Edufication, Tutors Finland Oy (TUTORS), Cambridge Gamechanger ltd (CADGI) and Cyperdelic joined forces and developed a new kind of learning concept targeted at future games industry professionals.
The idea of an intensive six-week bootcamp arose from a tangible need in the games industry. Teamwork skills are one of the most important working life skills from the point of view of employers. Young professionals often focus more on mastering technical skills, but lack of effective teamwork skills and professional communication skills might cause problems in working life. The main goal of this course was to give the participants the opportunity to learn essential teamwork skills and to take on different roles and responsibilities in a multicultural team.
The first test group completed the GameTeam.Dev online course in the summer of 2022 and the results were excellent. The main goal of the course was to create a good and safe atmosphere among the course participants to bring out their unique skills and enable their professional development. They were given creative teamwork tasks to learn about each other’s strengths and know-how, as well as how to lead a team. Students were divided into teams with predefined roles: producer, project manager, designer and developer. Teams had to ideate and lead a game development project just like they are done in professional video game studios. All five teams presented their plans to the group and received feedback from other participants and course mentors.
The participants, who came from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, got to learn first hand what teamwork is in the games industry. They had to plan the project, keep track of resources and deadlines and work together to solve any problems that might arise during the course. The teams also changed and developed as the course progressed, so that they could better serve the goals set for the project. The students gained a lot of experience using several programs related to game production, such as Krita, Blender, Unity and Visual Studio, the programming language C#, and MS Office programs and programs that facilitate teamwork. Working in a multicultural team was one of the key things that those who completed the course learned. The course ended with a presentation of the finished games and a feedback session. As part of the learning experience, students were also given the opportunity to invest virtual currency in the most promising game projects.
In addition to the course director, Filip Bovin from Tutors, and the academic director, Dr. Jan Storgårds from CADGI, the students gained a lot of insight into the games industry through expert lectures. The guest lecturers were James Shepherd (IVGC, Cypherdelic), Dr. Jeremy Sosabowski (AI), Reidar Wasenius (creativity), Henri Vass (Web3, NFT), TJ (web3 Unity game developer from the USA) and Ukko.fi representative Saana Sarmela, who talked about light entrepreneurship in Finland.
The students described the course as a unique opportunity to learn teamwork skills and game development. The group dynamics were so good that the students worked together even outside the course program. In addition to this, a good team spirit helped to manage pressure and made it possible to meet tight deadlines. Several students said that they formed friendships during the course and that they continue to keep in touch both on a professional and personal level after the course.
The journey of the course participants to become experts in the games industry did not end with the end of the course, as the course leaders have together with the students founded the GameTeam.dev alumni community on Discord. The alumni community offers an excellent opportunity for networking and learning new things from professionals in the games industry. The aim is to find companies in the games industry as partners in the community, which can increase the professional skills of students through, for example, expert lectures or development projects, and on the other hand, they may find a skilled workforce among the alumni.
The course leaders are currently preparing the next implementation of the GameTeam.Dev course. The next round will start on January 16th, 2023.
More about the GameTeam.Dev acceleration programme:
https://www.edufication.com/tuote/learn-teamwork-by-developing-video-games/
Authors:
Dr. Jan Storgårds
Course Leader, Director of CADGI (Cambridge Academy of Games and Innovation).
Filip Bovin
Director of TUTORS
Since 2014, the United Nation General Assembly dedicated the 15th July to the World Youth Skills Day. During this day, it´s celebrated the importance of offering an adequate education and the right skills to young people.
Before the Covid-19 crisis started, 22% of young people (one in seven young men and one in three young women) were not employed, studying or having a training. When the pandemic started, the situation only got worse and global youth employment fell by 8.7% in 2020 (compared with 3.7% for adults) and more than 80% of trainings were interrupted due to new lockdown measures. Sad news is that this decrease in employment percentage has not been compensated by an increasing percentage of young people in education or training.
World Youth Skills Day was created to give an opportunity for dialogue between young people, institutions and companies and to point out the importance of preparing young people with the right technical skills, of offering an easy access to affordable and quality trainings and of moving towards a more equal and sustainable model of development. In 2022, the biggest focus goes to recovery from Covid-19 pandemic, reducing barriers for young people to the world of work, ensuring that gained skills are recognized and certified, fighting climate change, creating a sustainable development, keeping up with innovation and solving poverty and inequalities.
Edufication recognizes all these modern challenges and tries to contribute to the battle against these problems by offering a wide range of courses and services at affordable prices. Edufication also collaborates with different partners and organizations to create and deliver high quality material and to stay up to date with the current issues and innovations.
The first goal of our educational platform is to make the greatness of Finnish Education System easily accessible to the whole world and to give equal possibility to everyone to improve their knowledge and learn the newest trends in working life, though our micro courses. Learning new skills is the key for becoming a professional and becoming more valuable for a company. When finishing a micro course, the students always receive a certification that can be shared and attached to job applications while looking for work opportunities.
