Little could we imagine, when a year ago we welcomed the new course on this blog, how much the months to come would teach us. We quickly learned to share class from screens, to create projects in real time with classmates from all over the world, to demonstrate our knowledge by participating in fun online contests, to get excited about stories that tested our ingenuity week after week.
There has been no need to explain how important digital skills are for our future or to insist on the benefits of exercising 21st century skills. The great lesson of this course has been that we were already prepared to face uncertainty and adversity, we were simply not aware of it yet. At IGNITE we have worked hard to ensure that technology becomes the main vehicle of creation and expression throughout this time, incorporating innovative gamification methodologies and identifying the specific motivations of each student to personalize each experience.
Despite all the setbacks, the new 2020-21 academic year has managed to take off successfully thanks to the combined efforts of the centers' teaching teams, IGNITE professionals and the families themselves, aware that extracurricular activities are a part essential part of our educational model.
Prepared to educate in uncertainty
Once the logical concern at the beginning of the school year has passed, the families' confidence in the IGNITE extracurricular activities has been increasing week after week as they have verified that the activities have been able to be carried out with continuity and complete safety in any situation.
In those centers where groups of students have been temporarily confined, our STEAM extracurricularsThey have continued to be taught in a non-face-to-face mode through personalized technological challenges that have allowed them not to lose the rhythm of the class.
Flexibility, customization and response agility are the keys to this model “COVID-Ready” in its three modalities:
In person: development of STEAM projects in the classroom with the maximum security guarantees, diversifying learning according to various interest groups.
Semi-presential: The course activities have been designed in a modular way so that students can continue with the extracurricular activity online with complete normality until they rejoin the class group.
Full online: This format offers non-face-to-face training itineraries in which students participate in class, adapting the learning pace to their needs and interests.
Gamifying learning with Minecraft
One of the great contributions of this course has undoubtedly been the incorporation of the technological extracurricular Minecraft Online as a learning environment to our STEAM educational proposals.
In addition to being tremendously attractive for developing the creativity and motivation of our students, its versatility makes it a very suitable tool for introducing technological concepts in a natural way. Once they are immersed in one of these virtual worlds, it is the students themselves who seek and investigate this knowledge because the gamification dynamic itself invites them to do so if they want to successfully solve each challenge.
In this context, the effect on motivation is, so to speak, “magical.” From the moment the motivation comes from the student himself, he is the one who eagerly demands to know more to achieve his goal. In our case, for example, we have seen how many groups spontaneously delved into programming with Code Builder because they were interested in quickly and efficiently transporting their agent (coding robot) or they wanted to save time in the construction of their buildings and be able to dedicate yourself to more creative and rewarding tasks.
The IGNITE design team has been developing various educational experiences based on Minecraft in recent months. We share here two of them as an example:
Future Builders:
A team of ultra-motivated builders faces the challenge of designing and deploying from scratch a sustainable city in which, week by week, they will incorporate new elements such as energy, water, quality of life, environment, in accordance with the Goals of UNESCO Sustainable Development (SDG). To achieve this, they must reach consensus and coordinate their urban plans, respecting the different roles that each one plays in the city, with different areas of responsibility.
World Minecraft Designer:
What's better than learning how to create a video game from within a video game? This is the unique proposal of this 100% online course in which students will discover the keys to creating a video game, not only from the technical and programming point of view, but also exercising in such important aspects as the narrative structure, the graphic art or the design of the gaming experience itself. To do this, participants will create their own world week by week as a complete adventure that they will be able to share later with their coursemates.
If you want to know more about these activities or about our educational proposals We invite you to contact us.
