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After 2 years from the covid pandemic we can’t face the reality of nowadays which includes technologies in all aspects of our lives. The digital revolution started, much before the pandemic but from 2020 it exploited investing massively in the educational field. 

Teachers adapted in this fast transformation but we are still far from the balance. 

Terms and definitions are many:

• distance teaching/learning
• smart teaching/learning
• blended teaching/learning

The other aspect that has to be distinguished is the so-called “gamification of teaching and learning” even though we prefer to say “game based learning”. 

Gamification vs. game-based learning (Waterloo university)

Gamification and game-based learning are similar in that both strategies promote engagement and sustained motivation in learning. However, gamification and game-based learning can also be usefully distinguished. 

This training is to complete what teachers have been forced to do while they suffer the pandemic, very rapidly and without a common strategy. It seems that each school adopted different tools, at the beginning teachers reacted by proposing their solutions and the process of becoming “digital teachers” has been in many cases a pure violation of privacy and a complete disruption of life and work rhythms.  

It is happening what the EU is defining “digital transformation” but it is also open the difficult debate on “quality assurance” and “proper digital infrastructures” to be used, how to train teachers and all the other school sectors to contribute to redesign a new school sector able to balance the fundamental human impact to which we are used and which we love, and the necessary process of digitization of our lives. 

Teachers need to be assured, trained and to have a confrontation with experts and other colleagues also sharing what they know already and what they feel they miss in their teaching way. Online teaching is part of teaching and day by day new discoveries are emerging from the web creating sometimes confusion and new trends. 

What is crucial for teachers is the evaluation of their work and of students. Games are more and more often used for interactive and more appealing evaluations. 

“Evaluation of online instructors is a developing field of research. Institutions have made great progress in recent years to refine their efforts to evaluate online teaching in order to improve online teaching.

With this course we aim at researching practices and tools helpful for teachers to find their way and also develop a school strategy to face online teaching, after the pandemic, when the further progresses in digitalization will be made in the EU. Thanks to the new agenda of the EU in fact the above mentioned “digital transformation” is going to be supported and financed, not just for educators but especially for youth who are already “native digitals” but in a disorganized and worrying way. Online teaching is not just the act of teaching through video and delivering lessons online. It’s much more. It’s a means to educate future generations new skills to face their future jobs and use the web in the proper way, being creators and not passive users. 

From one side teachers are the first to be aware of the big change happening faster than reforms and laws and from the other side, learners are all involved in a process of mutual learning and co-creating which can be beneficial. 

Tools and practices exist and our training is structured to give an overview and permit participants to feel part of a community of change which, at the same time, assures quality of contents and learning and also an important link with EU Policies and support. 

ONLINE TEACHING – GAMIFICATION&GAME BASED LEARNING is a course exploring the actual tools used to improve teaching and learning exploring also the difference between Gamification and Game Based ������Ƶing.