Programma della conferenza

The contemporary youth cohort is confronted with many transformative dynamics, having garnered significant attention in the media landscape. Cultivating dynamic literacies (Potter & McDougall, 2017) emerges as imperative within the information, particularly when news is accessed through social media (Herdzina & Lauricella, 2020, Krumsvik, 2023). The YO-MEDIA project - Youngsters’ Media Literacy in Times of Crisis conceptualized and implemented a hybrid game focusing on misinformation, disinformation, and information literacy in times of crisis.

The contribution presents the tangible outcomes of the project, specifically the board games, and the digital game.

“Social Media Puppeteers” is a micro TTRPG incorporating character creation and dice rolling found in traditional RPGs. Players assume the roles of politicians, journalists, scientists, or influencers, competing on a fictional social media platform to gain influence and promote media literacy.

“Social Media Fake News” is a card game designed to help players understand the features that make a news story vulnerable and false. The goal is to be the first to run out of cards by constructing a fake news story.

“Data Defenders” mobile game centers on a tower defense experience intertwined with engaging mechanics. During the simultaneous threats of an alien invasion and a devastating pandemic, players assume the role of defenders safeguarding global data servers.

Additionally, the contribution will focus on the study protocol accompanying the test sessions designed with adolescents, educators, and teachers (four sessions per country in Italy, Spain, and Portugal).

The increased awareness that gaming is a very valuable educational support has not been accompanied by an effective diffusion of games in Italian educational agencies, where an ambivalent behavior is manifested: a strong widespread interest is contrasted with a limited application of games or online resources that are often behaviorist in nature.

However, the analysis of research on the use and diffusion of games in Italian schools highlights the lack of recent studies investigating teachers' fundamental didactic-pedagogical knowledge, their level of acceptance and confidence regarding the introduction of games in the classroom. Building on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge-Games (TPACK-G) and the Acceptance of Digital Game-Based Learning (ADGBL), which investigates learning opportunities, preference for games, experience with games, and attitudes toward game-based learning, a quantitative analysis tool was created that, integrating the two frameworks TPACK-G and ADGBL, adapts the areas and items to the Italian context, extends the survey to include non-digital games, and accommodates and integrates the sections to aspects related to game-integrated instructional design, game scenarios, and the role of teachers in teaching activities.

The aim of the research is not only to investigate how the prevalence of play in the classroom is changing, going beyond mere expressions of interest and fads, but has the purpose to study how the approach of play is changing in the design of educational activity and what is the degree of awareness of the ludo-pedagogical-didactical skills necessary for the introduction of play in education.

In recent times, the attention of scholars, researchers and experts has focused on the metaverse, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, technologies that seem to offer new learning possibilities through the creation of highly immersive learning environments. The recent field of exploration known as "eduverse", which sees the use of the metaverse in education, paves the way for significant and participatory teaching experiences characterized by considerable pedagogical potential. Multitasking, networking, distributed knowledge, collective intelligence, simulation, gaming are the characterizing dimensions of the new forms of communicative appropriation and of the informal culture of students, dimensions that require educational systems to change and adapt curricula, practices daily routines and teaching styles. At the same time, the use of playful approaches has increased in order to make learning an engaging and motivating experience. This contribution describes a gamification experience in the metaverse in a university context in order to reflect on the educational potential it offers teachers to set up innovative environments in which physical and digital integrate mutually to encourage experiential and collaborative learning.

Technology is transforming education, altering instruction, knowledge building, and community engagement (Rizvi, 2020; Trevisan & De Rossi, 2023). Hybrid/blended approaches, integrating online and in-person teaching, challenge traditional educational limits, encouraging student active learning (Trentin & Bocconi, 2015). Flipped learning further expands active learning, promoting higher cognitive skill development in blended settings (Li et al., 2023). Effective design of these environments requires merging educators' knowledge across disciplines, pedagogy, and technology (De Rossi & Trevisan, 2023), crafting engaging, coherent and learner-centric experiences. An examination of preservice teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of a blended and flipped instructional technology course is presented in this phenomenological study (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). The course integrated flipped classroom elements as part of the blended learning environment. Active learning was fostered through online debates, peer reviews and discussions on materials. Using an online semi-structured survey (n= 100), this study evaluated the perceived effectiveness of 1. the course's flipped structure for deep learning, 2. its blended structure for meeting course objectives, and 3. the coherence between implemented processes and expected outcomes. Results showed significant gains in active learning, higher-order thinking skills and reflection. However, challenges were noted due to internalized traditional instructional norms, highlighting flipped learning's requirements for increased learner responsibility, organization, and self-direction (Garcia-Ponce & Mora-Pablo, 2020). In this study, we see that the effectiveness of flipped learning in a blended context depends on both educators' and students' preparedness to engage with the demands of this educational approach, including learner autonomy and teacher scaffolding (Tomas et al., 2019).