Today, varied kinds of learning processes are being employed in classrooms and game-based education is such a process. In particular, games have contributed chiefly towards the interactive experience of the learner. Also, in a game the learner is occupied from start to finish of the session unlike regular class room sessions. However, someone has to design and implement these games. The aim of this project is twofold: on the one hand, we aim to teach both pupils and teachers what game-based education is and how it can be used in the classroom and on the other hand, how one can design and implement a simple game (e.g., a game involving a pendulum). Since all computer systems have a browser and today all browsers support HTML5 and JavaScript, we concluded that the ideal tools for this project are HTML5 and JavaScript. The project will have two phases. In the first phase, pupils and to some extend teachers will learn the basics of game-based education as well as the basics of web programming with HTML5 and JavaScript. Then, in the second phase, all teams will go on to design and implement their simple game. During these phases, all tutorials will be videorecorded and feed to a podcasting system. Also, teachers will keep notes which will be used in the writing of a technical document which will explain how to design and implement a simple game. The games will be evaluated locally by a team of pupils and "gloabally" by all participants. Thus each partner will form two teams: the core team, which will design and implement the simple game and which will consist of about 10 people, and the evaluators team, which will locally evaluate a game and which will consists of about 30 people. The best game will be chosen at the final meeting. All games will be posted to the web page of the project and all material produced will be available from the project's web site.
Game-based learning is getting more and more popular and various kinds of learning processes are employed in classrooms and game-based education is such a process. In particular, games have contributed chiefly towards the interactive experience of the learner. Also, when playing a game the learner is occupied from start to finish of the session, unlike regular classroom sessions. However, someone had to design and implement these games. The aim of this project was twofold: on the one hand, we aimed to teach both pupils and teachers what game-based education is and how it can be used in the classroom and on the other hand, how one can design and implement a simple game (e.g., a game involving a pendulum). Since all computer systems have a browser and today all browsers support HTML5 and JavaScript, we concluded that the ideal tools for this project are HTML5 and JavaScript. The project had two phases. In the first phase, teachers and pupils learned the basics of game-based education as well as the basics of web programming with HTML5 and JavaScript in learning/teaching/training mobilities. We welcomed an expert from the local University (KPH) to teach us about game-based education and we are lucky to have an IT expert in our project team. He taught HTML5 and Java Script basics to the teachers. Then, in the second phase, teachers in each country shared their knowledge and all teams got involved in the design and implementation of their simple games. The games have been evaluated locally by a team of pupils and "globally" by all participants. Thus each partner formed two teams: the core team, which designed and implemented the simple game and which consisted of about 10 people, and the evaluator's team, which locally evaluated games and which consisted of about 30 people. The best games in each country were presented at the final meeting. All games are posted to the web page of the project and all material produced are available from the project's web site. The most important findings are that creating your own game is not that easy, especially to make it attractive and that creating your own game is very time-consuming. First, it takes a lot of IT and game-based-learning knowledge to be ready to start and then it takes a lot of time for testing, evaluating and updating. So after running this project and gaining experiences we all got a deeper understanding of how game-based-education works, increased our IT skills and value more all the efforts and time others have invested in games that are ready for us just to use (for free). So everyone realised the importance of teamwork and appreciates more all contributions by the team. SHARING and TEAMWORK are the keys to a better future for all of us.