The Promotion of the 21st Century Learning Skills Through the Development of Games Using Scratch

Abstract

The work described in this paper addresses the development of a game focused on a teaching strategy based on an action-research study. The strategy established aims to test the impact of the student’s participation in a collaborative project. The project aimed to motivate students to use and learn foreign languages and also to develop their intercultural communicative competence.  The team consisted of 14 teachers from 11 different countries and 167 students in an international educational context. Regarding the Portuguese participation, we have introduced the Area of Study namely Discovery in a class from the 7th grade students (23 students). All the work was based in three premises: use Scratch online, web 2.0 and ETwinning platform. Students from different countries have worked together to develop their own games using programming Scratch. During the project, partners collaborated using web 2.0 tools and at the end, they have share their games and get feedback. This work identified the benefits and challenges of global education and intercultural interaction among students. Fourteen schools from 11 European countries have   participated in this eTwinning project. Six schools had won the European quality eTwinning label. The methodology applied in this learning environment motivated the students and improved their learning process. It also contributed to a higher level of concentration and promoted collaborative learning. Additionally, it facilitates creativity, dialogue and the overall relationship among students. The results demonstrate that teachers perceive eTwinning as contributing towards the enhancement and development of global education through intercultural interaction. The pedagogic model based on the collaborative construction of knowledge was easily understood by the teachers.