A DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL GAME FOR PRACTICING OER

Abstract

Making education available to everyone is about opening new doors to the future world where people are living with their full abilities and potentials. This vision was acknowledged by UNESCO and it was one of the main motives for introducing Open Educational Resources (OER) in 2002. Over the last two decades, OER have made a positive impact on spreading quality educational information. However, the lack of experience in using and practicing OER is one of the common reasons why people have difficulties utilizing OER without violating copyright laws. To overcome this problem, a workshop concept was designed in order to qualify educators for OER. As part of the workshops, a digital educational game has been developed to elevate the participants’ motivation and engagement. The game covers all basic aspects of the OER cycle (creating, editing, using, and distributing OER) and is designed to be played within the practical sessions. By implementing this game and utilizing the concept of Game-based Learning (GBL), we wanted to provide an interactive learning environment to practice OER and motivate learners to explore the OER world. In this paper, we present the concept of the game and demonstrate its technical foundation as well as its functionalities.