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Raising Understanding through Narrative Experience
Date du début: 1 sept. 2016, Date de fin: 31 août 2018 PROJET  TERMINÉ 

Throughout Europe there is a growing population of disengaged and unmotivated youths. Meeting their needs not only in improving their own situations but in their surrounding communities helps foster active citizenship. Project RUNE intends to improve the situation by creating a role-playing game optimized for learning social skills and a variety of other skill such as English language skills and creativity. The learning game will not be a computer game. Instead, it specifically makes an attempt to get young people away from computers and acquire valuable skills aside. It will focus on direct social interaction between learners and put them in situations in which they need to solve problems through language skills, good plans, and improvisation. At the same time it will train logical skills, social skills, and mathematical skills and it will also teach cultural knowledge through a stealth learning approach by using a Norse mythology game setting. As a role-playing game the learning tool is a team game that requires the use of soft skills (like improvisation, effective communication, responsibility, interpersonal skills, decision making, leadership skills, ability to handle personal problems, etc.), while at the same time motivating the learners to engage in the game situation by providing compelling situations and storylines.Game situations also prepare learners for international work situations, simulating challenges that need to be solved in diversified teams. The game will motivate the learners as a fun activity while immersing them in an ideal language learning environment. While it can be played in a youth centre setting with youth workers as game directors, the game will also be playable outside any organised learning environments, with one of the learners as game director.The planned network hub is a central place that connects all the role-playing groups that want to get involved in a community experience in which experiences of the players are shared and in which their actions in their group have an impact on the entire game world. The game directors will report important things that happened and they will get information from other game directors that they will need to add to their game. This way thousands of players can form a community and contribute to the development of a fantasy world in a Norse mythology setting.The project focuses on youth workers and youth organisations as multipliers because the game can complement their activities particularly well. If done correctly, youth workers can encourage the learners to build up their skills on their own, thus strengthening informal skill learning which can complement the formal learning done at school. In the project materials will be developed that help youth workers use the RUNE approach.In the scope of the project the game will be developed and tested only in English since extensive studies are part of the pedagogical development, and an initial multilingual development would increase the costs drastically. However, once the approach works well it should be translated to other languages. The consortium will make an effort to advance the creation of other language versions after the end of the project.The RUNE project will positively impact social skills learning and encourage team work and cooperative problem solving, as well as creativity, or "outside the box" thinking. In addition, it will support language learning by giving learners an interesting and fun opportunity to engage in an immersive language experience in a social, face-to-face setting. Reading of the rule books and other game materials will help the learners improve their English language skills, particularly their reading comprehension. The social environment of the game, with several players and a game leader sitting around a table together will offer an excellent setting for practicing verbal communications. The nature of the game allows learners to completely immerse themselves in the fun aspect, in effect creating a "stealth learning” situation as an enjoyable pastime. In this context learning becomes self-guided and self-motivated leading to young people with highly relevant competences in European knowledge societies.The game will be developed mainly by enthusiastic youths who are eager to provide tools for improving skills and competences of other young people through a fun approach. All partners have experience with youth work, one partner is an expert on game development and game-based learning, and the heavy involvement of 3 nordic partners will ensure that the game setting will reflect the variety of Norse culture in the game.

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