Serious Game

- Core element of the InnoSchool Learning System -

The aim of this article is to bring you behind the scenes and reveal some of the key InnoSchool innovation aspects. The Serious Game, as a component of the InnoSchool Learning System (ILS), represents its core and the most attractive element, as confirmed by members of territorial Advisory Groups. The game is designed to strengthen high-school students’ social innovation and entrepreneurship spirit by creating awareness about social needs and improving their abilities (creativity, pro-activity, risk-taking and perseverance) as well as entrepreneurial skills in opportunity mapping, business planning, marketing/sales, finance, human resources and project management, social needs analysis, defining vision and mission, detecting key resources & key activities, listing stakeholders, defining beneficiaries and segments, etc. 

The Serious Game is developed as a responsive web-based application. At the beginning of the game, each student team chooses one out of 6 social themes to explore and, from that point, the chosen social theme serves as a background for the educative story. These 6 socials themes/needs (caring for an aging population, shift of society towards environmental responsibility, inclusion of excluded groups, child welfare, workforce migration/brain drain and disadvantages & challenges in peripheral and rural areas) were identified during extensive research activities undertaken by the InnoSchool project partners in their countries, at the beginning of the project. 

The learning process is divided into several modules. Each module will consist of two parts that merge together in an entertaining learning environment: traditional classroom activities led by teachers allow students to discuss and reflect on real-life situations; digital part - a web-based Serious Game - provides educational input (theoretical background, quiz questions, other logical tasks and open questions) in an entertaining way (animated story attracting attention of the player towards social challenges). 

The game will have two levels of difficulty - basic and advanced. The basic level will include quiz questions and other logical tasks. The advanced level will, in addition, include open questions requiring more complex answers and special templates to be filled within the application in order to describe ideas, elaborate analyses and describe value propositions, key activities and possible revenues. Students are continuously informed on how they stand in comparison to their peers. Total points for quiz questions will be visible at the end of each module. Progress of individual players will be visible during the game as well as the percentage of completion of all tasks of the current module. 

The user can link the game account to appropriate social media channels with the possibility to use it for sign-in. After finishing a module, players have the possibility to directly share their progress and standings on social media.

Advisory Groups Meetings

During May and June 2019 all InnoSchool project partners initiated territorial Advisory Group meetings as an important participative support for development of the new learning system (ILS).

Advisory Groups were created to provide important feedback and ideas throughout the whole process of the ILS development, i.e. to provide advice and reveal expectations that target groups may have from the learning system. In each country, around 10 representatives from teachers and students of upper secondary schools, educational authorities responsible for curriculums at regional or national levels and other interest groups (institutions working in social services, non-governmental organizations and business sectors) were gathered to establish territorial Advisory Groups. Advisory Groups meetings helped project partners discover interesting thoughts as well as valuable insights for improvement of the ILS concept. 

Feedback from these meetings was gathered by project partners in order to improve further development of the ILS. According to some participants, it is important to support teachers who will be using the InnoSchool Learning System, put more focus on practical examples and less on theory, provide opportunities for “field experience” and make it appealing and challenging for students. 

If you are interested in discovering more about Advisory Groups meetings held so far, please click on one of the countries below and read all about this topic: Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Republic of Moldova.

Open call for Pilot

InnoSchool invites schools from 9 countries to enroll in the process of piloting the new learning system (ILS) addressed to high-school students 15–18 years of age, in order to motivate and engage them in social innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Objectives of the Open Call for schools are to promote the chance for territorial secondary schools to take part in the InnoSchool Learning System Pilot and to select 10 schools per territory that meet minimum requirements to participate. 

For schools, these are the benefits of participating in the InnoSchool Pilot: 

- Free access to use of the web-based Game,
- Training workshop for teachers,
- Teachers Manual,
- Learning and teaching materials,
- Day-to-day support during the pilot process,
- Participation in a territorial school competition,
- Involvement in an EU-funded project,
- Opportunity to give feedback during the evaluation,
- Media presence.

The call is open from June 1 to October 31, 2019. 

For more information about the Open Call and registration procedures in participating countries, please click on one of the links below: Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Republic of Moldova.

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