MAGICAL Kickoff Meeting Approved Minutes

Transcription

1 MAGICAL Kickoff Meeting Approved Minutes Date of meeting: February 8 th -9 th 2012 Meeting location: BEGIJNHOF HOTEL - Leuven, Belgium Participants: Francesca Dagnino (CNR-ITD) Jeffrey Earp (CNR-ITD) Michela Ott (CNR-ITD) Gavriil Iordonoglou (GAPMET) Nathalie Charlier (KUL) Sue Bermingham (MMU) Duncan Silcock (MMU) Teemu Jönkkäri (TUT) Kristian Kiili (TUT) 9 th February online sessions (11.00 to a.m.) with: Helen Manchester (MMU) Nicola Whitton (MMU) Peter Whitton - website developer (Salford University) Minute taker: Francesca Dagnino Aims of the meeting The main aims of the kick-off meeting were to: Establish the basis for successful collaboration among partners Renew the project vision and objectives Give the opportunity to share expectations and ideas Discuss individual roles and responsibilities in the team Identify key aspects requiring clarification/coordination Issues discussed Day 1 - Thursday Feb. 8 Project vision and objectives Overall idea of project structure and time frame Prototypes of tools (and other options) and their potential adoption Day 2 - Friday Feb. 9 Requirements for authoring tools, inc. new purposely developed tool proposal from TUT Project organization and management issues Online session Leuven/Manchester: sharing output from Day 1; feedback on MMU website requirements draft v1 Core activities, future progress and main actions in each WP Schedule for future meetings

2 Collaboration was supported by a Dropbox folder CNR set up for sharing KOM-related documents Decisions taken Project vision and objectives Initial project evaluation report was examined. The limitations identified by the reviewers were considered and responses, including possible remedial actions, were proposed: Not clear if national and cultural differences will be taken into account: a reference document will be prepared giving an overview of relevant differences, in particular concerning educational contexts Not clear why two representatives per partner are foreseen for all meetings: the team has agreed that this is needed given the different roles and expertise in each group Not a clear impact on the target groups: the team agreed that working with teachers and health professionals, rather than with students, should lead to more extensive impact through transfer of experience No commercial orientation: eventual commercialization of project outputs will be examined Project organisation & structure Overviews of project structure were given and explained via the gantt chart (MAGICAL gantt v4.pdf) and other charts (project activities resources & outputs.pdf, management & collaboration.pdf; dissemination & exploitation.pdf). The following correction was made in WP3 Software tool provision - D3.1, D3.2 & D3.3 shifted from M6 to M8 to align with conclusion of T3.1, T3.2 & T3.3. Core activities courses & experiments Courses for (student) teachers / professionals (henceforth course participants ) and subsequent class experiments were discussed in terms of general organisation and scheduling, and regarding the specific activities involved Fixing target groups & windows for courses Target and windows are interrelated factors; further details from partners and joint discussions are needed to finalise both MMU have numerous options regarding target and so are fairly flexible; exact windows will depend on final choice of target to address KUL needs to re-consider target options in the light of KOM discussions; windows initially identified may need to be re-examined MMU and KUL have different course organizations and participant numbers. Hence, it was decided that they will either engage cohorts or volunteers for courses and will seek coordinate this choice (and participant numbers) to facilitate comparison of course experiences/outcomes. CNR to provide further details regarding their participants and coordinate this with KUL for potential comparison of experience Differences emerged regarding the term health professionals and its implications in the different national contexts. In Belgium, these professionals don t work with groups of children with special needs as in Italy (this work is done in special schools). A response could be for KUL to involve special schools teachers as participants in the training courses. To get a better idea of special needs policy in the different school systems, CNR will prepare a document with the help of partners. Preliminary piloting with some potential course participants could be run in spring 2012 (M5-6) depending on availability of game authoring tool. Proper pilots could be run in Autumn 2012 (M10-11). The full courses would then take place in the following months. In any case, the

