For my final practicum post I will recap my experiences using ARIS. Overall I think I have developed a pretty decent understanding of what exactly ARIS is. My understanding of this iPhone/ iPod touch application came; however, mostly from my research as opposed to my hand-on experience with the application. Throughout the course of the project I read many articles, kept up-to-date with ARIS’s website which has an RSS news feed and news page on it, and I even read the creator of ARIS’s online blog.
As for my personal experience, because my access to an iPhone was limited, I don’t think I was able to comprehensively explore this networked “gaming” application in its entirety. There are still so many things that ARIS offers that I never got a chance to try. These things include creating my own game, Steel: one of the already created games, and even interacting with other ARIS users.
Before starting this assignment, I thought my experience with ARIS would be more interactive. I was unable to find any websites to discuss the application with other users and I felt that my experience with the application was entirely “solo.” The one game “sing –a-long” that is supposed to have videos of other users “video posts” seemed to be completely empty.
Overall I think that ARIS has the potential to be a great learning tool, but right now its too immature. The software needs to be simplified AND made more accessible to a wider audience. Right now, application is pretty limited to users on the UW campus and I think that the website needs to be simplified to make understanding the purpose of each game and how to play a little easier.
When thinking about ARIS in the context of networked games, I am not sure if this application would exactly fit under this genre. From my understanding of networked games, they founded on interaction with other users on the network. Like I said, I have very little, in fact, no interaction with other users. The lack of accessibility and difficulty to understand ARIS leads me to question if ARIS demonstrates a digital divide. If ARIS were to become a learning tool, what would this mean for people who did not have access to that technology or did not have the knowledge to understand it.
ARIS also made me question the concept of ubiquitous computing. If ARIS became the norm for education, would this change the way we learned things? Would we lose or gain in terms of our educational experiences? I wonder if ARIS is the future of education, and part of me fears that it could be. I do know however, that even if it is in our future, it definitely needs more time to mature. More people need to learn what ARIS is and its capabilities before we can ever think about it being used to replace a classroom.
Overall I think, although frustrating, I enjoyed what I learned about ARIS and I look forward to seeing how this application develops in the future.
I think the frustration is something that comes with all new technological elements. There are definitely always going to be bugs that need to be worked out or ways things could run smoother, but this sounds like a cool experience, and an interesting idea to help people connect with the University.
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