Our main goal was to bring a new focus on innovation and motivation to school education by integrating coding, low-code platforms, and game design concepts into the curriculum, thereby improving the skills of students and teachers. The aim was to develop a comprehensive methodological framework that would not only enhance digital skills but also promote problem-solving, creativity, and collaborative learning. In doing so, we sought to create new pathways for students, supporting ICT and STEAM-based teaching and learning and preparing them for future careers in the digital domain and beyond. Another crucial objective, also achieved, was to provide teachers with the necessary skills and resources to effectively teach these subjects, thus transforming the traditional educational landscape into a more engaging and interactive experience.
We applied for this project to provide an innovative and, in some ways, creative response to the growing demand for digital skills in the European job market, recognizing the critical gap in coding skills between students and teachers in school education. Our motivation was driven by the urgent need to equip the younger generation with the digital skills needed to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital world. The objective was to promote an educational environment that stimulates computational thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills essential for the 21st century workforce, which have been talked about for some years but still with few results. The project was inspired by the observation that many schools across Europe lack the resources, curriculum, and teacher training to effectively integrate coding, and we felt that using game design methodology in the process would help inclusion in their educational offerings, at least because they are fun, creative, and contain content that students identify with. Today, after the project was completed, we are very satisfied with the results, which exceeded any expectations we had at the beginning. We knew we would make an excellent project, but not as good as the one that ended.