Students as creators of educational games: learning to use simple frameworks and tools to empower students as educational game designers

Abstract

The design of educational games is a powerful pedagogical strategy that can only enter schools if teachers are given the necessary training and support. In this paper we present a training action course for teachers interested in learning how to use simple frameworks and tools to be able to either design educational games themselves or facilitate educational game design by their students. We propose a syllabus, a design framework, and a software solution for digital game creation. This approach has been used in Portugal with middle school teachers and students and has been shown to be effective, resulting in the production of functional educational games (digital and non-digital), with preliminary results showing positive outcomes in learning and engagement.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio