Gamepaddle Video Games. Education. Empowerment.

In April 2011 video game scholars, researchers, teachers and media educators from Austria, Germany, Italy and Sweden found their way to a springlike Munich to share their knowledge on video games, young disadvantaged gamers, excessive gaming and educational potentials of video games. The Munich meeting marked the beginning of a two year long partnership that involved knowledge transfer, development of educational concepts, their realisation in schools and youth clubs in the partner countries, as well as the evaluation, discussion and presentation of the projects’ outcomes in a final meeting in autumnally Vienna. The diverse backgrounds of the participants, the insights in their countries’ culture of discourse on video games, as well as research and practical educational activities has been a great enrichment for the conceptual works.

In the educational discourse of the participants’ countries, video games, one of the favourite leisure activities of many young people, are often regarded as a vital risk for young people. Especially excessive gaming or playing violent video games among children and adolescents troubles teachers, educators and parents. The lack of knowledge about digital gaming worlds, as well as the lack of own gaming experience can lead to misjudgement and overseeing the resources acquired by young gamers. The Gamepaddle project is starting at that point: identifying young people’s game-related resources and help them to benefit from them in other primarily nongame-related contexts as school, intergenerational dialogue, creative activity or civic commitment. In Gamepaddle’s practical educational activities video games were used to train project-management skills, encourage reflection on the urban neighbourhood, create a card game about video games that facilitates discourse on video games or teach adults how to play.
[Milano: 2015]

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