IDEAL GAME- Improving didactics, education and learning in higher education with Online Serious Game Creator - and is stuated in the EU ERASMUS + programme as a strategic partnership in the field of Higher Education. In the IDEAL GAME project, higher education institutions are jointly creating an online game creator for serious games to improve teaching and learning in higher education institutions. Within the project an online tool for the creation of small Serious Game for higher education will be designed. This IDEAL GAME tool will offer the chance to create different types of small serious games which can be integrated in modules and lectures: e.g. (a) serious games for learning professional and subject related vocabulary, (b) serious games for assignement of corresponding facts and terms (c) serious games which focus on process flows (d) competitive serious games to enhance learning (e) Puzzle Games to get in contact with models and theories etc. The tool will be designed in a way that the small serious games can be adapted to different scientific diciplines and field individually. It can be used for modules and lectures and can be equipped by the users with different content. Thus, the goal is to create a flexible tool that can be used to design module-based serious games that promote student with digital learning, improves student activity and also incorporate a motivational game-based learning approach that can be combined with a flipped-classroom concept. In the IDEAL GAME project, in addition to the tool design itself, a series of serious games will be created with the tool and provided as OER (open educational resources). The IDEAL GAME project includes a prototype test, an integration into study modules at the participating universities, an evaluation of the designed serious games in lectures and the construction of a show case portal with additional pedagogical tips and insights into ongoing serious games designed with the tool. In addition, a policy paper as well as publications and a handbook for the tool are created.
The project IDEAL-GAME aims to design an Online Serious Game Creator and create, test and evaluate Mini OER Serious Games within learning scenarios. It aims to improve didactics, education and learning in higher education with Online Serious Game Creator. The idea is to activate the students and let them take part in a flipped classroom approach with the use of serious games in the online phases. The IDEAL GAME tool offers the chance to create different types of small mini serious games which can be integrated in modules and lectures and can be adjusted to the needs of a lecture or a module in Higher Education. The mini-serious games work in different fields and study programmes of Higher Education and the IDEAL-GAME serious game creator is available as OER to a broad audience. In total, the goal of the project was to create a flexible tool that can be used to design module-based serious games that promote students with digital learning, improves student activity and also incorporate a motivational game-based learning approach that can be combined with a flipped-classroom concept.
IDEAL-GAME is an acronym for "Improving didactics, education and learning in higher education with the Online Serious Game Creator" a European strategic partnership in Higher Education within ERASMUS+. For Higher Education (HED) the use of digital and game-based approaches is becoming vital. Students and lecturers have to get more used to new media. All people use technical devices like smart phones and tablets in their daily life and the Corona pandemic showed that digital tools in higher eduction have to be used for organisational and for didactical reasons. This has an effect on modern education. But, for HED digital game-based approaches are not so much in focus so far and the changes lead to new requirements. In the future HED-Organisation digital game-based scenarios have to be used and adjusted to the specific needs within modules and lectures. This means that mini-serious-games and eLearning have to be part of daily lecturing and studying activities. And this was a core anchor point for the IDEAL-GAME project. The development of a new innovative educational approach the IDEAL-GAME Serious GAME creator can make a significant contribution to improve higher education.