Serious game to train experts in advanced multimodality Erasmus Project

Project Title

Serious game to train experts in advanced multimodality

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Pedagogy and didactics; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Context/background of the project:
Although the concept has been described for long, multimodality is not systematically used in Education and Training and some teachers still limit the number of pedagogic approaches they use in the classroom.

Objectives:
The objective is to provide a definition of what is multimodality and how to use it for education and training, create related pedagogic content and integrate it into a gamified digital tool for teachers.

Number and profile of participating organisations:
The consortium gathered 5 European organisations with complementary expertise:
– The coordinator of the project is Manzalab, a French SME specialised in the development of digital experience and games for training purpose.
– The Serious Game Institute of the University of Coventry participated to design evaluation tools and conduct the evaluation activities, with the end users and with an external validation board.
– In addition, the consortium involved 3 European VET and adult education organisation: AFBB in Germany, VUC Storstrom in Denmark and SEDU in Finland. These organisations provided end users to contribute to the definition of the needs and for testing the developed game.

Description of undertaken main activities:
The approach used in the project was user centred and evidence based, to ensure consistency of the development with the end users needs.
We have started with a literature analysis and end users survey to define the needs and the specifications of the game.
We have then developed and tested the pedagogical content and the game with end user through an iterative process.
An external Validation Board was also involved in the evaluation of the project progression.
In parallel, dissemination and communication activities were conducted to promote the project and its results outside the consortium, mainly through the organisation of 2 multiplier events in Dresden (Game Based Learning Conference) and in Paris (in collaboration with Paris School of Business) and the participation to several conferences in Europe.

Results and impact attained:
The literature analysis revealed that there is an increasing body of evidence, which suggests that multimodality in learning is an active, student-centred approach in which students select the resources mostly relevant to them. This means that students are responsible for organising learning content such as words and images into coherent verbal and visual models, which comprise their mental schemata and conceptual structures. The essence of multimodality therefore is to provide different types of resources to the student for stimulating learning in meaningful ways within and across disciplines. To this end, multimodality is described as an inter-disciplinary approach drawn from social semiotics with an emphasis on communication and representation as means to meaning making. This is directly relevant to teachers in terms of doing more than simply using current theories of learning to engage students with novel forms of modes and resources of learning. To achieve this, teacher’s need to understand how multimodality engender new teaching and learning processes, strategies and methods as well as new roles for the student and the teacher. Multimodality in today’s classrooms refers to ‘multiple’ modes of representation, with combined elements of print, visual images and design. This transitional shift from print-based education to multimodal education indicates the need to rethink how teaching and learning is conceived, approached and practiced. This is conducive to the way pedagogies, content and technology is designed and utilised for allowing multimodality to take place within contexts and social relations.
The pedagogical content and the game were designed from these observations and aimed at increasing the awareness of teachers to this new approach. Through an iterative process with the end users, the game was improved and the contribution to increasing multimodality awareness was measured.

If relevant, longer-term benefits:
Increasing the use of multimodality in the classroom will support the development of active and student-centred approach, expected to increase the learning efficiency. This is particularly relevant in the current context of Education and Learning and the challenges the sector has to face: needs for personalisation of the learning paths and reduction of the resources.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 388283 Eur

Project Coordinator

MANZALAB & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Akademie für berufliche Bildung gGmbH
• COVENTRY UNIVERSITY
• Seinäjoen koulutuskuntayhtymä
• VUC Storstrøm