This project has been developed starting on the observation that very often students lack interest in lessons and school in general, which leads to early school leaving or to poor achievements in learning. This is connected to the use of traditional teaching methods which do not empower students and do not allow them to have control over their learning. Besides these methodologies are ever more remote from the way young people learn in their experience outside school; learning by doing and sharing with others, particularly when they use video-games which occupy a large part of young people free time. While playing the game they learn new skills and solve different types of problems and puzzles in order to level up. Video-games are now available through many platforms and also on mobile devices, they can be played collaboratively and players create successful online communities. Furthermore, games can be easily created using free platforms allowing for graphic design as well as as for coding of game behaviour, sound and effects to follow the game storyline. That is why they have become interesting as a learning strategy in education. Games could indeed allow the development of the so called 21st century skills, communication, collaboration and creativity, associated with computational thinking and storytelling skills both in the mother tongue and in a foreign language. The creation of authentic learning opportunities, that is the development of learning scenarios that incorporate real life experiences, complex problems and use role-play exercises, case studies, problem-based activities and the participation in online communities would respond to the need for creating an educational framework that fosters the development of competences, which are the application of knowledge, skills and attitudes to situations occurring in real life. The project has two main objectives each relevant to a target group. For students, it has the objective to increase their motivation and consequently success in learning through the application of game design. For the three partner schools in Italy, Sweden and Portugal and their teachers the objective is to develop a framework based on game design applicable to lesson and possibly curriculum planning which shall be made available and transferable to any teaching situation and curriculum. This framework is expected to engage students more and prevent educational failure and drop-out. The project is carried out in the form of an action-research which proceeds cyclically. Teachers have meetings to share and develop their knowledge on the topic, plan activities and prepare the needed material. Subsequently they involve students in the research and guide them in the creation of a video game, stimulating collaboration and reflection online with their peers through eTwinning project platform. The next step is to allow students to work face to face and negotiate and collaborate in presence. During the exchange meetings and the online activities, teachers shall gather their observations to share during the next meeting and proceed to the next phase. At the end of the project we expect to have collected a sufficient number of self-produced support documents (worksheets, assessment grid, lesson ideas) covering also different subject areas to publish in an ebook. The ebook shall be made freely available to the community of educators. Further to this we expect to gather the attention of other educators interested in the topic and form a community in order to improve and enrich our practice also after the project period. We also expect an impact on students, particularly those not very interested in school, with poor school result and needing integration in the local community.. We shall continue to assess this also in the years following the project and share with the partners our results.
Edugaming project was started in response to students’ lack of interest in lessons and school in general, which leads to early school leaving or to poor achievements in learning. The underlying assumption was that traditional teaching methods do not allow students to have control over their learning and they are ever more remote from the way young people learn in their experience outside school. Outside school students learn by doing and sharing with others, particularly while using video-games, which occupy a large part of young people's free time. While playing the game they learn new skills and solve different types of problems and puzzles in order to level up. Video-games are now available through many platforms and also on mobile devices, they can be played collaboratively and players create successful online communities. Furthermore, games can be easily created using free platforms allowing for graphic design as well as as for coding of game behaviour, sound and effects to follow the game storyline. That is why they have become interesting as a learning strategy in education. The project was targeted both to teachers and to students at the partner schools and in the local communities where the schools operate. . For students, the objective was to increase their motivation and consequently success in learning through the application of video games using different approaches in lesson design: exploitation of commercially available videogames; development of video games by students; use of gamification platforms . For the three partner schools in Italy, Sweden and Portugal and their teachers the objective was to experiment game based approaches applicable to lesson and possibly curriculum planning which could be transferred to any learning activity in any subject with the aim to engage students more and prevent educational failure and drop-out. In the project teacher mobilities usually preceded student mobilities. Teachers met to share and develop their knowledge on a specific topic related to video games in education and consequently plan activities and prepare the needed material to be used in their lessons or in the next student mobility. These meetings were a good occasion to involve other stakeholders in the project, such as universities, publishers and teachers from other schools. Experts were invited to share their experience and field of research related to video games and learning. We also tried to connect to other European project on video games such as theTriseum project focussing on learning Maths or the Guinevere project to use virtual worlds for language learning. eTwinning platform was used to stimulate student interest in the project, get them to know better one another and start collaboration in transnational groups before the mobilities. During the mobilities students were involved both in playing games developed by the teachers and to creating their own group game. The final aim was to involve more students than those who could actually travel in the project. During the exchange meetings and the online activities, teachers filled in observation grids and rubrics to assess activities. Eventually, the students’ transnational teams managed to develop each one a game. At the end of the project we have collected a lot of material: lesson plans, worksheets, assessment grids, rubrics which cover different subject areas as well as some articles we wrote about the pedagogy behind video games in education as we learnt from personal readings and from exchange with experts in the field. All this material has been collected in an ebook which is freely available both on the Facebook page we created and from the website of the project www.erasmusedugaming.eu. Both the Facebook page and the site will continue to be updated in order to grow the community of educators interested in video games and learning since the game based activities will continue at the partner school as a follow-up of the project.