EGBL Conference : Roundtable
The IMAGINE project participated in the Roundtable at the 3rd European Conference on Games Based Learning in Graz on 12-13, 2009. The Rountable was held on 13 October 2009
Presentations were given by IMAGINE project partners followed by a question and answer session with the audeinece of 42 partcipants.
Roundtable Summary
A thorough research was carried out within the frame of the the IMAGINE project. The aim was to provide a summary of available research on GBL and a comprehensive valorization of work carried in this field. This report undertakes the task of identifying Game-Based Learning (GBL) projects within the European community and provides a description of good practice case studies spread across all levels of education.
Of the 82 projects identified, only 56 of these were included as they were found to have referenceable material. Many of the projects identified have not produced sustainable results. Outputs and resources are often only available while the project is being funded and some only for the life of the project. Some projects did not achieve their stated objective of producing a useable game, many only produced a prototype, and some only created the assets to be used in the un-developed game. Other projects failed to disseminate the results, with one only registering the project URL for exactly the timeframe of the funding and no longer. The sustainability and ongoing viability of results and outputs from work undertaken, be it EC funded or from within industry, is paramount to the perceived success of any project.
We addressed following questions to the audience:
- How could we achieve more frequent use of game-based learning?
- What would be needed to share results and resources from previous project with the potential stakeholders?
- How to improve the sustainability of project results? Which measures would contribute?
Some of the responses were:
- Exposure to game-based learning as part of the teacher education is baring good results (as it is done in Belgium).
- Providing training for teachers is necessary and gives them support and resources to introduce GBL into their environment.
- Educational resources are better accepted and are more valuable when provided in native language (indicates the necessity to provide educational games in various languages).
- It was confirmed that academia and industry speak in different languages and use different terminology, therefore the communication between them is very difficult and understanding is scarce.
- A lot of people in the audience were or are involved in EC gbl projects, but there is lack of communication and result sharing between the projects.
- The problem of disappearing project domains as well as results after the project end could be tackled with the central repository of resources (that have to be submitted in any case to the EC also in digital format as part of the project reporting).
Presentations
Presentation by Carol Usher, MDR Partners
Presentation by Gabriella Lovasz, CrossCzech as
IMAGINE - Report
Presentation by Maja Pivec, FH Joanneum
How are digital games used in schools?
Presentation by Caroline Kearney, European Schoolnet
