The shift in education brought about by the COVID19 pandemic has been enforcing a change in practices and pedagogies and it is requiring teachers and professionals to learn a new way to plan and deliver classes. This historical digital shift has taken aback most institutions and professionals, especially when we look at primary education. The project Play&Learn: Home Edition aims at creating a set of activities and educational games for digital use responding to primary schools’ teachers’ needs. The Educational games toolkit and digitalized games will focus on the development of soft skills, emotional intelligence and resilience in the target group of pupils aged 6 to 10 year old. Gamification will be used to respond to the needs identified in the research phase by the IO1 - Competencies framework which will set the frame of action for the development of the learning activities and their digitalization. Starting from the theoretical approach of Positive Psychology, the consortium will investigate which are the key soft skills for the full and healthy development of pupils, as well as the ones most at risk of being overlooked and not nurtured due to the digital revolution and shift in education. This will allow partners to develop a set of competences of extreme relevance today on which the Educational Games Toolkit and Digitalized Games will be based. Thus, this project aims at equipping education systems to face the challenges presented by the recent sudden shift to online and distance learning, including supporting teachers to implement digital tools and safeguarding that soft skills continue to be developed during this period. Moreover, the project would like to design educational digital games that can be integrated into the platforms already in use in schools and contribute to making eLearning tools more attractive to learners. The project objectives is to safeguard soft skills and transversal competencies development in pupils age 6 to 11 years old, during this digital revolution and to empower teachers and educators in designing and delivering more engaging and effective eLearning activities for the target group. For this reason the project will develop digital tools, using gamification, designed to ensure quality and holistic education through online/virtual means and does incorporate training activities for teachers and educators to familiarize with such pedagogical approaches and the tools themselves. The transferability potential of the project results to the formal education sector is crucial to the project sustainability. For this reason, the partners want to provide a hands-on operational digital games, intuitive and that uses previous online platforms they are already accustomed to. To reach its objectives the project will investigate the transversal competencies and soft skills crucial for pupils age 6 to 11 years old in their developmental phase, and the ones more at risk of being neglected in online learning. This quantitative and qualitative research will set the base for a competency framework ( which will lead the development of the Educational Games toolkit including 15 educational games tailored for the development of soft skills and transversal competencies in pupils age 6 to 11 years old, and the full digitalization of 5 of them. Partners will also engage in a C1 training activity with representatives of the formal education sector and associated partner to ensure a constant synergy between the non formal and formal education sectors throughout the development of the project. The dissemination and cross pollination with the formal education sector and stakeholder at large will also be promoted thanks to one multiplier event organized in each country. The project Learn&Play will see 4 non governmental organization and their staff involve: 120 teachers to contribute the research phase (IO1); 20 teachers and educators to be trained in the C1 activity; 180 pupils age 6 to 11 years old to be involved in educational activity developing their soft skills and transversal competencies through digital games; 80 professionals from the field of education and relevant stakeholders which will experientially get to know the project results. The knowledge compiled and the developed methodology by the project will add value to both national and the European efforts in the innovation of pedagogies for primary school, proposing a model where transversal skills and digital shift can be integrated thanks to gamification and an holistic approach to eLearning.
The objectives of the project were to: - develop a theoretical framework for the promotion of child wellbeing in a school context, including the development of a social and emotional competency model. - develop classroom activities, including online games, using gamification, online game design and soft skills expertise, to deliver quality and inclusive education through online/virtual means and to incorporate digital online technology into subject-specific teaching of soft skills that can be transferred to other classes and become sustainable; - activities to support learners and teachers in delivering education on the promotion of wellbeing, including adapting to online/ distance learning, by training teachers based on the tools developed;
The shift in education brought about by the COVID19 pandemic has been enforcing a change in practices and pedagogies and it is requiring teachers and professionals to learn a new way to plan and deliver classes. This historical digital shift has taken aback most institutions and professionals, especially when we look at primary education. We must consider that this digital revolution is involving a target group that feels already unprepared: teachers and educators. In a study in 2018 by OECD only 40% of educators felt ready to use digital technologies in teaching, with wide differences across the EU, with the other 60% felt the need to be trained on such tools in order to provide an eLearning experience for their pupils. With the global pandemic, an unprecedented shift to online learning and the use of digital technologies has marked a point of no return for how technology is used in education and training. Nonetheless, almost 60% of the target group has not used distance and online learning before the crisis.Therefore, the educational sector is in need of learning resources and activities which are relevant, interactive, easy to use. This is extremely challenging especially when thinking of the youngest in the educational system.