Anna Linnakylä

ResearcherAgora Center, University of Jyväskylä

Finland

Petri LounaskorpiPedagogical Consultant

Municipality of Konnevesi Finland

Involving teachers in virtual game-based learning

environments

Contents

•Background•Objectives•Potential of games for learning•The 3 generations of educational

games•Discovering good practices with

teachers•The model for training•The principles of training•Training of trainers •Side-by-side collaboration

Background•Even though the Finnish school has proved to be

successful in international assessments of school achievements (PISA, OECD 2010), the virtual game-based learning environments are not widely experimented and exploited in schools.

Challenges:•Inability of new environments to pervade into the

curriculum•Teachers’ attitudes and suspicions•Lack of technological resources •Lack of knowledge about potential games•Lack of training and support (principal, teacher

networks)•Lack of time

Objectives

•to develop a teacher- and curriculum-friendly programme to involve teachers in virtual game-based teaching and learning environments in order to renew pedagogy and, finally, to enhance students’ motivation as well as experimental knowledge building, problem solving and collaborative ways of learning.

Potential of games for learning

•motivating and engaging•motivation often linked to learning new

skills and contents•Suitable challenges Flow

•How could this be coupled with learning the subjects of the curriculum?

The 3 generations of educational games

Egenfeldt-Nielsen (2007: 273)

Discovering good practices with teachers

•In practice, we invite teachers to experience available educational games and virtual worlds such as Second Life and encourage teachers to participate on the development process of these environments as well as the development of their pedagogical use.

Pilot

Teach

ers netw

orks

MarketingTailoring

TrainingTeachers’ reports to share

Follow-up, development

Con

tent creation

mod

elThe model of training

The principles of training

• Inspiring to teachers• Small steps• Personal plan according to interests• Always benefit first (curriculum-

friendly)• Built on previous skills• Concrete outcomes• Evaluation models• Support and commitment of the

whole organization

Training of trainers

The whole number of teachers

Teachers to be trained as trainers (5-10%)

4 modulesof training

Training oftrainers

Pilot trainings

Side-by-side andpeer trainings for everybody

Side-by-side collaboration• Is personal guiding and interaction between the trainer and

the trainee.• Takes place during the working day, between, before or after

the lessons. The principle is learning by trying and doing.• The side-by-side is an interactive session between the trainer

and the trainee.• The trainees’ personal ICT skill level and interest is the

starting point of the planning and working together.• The trainees’ ICT needs, aims and expectations create the

starting level and context. • Side-by-side training is tailored in the beginning of the session

by the skill level evaluation or discussion.• Side-by-side training is always done on the terms of the

trainees.• The basic principles of the side-by-side training are

encouragement, discovery, problem solving and collaboration.

Thank you for your interest!

References

Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2007) Third generation educational use of computer games. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 16 (3) 263-281.

Gee, J. P. (2007). Good video games + good learning: Collected essays on video games, learning and literacy. New York: Peter Lang.

Järvinen, A., Heliö, S. & Mäyrä, F. (2002) Communication and Community in Digital Entertainment Services. Prestudy Research Report. Tampere: University of Tampere. Hypermedia laboratory.

OECCD 2010. What students know and do: Students’ performance in reading, mathematics and science. First results from PISA 2009. Paris: OECD.

Shear, L., Novais, G. & Moorthy, S. (2010) Innovative Teaching and Learning Research. Executive Summary. ITLresearch.