Practicum 2 - Lauren

Okay, so now having done some research on ARIS I was ready to get my hands dirty and see what this game was really all about. Downloading the app was a piece of cake. Using my Ipod touch, I went to the app store, clicked download and before I knew it the app was on my Ipod. I then created a user account and logged in. Once logged in, I was met by screen which asked me to “pick a game” I was able to choose from “Dow Day”, “UW Campus Tour”, “Steel” and “Sing Along!” It seemed easy enough so I selected “UW Campus Tour.” I was then taken to the “quests” page, which asked me to begin my quest by walking to UW Memorial Union. Here’s where my problems started. I walked to the union … and then nothing. In order to play the games on ARIS, you have to be connected to the internet. When I started the game I was connected to my apartments WiFi network, by the time I had walked to the Union I was receiving error messages that my network was low or unreliable. I attempted to switch to the memorial union network; however, this did not elicit any changes. According to the quest screen I had still not completed the quest of walking to the entrance of memorial union…. Even though I was standing right there. I attempted to restart the app several times; however, I still haven’t figured out how to work this game. I have visited http://arisgames.org, as well as apple’s “ARIS” site but the directions have not helped me to figure out how to play this game just yet. Unfortunately I missed the tutorial that Danny emailed about for ARIS, which in retrospect would have probably been very helpful in getting me started on ARIS. I contacted David Gagnon via email to try to get some help with ARIS. He is the project manager. David works as the instructional manager and he also consults with faculty about innovative teaching practices that leverage emerging technology. I emailed David asking if he could possibly clarify some of the issues I have been having with ARIS. I am still waiting on his response. ARIS seems to be a very haphazard application. Even as I sit writing my practicum I am having trouble logging on again. I am back at my apartment connected to the Internet and the window has been “logging on” for almost ten minutes now with no real progress. I am hoping David will be able to help me. I wish I could have offered more about my experience with ARIS in this post … hopefully my next attempt at ARIS will be more fulfilling as I am extremely curious now to see what this game is all about!