Breaking boundaries: learning by ARG within an academic conference presentation

This paper discusses the experiences of the three authors during their alternate reality game (ARG) session at the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Conference. Taking the conference theme " Diversifying Participation " literally, the aim of this ARG event was to advance conference learning to a new level of involvement by employing a problem-solving and experiential method of presenting. Our intent was for attendees to collectively experience how participatory digital media learning works. Within the context of the ARG, we transformed the traditional conference room setting into an immersive ludic environment closely corresponding to the social media preferences of today's youth [4, 5, 6, 9]. We argue that ARGs exhibit pedagogically desirable qualities that are ideally suitable for learning purposes, even though their dynamic and unpredictable aesthetics require specific preparation beforehand and intense follow-up thereafter. In planning an ARG for the novel and unexpected context of an academic conference, our team engaged in a learning process that touches upon the biases inherent within the juxtaposition of play and academia [1, 12, 14]. We critically examine these experiences using a self-reflexive method and offer specific guidance for employing ARGs in diverse contexts for educative purposes.