From June 20 to 24, 2016, as part of the three-year Erasmus+ project No. 561728-EPP-1-2015-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP "GameHub: University-enterprises cooperation in game industry in Ukraine," a regular meeting of the consortium partners, which includes leading universities from Spain, Austria, Poland, and Ukraine, was held at FH Joanneum University (Graz, Austria). Kherson National Technical University is one of the project participants.
European partners of the project include: University of Deusto and Foundation of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain), AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow, Poland), FH Joanneum University (Graz, Austria), Virtualware Labs (Bilbao, Spain), and Quality Austria (Vienna, Austria).
The program of this meeting included theoretical and practical training for working groups from Ukrainian universities, conducted first by representatives of the well-known company Quality Austria on developing qualification requirements for higher education students, and then by representatives of FH Joanneum University on game-based learning methods and the methodological and didactic support of game-based education.
The training participants also included representatives from five other Ukrainian universities that are part of the consortium: National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute," Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Odessa Polytechnic University, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, and Donetsk National Technical University.
The organizers aimed to share their experience with the Ukrainian partners in defining and formalizing key learning competencies, which, within the framework of this project, can be used to present a system of competencies for computer game developers.
The training material was presented as a system of engaging problem-based tasks, which the representatives of the Ukrainian universities were involved in solving.
Thus, the group method of solving problem situations was chosen as the main form of training. Upon completion of each task, a discussion was held in the format of a general debate among the training participants.
The result of the detailed discussions was the definition of a model of competencies necessary for the effective integration of Ukrainian university graduates into the computer game development industry, as well as their ranking by importance.
Certain training sessions were also devoted to game-based learning methods. As is known, the use of computer games is a topical issue of our time, because educational games are a unique product of information technology development – they help to model various situations, identify problems, and explore possible ways to solve them. Therefore, a game should contain all the necessary prerequisites for the intellectual development of an individual and the culture of society as a whole.
The meeting program included introducing the Ukrainian project partners to a new educational computer game, "Stop Disasters," where the learning process is closely integrated into game situations. Based on the results of this game-based learning, the training participants were asked to identify the most important competencies acquired.
Learning through games is a fruitful and promising method that can be successfully used in practice. They are useful not only for their content; it is important that they can become a kind of simulator for various human abilities, as well as professional skills. The practical value of educational games is obvious, as sometimes a small push is enough to awaken interest and motivation to study a difficult topic through a game.
An interesting tour of the FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences was also organized for the working groups of the Ukrainian universities.
