Games in Schools conference // use of games in formal education in Austria

Games in Schools Conference – 05-05-2009 – Council of Europe – Strasbourg Christian Dorninger, Austrian Ministry of education How are digital games used in schools? Futur e Learning Austria 5.5.2009, EU-C Strassbourg

Picture 1: Homo Zappiens

Wim Veen (2003-05, TU Delft)

Homo Zappiens grows up with PC-Mouse, TV-Remote-Control

und mobile telefone.

Plays “gamebased” und invents games.

Is communicating online.

Chattes in different roles.

Knows URLs better than

verbs or country capitals.

School is a meeting place with friends and to “benchmark” abilities than an aerea to learn

Picture 2: House of Learning

Many places of learning

Every student (upper secondary) can test e-learning sequences in the next to years

All teachers should get experience with e-learning sequences in their subjects

Teams of teachers work on e-learning programmes (didactics, methods, content)

Good school experience in regional networks

Steering group of school partners must be established to support content development

Cluster schools are working in networks and offer additional qualifications (IT-certificates)

About 200 Austrian Schools with that targets ……

Community Aspects eLearning Schools in Austria (220 schools) project eLSA for students 10 – 14 (~100) project eLC for students 15 – 18/19 (~120) Clear structures Clear targets; Seed money Community Meeting in spring and autumn (last 20 -22.4.09 Melk, NÖ)

Issue 1 – “Mindstorms”

All students will work and learn with weboriented learn-and communcation devices (Notebook-PCs, PDA, Mobilphones, Netbooks)

Full PC functions +

userinterface for web-

sites+ office – applications

+ personal learning tools +

audiovisual tools

Always webconnected

Issue 2 – Social Software

Software supports learning

and virtual collaboration

Classroom-Wikis

Webloggs (Diaries)

ePortfolios

Social bookmarks

Support by “Active boards”

Learning plattforms (Moodle,

dotLRN, ILIAS) administrate

the learning process

Issue 3 - Game based learning Idea: Horizonreport 2007 „Serious Game based“ and Ars Electonica C.„Simulation“ Pilot project with Danube Uni Krems Success with „Movies“ (HAK Laa/Thaya), „ Tycoon Zoo“ (BG Zell) Language learning, social competences, business strategies, developing games

Game based learning First Approach: Jan – Nov. 2008 - Didactic Scenarios of GBL (Danube Univ Krems + 10 schools) From 11 years to 17 years (Zoo Tycoon – lower sec. softwaredevelopment for games - techn. college) Compulsary Subjects: German, English; Biology, Arts; Informatics, Maths Softwareengineering

Central results 2008 1. Games cannot substitute teachers: Specific tasks important, teacher preparation 2. Games alone make not violent 3. Games based learners need not to be gamblers Teachers must have high media competence 4. Leisure gamers can learn easy with games. Not-leisure gamers are handicaped; alternative methods are important ! Computer games support and require - and require, what game based players want to be required.

Second project 2009

1. Didactic handbook for serious games in

school lessons (Danube uni, July 2009 – April 2010)

- about 16 schools announced

- from 10 to 18

(incl. inventing games)

- from general lower sec. to

vocational

Developing simple games

for moodle – LMS

hangman, crossword,

cryptex, sudoku,

snakes and ladders,

hiden picture

Second project 2009 Students proposal („snakes.. etc. is boring“) Flash Game „Super Brain“: Questions must be answered, a brain is getting heavy… -right answer: A small Einstein is shot in space -wrong answer: Einstein dipps in the water - when brain is heavy, Einstein gets further positive resonance by stud!

Second project 2009 3. Edumoodle: Questions from moodle, evaluation in flash- game, data are traced back to moodle, matching possible, platform independent 4. Connection with social web – own profile on social web, contact to members, social graph, ……

Second project 2009 Learning informatics with gamebased approach: 1. Learning objects for JAVA - programming www.londonmet.ac.uk/ltri/learningobjects/index.htm 2. Learning programming with PUCK („brick“ programming system in JAVA) www.uni-jena.de/puck.html 3. Cellular automaton: „Blinkers, sliders, pulsars“ and others A cellular automaton is a discrete model studied in computability theory , mathematics , theoretical biology and microstructure mode- ling. It consists of a regular grid of cells , each in one of a finite number of states , "On" and "Off" for example.

.

ePortfolio in der Berufsbildung - Aufbau

STRUCTURE:

Introduction

- Letter to the reader

- CV „Europass“

Documentation of learning projects

Targets, prozess, results, documents

Description of the own contribution Evaluation - Reflection

Feedback of other students

Learning journal , success

AIMS: Advanced CV Job application Documentation Teamworking, project management Personal learning path ePortfolio Issue 4 - ePortfolio in vocational training