At Edufication, we also believe in supporting employees at any stage of work life and in creating a better learning culture inside firms. Today´s working culture is based on “meaningful work”, which involves new learning opportunities, recognition of achievements and personal development. Our second goal is to help businesses and organisations to understand their specific needs in employment and design new learning experiences for their employees that would support both the professional growth of the workers and the growth of the company.
Check out our services here:
Sources:
World Youth Skills Day (unesco.org)
World Youth Skills Day | United Nations
Author
Claudia Riva
Intern | International Services
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Have you ever heard about pollution? Global warming? Deforestation? Zero waste? Sustainable development? All of us have heard these words at least once in our life, mentioned on TV, heard on the radio, read on the Internet or on social media. But do we really understand the meaning of these concepts?
“Become an eco-warrior” is an eye-opening guide to truly understand today´s environmental problematics and how to contribute to solve them. It will help you to gain knowledge of the science behind certain environmental issues and will help you understand how we ended up having these issues and why they are not yet solved in our modern society.
This course provides all the basic knowledge to understand how living organisms stay together in the same environment and how nature balances their relationships. Many people like scientists and engineers are working hard every day trying to find a solution to the environmental problems caused by humans not respecting nature´s boundaries. However, every individual´s contribution is essential to give to our children and our planet a better future. In this course you can find plenty of ideas and inspiration for changing your everyday habits into more sustainable ones. You will be impressed by how easy it is to switch to more environmentally friendly alternatives!
The Teacher’s View
My name is Daria Chekalskaia, I´m an environmental engineer and climate change communicator on different social media platforms.
The inspiration to create this course came from my daily life. I really try to be a responsible consumer and to act more consciously through my daily actions. With this course, I wanted to provide a general idea of what is really happening to the world and provide concepts to understand what sustainable development is. In my courses, I focus more on explaining how things work rather than giving a list of solutions. Because when you can understand why things are in a certain way, you don´t need to trust other people´s checklists, but you can come up with your own solutions that fit your lifestyle.
Why should you take this course? If you want to get a broader picture of where we are as humanity and if you want to understand what´s behind all the sustainable habits, such as switching to a plant-based diet, recycling and cutting off plastic, then this is the right course for you!
Read more about this Micro Course here:
https://www.edufication.com/tuote/become-an-eco-warrior/
Author
Claudia Riva
Intern | International Services
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
“We’re living in an age when information is more accessible than it’s ever been before. We believe, the role of digital learning is only going to increase in the future.”
Tiina Parkkonen, Senior Producer
At Edufication, we rely on the principles of microlearning to design and create effective learning experiences. Through solid pedagogical design, quality assurance and microlearning, we can optimize the online learning experience for course participants.
In an age of shrinking attention spans and busy schedules, online microlearning is perfect for the modern workplace and consumer. It provides a way for us to work on our own professional development, learn a new skill, or pick up a hobby. Microlearning allows us to become familiar with something in a short space of time, while providing the flexibility to choose our own pace of study, as well as the time and place.
But what is microlearning?
Microlearning is a very natural way for us to learn. It breaks down larger complex subjects or practical knowledge into smaller units, which are then reduced further into bite-sized, individual learning elements. Typically, each element only has one key idea which is taught to the course participant in a focused way. In short, microlearning breaks down complex information into bite-sized pieces that can quickly be digested, even in the busiest of schedules.
As microlearning focuses on communicating ideas in small pieces, it makes it an effective way to train people quickly. Studies have found that microlearning can increase a student’s learning ability by as much as 18% compared to traditional teaching methods. Microlearning is suitable for a variety of different learning situations and is particularly effective for inhouse training solutions, and teaching practical skills or competences.
Learning is influenced not only by the limits of the human mind, but also by, how a learner feels, their level of motivation, and the learning environment itself. At Edufication, we design our Micro Courses to creating positive learning experiences that we hope will motivate participants to learn and succeed.
Our mission is to unleash the power of online education through microlearning. Come and learn with us!
Authors
Tiina Parkkonen
Senior Producer, Online Pedagogy | Edufication
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Cai Weaver
Language and Pedagogy Specialist | Edufication
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Sources and Further Reading:
lasinski, M. J., & Reynolds, J. (2020). Microlearning: a new learning model. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 44(3), 551-561.
Major, A., Calandrino, T. (2018) “Beyond Chunking: Micro-learning Secrets for Effective Online Design,” FDLA Journal: Vol. 3 , Article 13.
Mohammed, G. S., Wakil, K., Nawroly, S. S. (2018). The effectiveness of microlearning to improve students’ learning ability. International Journal of Educational Research Review, 3(3), 32-38.