3 timetable of MMU and KUL courses is necessary to set a precise time frame. Approach, roles and activities in courses and experiments From discussion, the following clarification emerged: Partner teams will run courses for participants concentrating on (a) collaborative game authoring and (b) designing/managing classroom activities based on that approach. (a) will focus on use of games/authoring environment; (b) on use of pedagogical planner Guidelines supporting partners course implementation and guidelines for course participants are to be considered In the course, participants will produce game-design based activity plans using the Ped Planner Participants Ped. Plans will be the basis for the class experiments, together with general guidelines for teachers to support enactment. It is hoped that the Ped Planner can incorporate both the guidelines and the ped. plans for experiment activities ( lesson plans ). Otherwise a separate manual will be considered for the class experiments. Fixing target groups & windows for experiments Exact school level of the classes involved to be determined more precisely. MMU can involve primary and secondary classes (ICT, geography, music ). KUL is presently engaged with training of upper secondary teachers in health science education; it may be possible to reexamine this target (including lower secondary). Windows for class experiments to be determined more precisely Note: key steps as initially envisaged for the core activities are outlined in <MAGICAL KOM core activities.pdf> Software tools and their potential adoption Game authoring tool/s - existing options Teemu (TUT) presented a brief overview of the main features of games authoring programmes ( The complete survey of existing authoring tools will shortly be shared in a Google spreadsheet; partners were urged to add other tools to the list. An in-depth analysis based on each partner s requirements will guide the decision of the most suitable tool. Kristian (TUT) showed the authoring tool developed by TUT Game authoring tool alternative proposal TUT proposed development of a new project-specific authoring environment based on MAGICAL requirements. The team agreed that this could meet project needs better and bring added value.. An initial list of requirements & desiderata was drafted (see game authoring requirements & desiderata.docx) CNR & TUT will examine TUT person month requirements for developing new game environment TUT will prepare a prototype of the game environment for next F2F meeting in M6 Possible production schedule: initial pilot tests could be run in M5-6 (?), beta testing in courses M11-12; release M13 Issues: server hosting (Dreamschool - FI?), sustainability (server costs post-project) Pedagogical Planner Jeff (CNR) presented the Pedagogical Planner, indicating features that lend the tool flexibility for meeting different needs. CNR will collect input from partners on established planning approaches in their countries/contexts to help calibrate the Ped. Planner for project needs. Key transversal skills (digital/creative/reasoning)

4 Discussing project research questions - especially key transversal skills development through game authoring the group decided that project doesn t seek to demonstrate acquisition but seeks to develop methodology suitable for supporting transversal skill development. "Suitability" can be defined by several means: determining whether skills have been addressed; tracking students confidence & self-efficacy levels (forms); evaluation of game development; technology acceptance measure; self- evaluation of target groups involved Project organization and management CNR will provide guidelines and updated details following LLP Coodinators KOM, Belgium Feb. General principles: Partnership agreement: CNR will prepare draft for partner review as soon as possible; Strategic Management Board: Michela Ott (CNR - chair), Nathalie Charlier (KUL), Kristain Kiili (TUT), Nicola Whitton (MMU), Jeffrey Earp (CNR non-voting secretary) Project reviews/reports intermediate M14, final M27. Partner reports to be submitted to CNR shortly before each deadline for integration into project reports. meetings scheduled meetings every six months F2F, every two months online; partner-partner meetings as required Costs: each partner must promptly send copies of costs incurred to CNR Staff days: each partner must keep updated timesheets (template to be sent by CNR) Online session (MMU online participants) First day KOM outcome shared and discussed MMU draft web requirement document shared and discussed, particularly: functions foreseen; user profiles & access rights management (read/write); relationship with project tools & outputs; development platform Pete (MMU) will integrate output from session into v2 of requirements doc, indicating any outstanding issues/decisions and submit this shortly to partners for review To be discussed: project logo Schedule for future meetings Next F2F meeting will be in June, in Pori FI. Two possible slots were defined: June 18th-19th, or 20th-21th according to partners commitments. The dates will be fixed as soon as possible. TUT will provide details on travel options. The Pori meeting will examine draft version of the TUT game authoring and organization for the courses and experiments will be set. meeting to be fixed Next steps Action (WHAT) Analysis of special needs in in each country s school system Overview of lesson plan approaches in the countries involved in experiments Definition of target groups for courses & experiments Specify scheduling windows for courses & experiments Responsible (WHO) Deadline (WHEN) Comments CNR, MMU, KUL Francesca (CNR) will collect the analysis in a document CNR, MMU, KUL Send to CNR

5 Release of TUT games environment survey (Google spreadsheet) Add examples to games survey sheet TUT TUT, Game environment design scenarios New draft of website requirements TUT MMU (Pete) Briefing from EC KOM CNR (contractual / admin) Next meeting Date Location Purpose June Pori (Finland) - Tools preparation Mid-April??? - Courses and experiments organization online - Update on progress of next steps (see above)