Zombies, Run, there was Balance of Powers.

ARG Academy: A course for educators to learn about and build ARGs

This open course is designed for educators who want to learn more games, simulations and game-like environments for education. It is designed for all levels of participation. We are using the matrix from Dr. Lisa Dawley's Social Network Knowledge Construction as the model for the course.

What if instruction could actually engage students and get them excited about learning? What if school could foster student creativity and support their expanding imaginations? What if educators around the world had the tools to provide students with the 21st century skills to imagine and create their own futures in our ever-changing global society? Education innovation is in full creative flower at Quest to Learn, a New York City public middle and high school. As the Guidance Counselor and Wellness Coordinator, I support the groundbreaking and effective teaching and learning that takes place here, nurturing social and emotional learning (SEL) as well as 21st century skills like inventiveness, risk taking and collaboration.

This playlist put together by Diedre W. puts all 13 of James Gee's Principles of Game Based Learning together in order. These videos were presented in the Coursera Video Games and Learning MOOC from Wisconsin State facilitated by Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler.

This panel discussion led by Chris Haskell features Marianne Malmstrom, Peggy Sheehy, Andrew Miller, and Lucas Gillispe. GREAT discussion on the future of educational games and some of the controversy around games and learning.

Abstract: New information technologies make information available just-in-time and on demand and are reshaping how we interact with information. Meanwhile, schools remain in a print-based culture and a growing number of students are disaffiliating from traditional school. Video games are emblematic of this paradigm shift toward a digital culture and may have potential as a medium for instruction. This case study investigates one enactment of a video game-based curriculum and explores the nature of learning within game-based environments. Specifically, it describes how fictional elements situated the learning experience and induced academic practices, the nature of student-created inscriptions influenced emergent understandings, and the game-based curriculum's game design features pushed students' conceptual understandings, and how learning through a technology-enhanced curriculum triggered students' identities as independent problem solvers. The implications for librarians in a world where teachers and students are designers and creators of information are discussed.

Game-based learning scholar Kurt Squire explores how leveraging young people's interest in gaming could encourage greater youth community involvement and deeper connections to civic and political life.

Most educators are dismissive of video games. But corporations, the government, and the military have already recognized and harnessed their tremendous educative power. Schools have to catch up, the authors argue. Shaffer, D. W., Squire, K. R., Halverson, R., & Gee, J. P. (2005). WCER Working Paper No. 2005-4.

Jane McGonigal spoke about games and education at EDUCAUSE 2013 in Anaheim, Calif., and gave a famous Ted Talk three years ago. Ted Talk 2010 video ANAHEIM, Calif. - Video games may sound more recreational than educational, but experts believe that games will play a greater role in student engagement in years to come.

Daniel Floyd's video on Video Games and Learning featured in Mark Chen's HP Catalyst Academy's Crash Course in Gaming. The video provides a strong context for the value of tangential learning provided by games. It is presented in an 'in plain english' style.

"In this chapter, we (Steinkuehler and Squire) review studies of videogames and learning, organized in terms of the functional roles in which videogames are typically positioned: (2.1) as content providers, (2.2) as bait for other forms of valuable intellectual activity, (2.3) as vehicles for assessment, or (2.4) as architectures for engagement whose design characteristics can be applied to other content and/or activity domains. We close with a discussion of the recent debate on evidence and the current challenges and trends in the area." (Steinkuehler & Squire, 2013)

I'm not the first person to admit that I don't have the firmest grasp on quantum mechanics or the computational mechanics that utilize them. Sure, I'll bust out the Schrodinger's cat situation at the many intellectual gatherings I'm totally invited to, but that's where my familiarity with all things quantum ends.

Abstract: Interactive immersive entertainment, or videogame playing, has emerged as a major entertainment and educational medium. As research and development initiatives proliferate, educational researchers might benefit by developing more grounded theories about them. This article argues for framing game play as a designed experience. Players' understandings are developed through cycles of performance within the gameworlds, which instantiate particular theories of the world (ideological worlds). Players develop new identities both through game play and through the gaming communities in which these identities are enacted. Thus research that examines game-based learning needs to account for both kinds of interactions within the game-world and in broader social contexts. Examples from curriculum developed for Civilization III and Supercharged! show how games can communicate powerful ideas and open new identity trajectories for learners.