Practicum 1 - Lauren

For my practicum assignment I will be exploring networking gaming. Specifically, my assignment is to immerse myself in the iphone/ipod touch app “ARIS.” Before even beginning my hands on experience with the game I decided to do some research to find out what this game even was. From the minimal information I was able to gather, I have come to understand that ARIS, which is short for Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling, is “a tool for making location based educational games, stories, tours and mobile data collection activities for place based learning curriculum and mobile citizen science designs.” Still not truly understanding that description, I decided I would need to download the app and try to play around with it in order to grasp a better understanding of what I was working with. Essentially, using the GPS and QR codes, users get to experience a virtual world of interactive characters, items and media placed in a literal and physical space – in this case, the UW campus. There are a number of sample games that already exist for users to play if they live near Madison Wisconsin, and for those who do not, they can visit arisgames.org to see some cheat codes that let you simulate being here. As I continue to gather more and more information about this network gaming tool I am beginning to understand that this is some sort of beta, experimental gaming tool unique to UW, which may also be the reason I am having trouble finding adequate info from other users. The people who have personally experienced this game are limited so I think the majority of my practicum assignment will be based on my own personal experience with the game. I’ve downloaded the app on my ipod touch and I think I’m ready to get my hands dirty and start really figuring out what ARIS is all about.