Bernadette Spieler

Bernadette Spieler, Wolfgang Slany

Learning theories emphasize the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators in curricula, and games are a promising way to provide both while constructing the game and presenting or sharing it in public or with a community. New technologies and the emerging mobile gaming sector further the case that learning should be promoted everywhere and anytime. What seems to be a promising opportunity for all pupils to learn coding in an entertaining way raises the question of whether such game based concepts also help to fix the gender gap of women in IT related fields. Gender differences are already present in secondary schools. These are the years where first career choices but also low levels of participation in technical subjects occur. To address this gender bias, a goal of the European project No One Left Behind (NOLB) was to integrate Pocket Code, an app developed by Catrobat, a free open source non-profit project at the University of Technology in Graz/Austria, into different school subjects, thus making coding more accessible and attractive to female pupils. During the period of this project (2015-2017), teachers were supported to guide their pupils in the learning processes by constructing ideas and realizing them through game design. For this paper an analysis of submitted programs according to their game design has been performed. In detail, the evaluation considered formal game elements, gaming structures, and used graphics, as well as Pocket Code specific aspects. The programs analysis showed commonly used design patterns by genders and suggests preferred game design characteristics of female teenagers. This analysis helps to build a more creative and inclusive Game Development-Based Learning (GDBL) environment that provides room for self-expression and inspires by building on intrinsic and extrinsic motivators by constructing personal experiences.

Bernadette Spieler, Wolfgang Slany

The number of women in technical fields is far below the average number of males, especially in developed countries. Gender differences in STEM are already present in secondary schools in students aged between 12 to 15 years. Adolescence is a critical time for identity formation, and self-attributes are a source for internal conflicts, especially for female teenagers. It is during this intermediate female adolescence that girls begin to make critical career choices, which therefore makes this a key age to reinforce them and reduce the gender disparities in ICT. Computational thinking skills are important from a philosophical point of view, since they allow us to understand the foundations of rational thought in a clear, easily understandable, but also inspiring and challenging way. To address the gender bias in schools, one of the goals of the European H2020 project No One Left Behind (NOLB) included integrating Pocket Code, a free open source app developed by the non-profit project Catrobat, into different school lessons. Through game design, Pocket Code allows teenage girls to incorporate diversity and inclusiveness, as well as the ability to reflect their cultural identity, their emotions, their likes, and their ways of interacting and thinking. To evaluate the impact of the use of the app in these courses, we captured the results on engaging girls in design and coding activities. For this paper, the authors present the data of surveys during the second cycle of the project. With a focus on female teenagers, the results allow us to conclude that a suitable classroom setting is significantly more important for them than the coding tool itself.

Bernadette Spieler, Wolfgang Slany

The number of women in IT-related disciplines is far below the number of men, especially in developed countries. Middle-school girls appear to be engaged in coding courses, but when they choose academic majors relevant to their future careers, only few pursue computer science as a major. In order to show students a new way of learning and to engage them with coding activities, we used the learning app Pocket Code. In the "No One Left Behind" H2020 European project, the app was evaluated in several school subjects. An evaluation of the attractiveness of the app shows that students were motivated by Pocket Code's ease of use and its appealing design; however, girls rated the app less enthusiastically. To appeal to female teenagers in particular, a tailored version of the app "Luna&Cat" has been developed. This customised version stands in contrast to the "one size fits all" solution Pocket Code, which may discourage certain user groups. For apps to have a higher chance to appeal to a specific target group, it is, among many other points, necessary to optimise their store listing on app stores, especially as we found that app stores are the most effective way to reach teenagers. Thus, this paper covers the following research question. What customizations are necessary in Pocket Code to reinforce female teenagers in their coding activities? To answer this question, a focus group discussion was performed. This discussion first brought insights about our target group and suggested names and designs for the new app; and second, allowed each student to make proposals for their desired games. Later, these game ideas were analysed, graphically designed, and further developed together with university design students. By showing female teenagers games designed by other young women in their age group, we help them to get ideas and inspiration to code their own programs.

Bernadette Spieler, Christian Schindler, Wolfgang Slany et al.

