This page contains a description of all the activities that the three project teams did in order to meet the objectives of the first learning, teaching and training activities held at LYCEE POLYVALENT EUGENE DELACROIX in Drancy, France.
The activities were held according to the programme that all partners agreed upon.
The programme of the first Learning, Teaching and Training activities held at LYCEE POLYVALENT EUGENE DELACROIX, Drancy, 29.01.2018-02.02.2018
During the first learning, teaching and training activities of this partnership, members of the project teams from the three schools involved in its implementation gathered at Lycee Polyvalent Eugène Delacroix, Drancy, in France in order to agree about the gameplay in terms of storyline, scenes, characters, rules and soundtrack so that our project objectives should be met. In preparation of this meeting, the pupils and teachers from the partner schools established the local LetsPlayGreener Clubs and discussed the gameplay for whose presentation they made some short films. These short films were uploaded on the project website (https://letsplaygreener.com/) and a contest for the best proposal was organised. During the First Voting Week, by 28th January 2018, the students from the three schools had voted according to some well-devised criteria about relevance, creativity and playability.
The activities were divided into three parts :
SESSION 1: CONSENSUS CONFERENCE ABOUT THE ELECTED SCENARIO
SESSION 2: TESTING AND WRITING GAMEPLAYS ABOUT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SESSION 3: GAMEJAM !
SESSION 1: CONSENSUS CONFERENCE ABOUT THE ELECTED SCENARIO
The first day of LTTAs, 29th January 2018
The French team welcomed the teams to their school and everything started with the warm speeches made by the partnership coordinator and by the host school principal. Then, after the participants said a few words about their expectations from the meeting, the hosts organised a team building activity, a type of socializing game entitled ‘Guess who I am ?’, in connection with the topic of the meeting- gaming, through which we had the chance to discover the other participants’ interests and skills in this field.
In the next activity we watched all the short films made by the partner schools and the winners were revealed. There were on the one hand, those that were appreciated through the general voting conducted via our project website and on the other hand, the one which was appreciated in terms of playability by the experts. There were three videos which were the winners, ‘Earth’s Way’ , ‘Start!’ and 'Lost Paradise'. From these three films there were two selected, from which two game scenarios should begin. So, the participants were divided into two main groups to start working on the two proposals. These two main groups were also divided into two ones, in which , each participant had a certain role: game developer, graphic designer, storyteller, sound engineer. They discussed and started detailing the chosen scenario according to the role each of them had, and they began writing how to play one of the 4 missions of the game. In the afternoon, we benefited from the expertise of a professional who made a presentation about playability and explained different technical aspects regarding graphic design in a game.
SESSION 2: TESTING AND WRITING GAMEPLAYS ABOUT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The second day of LTTAs, 30th January 2018
The morning activities started with some research that we all did at the local library, MEDIATHEQUE GEORGES BRASSENS, where the specifications about the 4 MISSIONS were made available by the friendly and knowledgeable French librarians. So, they gave us materials on water resources, air quality, energy health and care policy, which completed the research that we had done in our home countries.
Back to school, we continued working in teams , where we explained the mechanics of the game and continued writing the gameplay for two missions out of four, the ones in connection with water and air. At the same time we established the playability of those two missions for the two chosen scenarios .Two representatives of the two game prototypes talked about the playability of their game and their speeches were recorded.
SESSION 3: GAMEJAM !
The third day of LTTAs, 31st January 2018
The activities were held under the title ’First sprint: how to develop the game’, in an unbelievable place for every human being, in Tour Maine Montparnasse, Paris, in a Gamelab, Centre de Recherche Interdiscplinaire, where two experts taught our students how to code with Stencyl and how to devise graphics and sounds for a video game, by using Piskel App, Krita and Audacity.
After the break, the second part of the activities, ‘Second Sprint: coders, graphic designers, game designers and sound designers at work ’ gave our students the confidence that everything in this world is possible as long as you follow your dreams and work hard towards your achieving your goals.
The fourth day of LTTAs, 1st February 2018
We all met at the same splendid location on the 21st floor of Tour Montparnasse, at CRI GAME LAB, where the participants, together with the two experts continued creating elements and started assembling them, exactly as it was proposed in the meeting agenda, ‘Third sprint: Creating and assembling elements.’ In the afternoon, there was ‘Fourth sprint. Test and debug! ‘, in which the teams began to find and resolve the defects within the game so that they should prevent its incorrect operation.
There was also a reporter present in the afternoon and he interviewed the participants about the activities they had participated in, their goals and what they had learnt till that moment through the interactions that they had had in the project meeting.
At the end of the programme, everybody was extremely happy as they saw the result of their collaborative work. Our work together showed us that through cooperation , dedication and professionalism , we could achieve what we wanted in this world and even normal students could design a game if they were really interested in doing that and if they were taught the right steps.
The fifth day of LTTAs, 2nd February 2018
ATTENDING CLASSES, PRESENTING THE ALPHA RELEASE AND AWARDING CERTIFICATES
The day started with attending classes at the French high school. We were at English, Maths, Sciences, Art, Social Sciences and Biology/Geology classes. We saw how the French educational system was, what equipment and facilities the school had, how the students behaved in a class, what kind of studying and exercises they did, how the approach towards education was, both for a student and for a teacher, and we were really impressed by what we had the chance to experience. For a few hours we felt like French students who have already been used to multiculturalism, as the host school has students of many nationalities. So, we were welcomed to those multicultural classes, in which tolerance, understanding and respect for the others are also taught besides the subject they all study. We discussed the things we had in common and the ones that were different among our educational systems and felt that it was an opportunity for all of us to discover one another and to learn from one another.
After the classes, the students answered some questions regarding their role in the making of the game.
The 1st prototype of the game was presented and students had a great sense of achievement when they played a game which had been created by them. They knew that there would be much work to do till the moment the beta version of the game was devised, but they were happy to be in the process of making it.
The evaluation of the project meeting was conducted and the participants answered a questionnaire which had been devised prior to the meeting and whose aim was to assess the organisation and the relevance of the activities in terms of objectives , and also the skills/competences that they had gained or developed.
The Europass mobility documents were also filled in by the two mentors from the sending organisation and host school and they were signed and stamped. The host principal also gave the certificates of attendance for each guest team.
In the evening, as a dissemination activity for this project meeting, there was a reception at the Town Hall, where there were invited the project teams, the host families, the local educational community, the regional board of Education, the Eco-delegates Clubs of the neighbourhood and the local press. The prototype of the game was presented and the guests could play it. The French team made a surprise to their project partners when the presented a film they had made during the activities, with different aspects which showed our great cooperation and newly-made friendship. They also gave diplomas to all the students involved, documents on which there was written one of this: game developer/ graphic designer/sound engineer/storyteller, exactly the job they had done during this extraordinary week, which might be the beginning of a lifetime career. We talked about the importance of implementing the Erasmus project for mutual respect, cooperation and for a better present and future for our students, who are in this way taught to think and act green.
The evaluation results of the first Learning, Teaching and Training activities held at LYCEE POLYVALENT EUGENE DELACROIX, Drancy, 29.01.2018-02.02.2018
Newsletter in English of the first Learning, Teaching and Training activities held at LYCEE POLYVALENT EUGENE DELACROIX, Drancy, 29.01.2018-02.02.2018