GAD: Game Creation in augmented reality enhancing progessional digital skills

<< Background >>GAD stemmed from the will to meet one of the most urgent European needs:qualifying the digital skills of trainers, teachers and educators and of educational and professional institutions.Technology has a deep impact on our lives and, in particular after the Covid19 outbreak,we could see the impact that it has on education as well.Also students' approaches to learning have been affected by technology, considering that it has broadened the educational possibilities by providing engaging methodologies/learning tools. To improve knowledge absorption and retention at all levels of education, it’s crucial to increase student engagement and intrinsic motivation.This is possible by using interactive supports that provide an immersive learning experience and that put the student at the centre of the learning process. To achieve that, the first step is providing educators with the competences to face the new training challenges. In order to be able to enhance their capacity for innovation and to exploit the full potential of digital technologies and content, they need to improve their digital and transversal skills. The project was intended to fill this gap and help professionals become confident with the use of technology in education.<< Objectives >>Through the development of a digital learning game in augmented reality, the project intended to enhance the digital skills of trainers, teachers, tutors (especially those engaged in life-long learning), increase self-efficacy and the ability to create digital learning environments and educational products suitable to face the new training needs - also due to the pandemic emergency.More specifically, the project objectives were the followings:-enhancing and qualifying the digcomp of professionals, with particular reference to Areas 2-3-5-6, as well as transversal skills (creativity and problem solving);-strengthening the transversal skills that enable teachers, tutors and educators to conceive innovation and respond to the changing needs of the educational contexts;-improving the educational offer by integrating digital tools and interactive methodologies;-creating innovative digital training prototypes.<< Implementation >>Training session: each partner has selected 5 professionals who had the opportunity to learn how to use AR in education. They had an active role in the development of the Gadgame since, after being trained on how to create 3D models, they developed 2 models per country with related quizzes/lessons. The aim was to equip these trainees with the skills to be able to enhance their teaching approaches through technology and support other teachers.The partners have developed GADGame, a tool that integrates AR and gamification in education. The app provides an immersive learning experience through the possibility of interacting with 3D models and reading/adding comments. It is correlated to a platform which offers information on the project,its results and where educators review existing work and upload their own work. In order to reach a wide audience, each partner has used social media and has organised online/in presence events to present the educational value of the methodologies used, the benefit of technology and AR in education and to share the relevant project achievements. The partnership has developed a comprehensive monitoring plan to track the evolution of the project and level of improvement after the use of the GAD Game.<< Results >>The main output of the project is the GAD Game, an app available both for iOS and Android devices, which gives the possibility to launch lessons and quizzes accompanied by 3D models that the users can interact with and that can be used as a support to learning. The most important feature of the app is the possibility, for the teachers or students, to write and read comments, that can include textual explanations or contents in case of group activities, which can facilitate content comprehension and retention. The app is connected to a platform which is included in the project website, where it is possible to send 3D models and questionnaires for them to be added in the app. At the moment there are 14 models with the related questionnaires, 9 of which resulted from the training session with the equipes of professionals, that have been translated into english and into the partners languages.The project also led to a publication with the complete communication/dissemination strategy as well as to the creation of a monitoring and evaluation plan with an academic overview of the project’s aims, guidelines and requirements for the comparable implementation results and quantitative and qualitative tools.