The next generation of jobs will be characterized by an increased demand for people with computational and problem solving skills. In Austria, computer science topics are underrepresented in school curricula hence teaching time for these topics is limited. From primary through secondary school, only a few opportunities exist for young students to explore programming. Furthermore, today's teachers are rarely trained in computer science, which impairs their potential to motivate students in these courses. Within the "No One Left Behind" (NOLB) project, teachers were supported to guide and assist their students in their learning processes by constructing ideas through game making. Thus, students created games that referred to different subject areas by using the programming tool Pocket Code, an app developed at Graz University of Technology (TU-Graz). This tool helps students to take control of their own education, becoming more engaged, interested, and empowered as a result. To ensure an optimal integration of the app in diverse subjects the different backgrounds (technical and non-technical) of teachers must be considered as well. First, teachers were supported to use Pocket Code in the different subjects in school within the feasibility study of the project. Observed challenges and difficulties using the app have been gathered. Second, we conducted interviews with teachers and students to underpin our onsite observations. As a result, it was possible to validate Pocket Codes' potential to be used in a diverse range of subjects. Third, we focused especially on those teachers who were not technically trained to provide them with a framework for Pocket Code units, e.g., with the help of structured lesson plans and predefined templates.

Anja Petri, Christian Schindler, Wolfgang Slany et al.

The constructionist approach is more interested in constructing personal experience than about acquiring information. It states that learning is most effective when building knowledge through active engagement. Experiential and discovery learning by challenges inspire creativity, and projects allow independent thinking and new ways of learning information. This paper describes how the "No One Left Behind" (NOLB) project plans to integrate this approach into school curricula using two concepts. The first one is to enable students to create their own games with Pocket Code by using its easy-to-learn visual programming language. The second concept is to foster collaboration and teamwork through hands-on sessions by conducting Game Jams using Pocket Code, so called Pocket Game Jams. We present insights into such a Pocket Game Jam and give an outlook on how we will use this concept.

Bernadette Spieler, Anja Petri, Christian Schindler et al.

Game jams are a way to create games under fast-paced conditions and certain constraints. The increase in game jam events all over the world, their engaging and creative nature, with the aim of sharing results among players can be seen in the high participation rate of such events (2013: 16,705 participants from 319 jam sites in 63 countries produced 3248 games) . This promising concept can be easily transferred to a classroom setting.

Helen Boulton, Bernadette Spieler, Anja Petri et al.

This paper will present a cross-European experience of game jams as part of a Horizon 2020 funded project: No-one Left Behind (NOLB). The NOLB project was created to unlock inclusive gaming creation and experiences in formal learning situations from primary to secondary level, particularly for children at risk of social exclusion. The project has engendered the concept of game jams, events organised with the aim of designing and creating small games in a short time-frame around a central theme. Game jams can support engagement with informal learning beyond schools across a range of disciplines, resulting in an exciting experience associated with strong, positive emotions which can significantly support learning goals. This paper will disseminate experience of two cross-European game jams; the first a pilot and the second having over 95 submissions from countries across Europe, America, Canada, Egypt, the Philippians and India. Data collected through these games jams supports that coding, designing, reflection, analysing, creating, debugging, persevering and application, as well as developing computational thinking concepts such as decomposition, using patterns, abstraction and evaluation. The notion of game jams provides a paradigm for creating both formal and informal learning experiences such as directed learning experience, problem-solving, hands-on projects, working collaboratively, and creative invention, within a learner-centred learning environment where children are creators of their own knowledge and learning material.

Bernadette Spieler, Christian Schindler, Wolfgang Slany et al.

Game creation challenges in schools potentially provide engaging, goal-oriented, and interactive experiences in classes; thereby supporting the transfer of knowledge for learning in a fun and pedagogic manner. A key element of the ongoing European project No One Left Behind (NOLB) is to integrate a game-making teaching framework (GMTF) into the educational app Pocket Code. Pocket Code allows learners to create programs in a visual Lego-style way to facilitate learning how to code at secondary high schools. The concept of the NOLB GMTF is based on principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) model. This framework provides a coherent approach to learning and teaching by integrating leisure oriented gaming methods into multi-discipline curricula. One output of this framework is the integration of game-based methods via game templates that refer to didactical scenarios that include a refined set of genres, assets, rules, challenges, and strategies. These templates allows: 1) teachers to start with a well-structured program, and 2) pupils to add content and adjust the code to integrate their own ideas. During the project game genres such as adventure, action, and quiz, as well as rewards or victory point mechanisms, have been embedded into different subjects, e.g., science, mathematics, and arts. The insights gained during the class hours were used to generate 13 game templates, which are integrated in Create@School (a new version of the Pocket Code app which targets schools). To test the efficiency of these templates, user experience (UX) tests were conducted during classes to compare games created by pupils who used templates and those who started to create a game from scratch. Preliminary results showed that these templates allow learners to focus on subject-relevant problem solving activities rather than on understanding the functionality of the app.