Graz, Austria | Kick off of the European PP7 research project "80days"
Graz (Austria): Seven European research partners met at the University Graz to kick off the European FP7 research project "80days - Around an Inspiring Virtual Learning World in Eighty Days”; a pathfinder project exploring for new ways in Digital Educational Gaming. Their goal: Provide Europe with new opportunities how to explore gaming for a better and more efficient learning.
key message
If one analyses long enough the connection between games and learning, the surprising conclusion is that games organise learning better than traditional educational methods that use books or lectures. Furthermore, since the 1930s researchers have concluded that learning itself is a reward by nature for primates, like us humans, and sufficient reward to keep us on a life long learning track. Thus, we come to a point where two critical questions have to be asked. First: How did we manage during our long evolutionary development to make learning unpleasant enough to transfer it from the fun and pleasure area of our emotional cognition, to the area of work and hardship? And second: Why not learn how to learn from games? In April 2008, twenty specialists from around Europe met in Graz to examine question number two in particular, and explore how computer games could revoke this unproductive development in human evolution? These are the research questions that the European Research project “80days - Around an inspiring virtual learning world in eighty days” is trying to answer. Making learning more efficient and more fun, through the right use of computer games, is the learning path the project itself will explore in order to maintain Europe at the world’s top level of educational best practice.
What’s the goal of the project?
In a few simple words: Learning by playing and having fun. If we manage to synchronise playing with learning, we can exploit the highly intrinsic motivation of humans to play (rather than learning in terms of working) for a significantly improved learning efficiency.
What’s behind such simple words to make it really happen
(1) Hard and long lasting research work of a collaborative pan-European nature. (2) Integrating the complementary expertises, proven experiences and one common spirit of seven European organisations from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. (3) A thirty month research and development project, chosen along with five partner projects, out of more than one hundred ambitious applications to the European Commission and its Learning and Cultural Heritage Unit.
What’s in the 80Days Project?
The project is inspired by and builds on Jules Verne’s famous novel “Around the world in eighty days”. It is as an evergreen storyline that has fascinated readers and film makers for 135 years since the book was first published under its French tile (Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours). This project’s ambition is to integrate intelligent and pedagogically proven personalisation, together with interactive and individual storytelling, into a computer or console based game.
Why is this combination of such importance?
This combination ensures two decisive key elements: First, the player does not know he is a learner (so he doesn’t feel unpleasant when working) and second, he can be accompanied by pedagogical intelligence throughout the gameplay.
What’s the result of the project?
80Days will provide Europe with a prototype of an innovative and advanced methodological and technological framework for developing successful educational games. This will be demonstrated by a geography game prototype that realises gaming and learning scenarios inspired by Jules Verne’s “Around the world in eighty days”, and a storyline that carries the learning scenarios. The goal is a proof of concept in knowledge transfer and understanding of geographic learning content; and a proof of how much more fun this is to the user.
European strategy of gaining and defending world leadership in research domains of significance.
The European Commission regards this project as one of her flagships in a research policy competing against Asia and the U.S. to find the optimum way to organise education and learning. The project is thus a consequent continuation of the European long term strategy in research into technology enhanced learning (TEL). In particular it is regarded as the Framework Programme Seven continuation of the Framework Programme Six action “ELEKTRA – Enhanced Learning Experience and Knowledge TRAnsfer” (www.elektra-project.org), which finished in February 2008 to great commendations from the European Commission’s reviewing experts. 80Days is committed to build on ELEKTRA’s research results (thus this project has unrestricted access to all of ELEKTRA’s databases and contains members of the original ELEKTRA team) as well as to explore the paths in technology enhanced learning that ELEKTRA has yet to trespass.
INFO
Costs and European financial contribution to the project
The 80Days project is budgeted with 4.245 million Euros and co-funded with 3.297 million Euros from the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission’s ICT-Programme. It has a duration of 30 months starting from April 2008.
The 80Days project is budgeted with 4.245 million Euros and co-funded with 3.297 million Euros from the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) of the European Commission’s ICT-Programme. It has a duration of 30 months starting from April 2008.
The Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) is the European Union´s chief instrument for funding research over the period 2007 to 2013. The broad objectives of FP7 have been grouped into four categories: Cooperation, Ideas, People and Capacities. cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html
The specific programme on "Cooperation" supports all types of research activities carried out by different research bodies in trans-national cooperation and aims to gain or consolidate leadership in key scientific and technology areas. The Cooperation programme is sub-divided into ten distinct themes. cordis.europa.eu/fp7/cooperation/home_en.html
ICT – “Information and Communication Technologies” is the distinctive theme within the Cooperation programme 80days is embedded. Information and Communication Technologies are critical to improve the competitiveness of European industry and to meet the demands of its society and economy. cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/
CONTACT to project coordiantor
Michael D. Kickmeier-Rust
University Graz
Mail to Michael D. Kickmeier-Rust
Phone: +43 (316) 873 9554
http://css.uni-graz.at
POSTAL:
Michael D. Kickmeier-Rust
University of Graz, Department of Psychology
Technical University Graz, Institute for Knowledge Management
Brückenkopfgasse 1 / 6
8010 Graz
Austria
CONTACT to the 80days press office
Guido Doublet
TAKOMAT GmbH
Mail to Guido Doublet
Phone: +49 (221) 2600453
Mobile: +49 (175) 4141808
http://www.takomat.com
POSTAL:
TAKOMAT GmbH
Neptunpaltz 6b
50823 Köln (Cologne)
Germany
