Serious games as learning tools for building basic skills in school education
Over the past decade there is a renewed emphasis on the development of basic learning skills, such as literacy as well as science, technology, and math (STEM). Furthermore, there is a renewed focus on the development of transversal learning competences that can help learners excel in all subjects, independently of academic discipline, such as analytical and critical thinking, capacity to collaborate, ability to work across cultures, ability to learn independently, and more. It may be argued that this trend represents a “return to the roots” in terms of the objective of learning initiatives, due partly to observations that the engagement with and achievement levels of learners in these basic and transversal competencies at key times in their lives, such as at the early education stage or at the age of 15, is correlated with how effectively a learner may use these skills later in life to fulfill personal and professional growth (PISA 2009). In terms of learning design and implementation, however, initiatives such as the ET2020 objectives highlight the need to update educational practices by integrating emerging pedagogies and supporting ICT into learning towards promoting quality education for all in formal and informal settings.
Serious games, namely games designed for learning purposes, are a good example of how emerging learning frameworks combined with technology can enrich learning experiences and, when properly designed, help reach educational objectives. Experiential, active, collaborative, and explorative educational methodologies can be instantiated through gamified learning that enables youngsters to build and better retain knowledge actively, by doing through realistic scenarios that draw inspiration from real-life. Gaming mechanisms, such as challenges, rewards, effective feedback that helps learners link cause and effect of actions, collaboration, gradual access to educational content based on achievement, social interaction, and recognition of achievement, when effectively integrated into learning may enhance the motivation and long-term engagement of learners, help scaffold knowledge in small, incremental steps, and help build learner confidence in their own skills.
This work presents diverse educational games designed for helping develop basic skills of learners in school education. The first game, developed in the context of the EMPLOY project, deploys experiential learning design to address the enhancement of highly in demand digital skills for learners aged 10-15 in line with industry needs. The game deploys experiential learning design to expose learners to the way digital skills are used in professional settings not only in the ICT sector but also in wider ICT-using sectors. These competencies are essential in the face of a lack of as much as 900k professionals in Europe in ICT using sectors (New Skills for New Jobs, Digital Agenda for Europe) and may help curb the high youth unemployment through a better matching of available to needed skill sets. The second game, developed in the context of the LanguageGames project, exploits active learning for fostering multilingualism among young learner in pre-school and early primary education validating in practice emerging attitudes on language education that argue that multilingualism may positively affect a child’s cognitive development as a whole, making a child more intellectually perceptive and flexible (Goethe Institut). Both projects are funded with the support of the ERASMUS+ program.