Each end of school year gives way to a necessary stage of summer rest that allows us to enjoy slowness: we can think slowly, feel slowly, prolong moments of stillness, reflect without haste. A good time to take stock of everything experienced and learned during this course. After analyzing the results obtained through gamification in our technological extracurricular activities, we can confirm again the effectiveness of IGNITE Method's guarantee of success. and its potential for the cognitive and emotional development of the students who participate in our educational activities. robotics, programming and 3D design.
Despite the operational limitations that have accompanied us - and that will probably continue to accompany us next year - we confirm that the stimulation of STEAM learning through methodologies based on Gamification has been key to the development of the projects. Through this learning context we have achieved extraordinary levels of motivation, turning the experience into a set of truly significant challenges and achievements.
The power of gamification
The 2023-24 academic year will represent an important qualitative leap in the implementation of the gamification methodologies, transversally, in all educational activities deployed by IGNITE. A new monitoring and evaluation system will allow individuals and groups to work on key technical skills (hard skills) together with personal skills (soft skills) so that families and educational centers have visibility of this progress during each quarter.
From our point of view, an approach focused on technological learning that did not simultaneously stimulate the intellectual, relational and expressive capacities of students would clearly fall short in its approach since they are processes that constantly feed each other. When we offer them experiences in which their effort is clearly rewarded after overcoming challenges, we are nurturing confidence in their own possibilities. Achievement after achievement, these young creators realize that it is much more rewarding to transform a good idea into a wonderful artifact than to limit yourself to passively consuming a game that others have thought up for you, no matter how fantastic it may seem. This seems to us, honestly, to be one of the best ways to prepare our sons and daughters for the future.
In this new learning context, narrative creation plays a fundamental role. Feeling part of a great story, in which the outcome depends on the joint actions of our teammates and not only on the brilliance of our individual actions, represents a great stimulus to develop joint strategies and think collaboratively.
You learn to be sustainable as a child
The awareness that being sustainable is not just a good wish, nor even a fashion trend, but a vital necessity for all of us and an unavoidable moral requirement, is gaining ground in our minds. It is increasingly clear to us that there is no Planet B no matter how many expeditions to Mars we try to prepare, as the warnings that Nature sends us in the form of floods and climate catastrophes show us more frequently. But how to prepare the youngest in the face of a horizon of uncertainty like this one? Probably by first understanding why we have reached this point, that is, by consciously opening our perception to the world around us. Time has taught us that technology is a wonderful tool but that its use must be linked to an understanding of natural limits. Anything else is deceiving ourselves by cheating the solitaire, as we have sadly seen.
Committed to the SDGs
Precisely for this reason, at IGNITE we feel firmly committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) promoted by the United Nations. We understand that, specifically, our projects generate a special impact on SDG No. 4, providing quality education and facilitating its access through new non-face-to-face learning avenues when necessary, as we did in the worst moments of confinement due to the COVID pandemic. -19. A commitment in which we advance together with schools, families and the educational community both in the parascholastic and curricular spheres. Every time, with the help of everyone, we turn a good purpose into a concrete action, into a new habit acquired, we know that we are taking steps in the right direction, that we are being successful in our educational work. We are in this together, and for that reason we sincerely thank you for your support and trust.
See you when you get back from vacation, we hope you enjoy a great summer with your family and we hope to surprise you with the new STEAM projects that we have been preparing especially for you.
Happy techno-summer!
