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The pilots of our online course are just around the corner!

2/25/2022

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The UNLOCK partnership is preparing the pilot testing of the MOOC, which will be implemented by all the partners. The resources are almost ready, and soon we will start the recruitment of participants who will be enrolled in this learning journey, conceived to train educators in the design of Educational Escape Rooms. It's a challenging and critical moment of the project, as it will be followed by the presentation of the final version of the course.
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International Partners  Meeting in  ​ Amsterdam

11/29/2021

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On November 11th 2021, the UNLOCK team met in person (almost two years after the first face-to-face meeting), hosted by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
All the partners were extremely involved in providing solutions for the revision of the contents and design of the digital learning platform, which benefited from the activities, experience and reflections held in the second Learning Mobility of the project.
As such, it was a great opportunity to envisage the final version of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), as well as to plan the next phases of the project.
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TEAM MEETING

6/22/2021

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The UNLOCK online meeting on the 22nd of June of 2021 aimed to bring together all the project partners with the following objectives:
  • Discussing the results of the learning mobility 1
  • Sharing updates about the development of the learning digital platform (WP6)
  • Presenting the conclusions of the WP5 Quality Seminar
  • Preparing the learning mobility 2
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Development of the digital learning platform

6/9/2021

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The project's consortium has been meeting regularly since April 2021 with the goal of designing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) aimed at educators who want to learn about educational escape rooms, the process of designing them and implement them with pedagogical objectives.

In the beginning of June 2021, the team held a pitch session in order to collaborative align the goals and previewed contents of the MOOC, planning for the next steps of this highly participated and creative co-creation journey!
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Quality Webinar

5/28/2021

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On the 28th of May 2021, the project's consortium held a webinar with the goal of presenting and discussing the pedagogical framework and the persona that resulted from the previous research phase and will now set the roadmap for the development of our digital learning platform.

The contributions from inspiring Higher Education Institutions experts, based in Colombia, Italy, The Netherlands, Brazil and France definitely set the stage for the development of our digital learning tool for educators who want to design and implement Educational Escape Rooms!
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TEAM MEETING

3/4/2021

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The UNLOCK team met online on the 4th of March 2021 to organize the completion of the first e-book of the project, entitled "Educational Escape Rooms in Practice: Research, experiences and Recommendations".
The team also discussed the beta version of the WP5 report, in order to review it before a final version was compiled for fesign and preparation for the Quality Seminar.
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Team meeting

1/29/2021

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Last January 26th the UNLOCK team met online to discuss the current state of the art concerning the research on WP5 and also to discuss the next steps on WP6. Many new products will soon be available on our website, as the project continues to unfold.
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE UNLOCK PROJECT DISSEMINATION EVENT

11/6/2020

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The Erasmus+ UNLOCK project has recently hosted the online event “Educational Escape Room (EER) games in Higher Education - Future of research and practice”, with the attendance of 50+ participants from all continents, and made up of diverse range of profiles, including educators, researchers, students, and representatives of business and public organisations. Organised by the Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre (S2BMRC) and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS), the event aimed at dissemination of findings from the research phase carried out by the UNLOCK project consortium* as well as offering a platform for EER enthusiasts to connect and exchange experiences. Accordingly, the two expert presentation tracks focused on sharing of EER practices and research from HEI and business contexts, in France, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Denmark.

Represented by the work package coordinator Hacer Tercanli from the S2BMRC team, UNLOCK project consortium delivered insights gained from 37 case studies and European national reports, on the status-quo of EERs in the European HEIs. In the tracks followed, the practitioner session hosted a line of EER experts who shared experiences from own contexts and led lively discussions with participants. Beverly Legilois (Montpellier Business School) started off by sharing a digital escape room she has designed and applied in her intercultural management class, aiming at students from different cultural backgrounds to get to know each other. Jasper van Winden (Utrecht University) provided insights from the EER game “Mastermind” being implemented at the UT, in the context of continuous professional development for the educators. He shared the game design framework of the EER that enables transition from the game world into the real world. Thomas Vigild (Vallekilde Folk High School) discussed his experience with an exploratory EER he designed and implemented in a Danish high school, which combines game design and pedagogical principles with realistic decorations. Rounding up the practice track of the event, Jeffrey Meijer (JGM Serious Experiences) presened about their team behaviour analysis model via serious game approaches, to help organisations with successful team-building.

In the parallel research track, presentations were given by Alice Veldkamp (University of Utrecht, Graduate School of Teaching), José Luis Gómez-Uruiza (University of Granada, Faculty of Health Sciences), and Prof. Laura Marie Edinger-Schons (University of Mannheim, Business School). Ms. Veldkamp highlighted some often understudied paradoxes within EERs. For example, one the one hand, students playing EERs have a feeling of autonomy and discovery of the puzzles, but on the other hand, it is required for the students to follow very strict organizations of puzzles. Also, student creativity is a skill often mentioned by educators as required to solve the puzzles, but puzzles do not have open-ended solutions. This paradox leads to the question, for what is the student creativity needed, to find the teacher’s programmed solutions to the puzzles? Mr. Gómez-Urquiza presented a study regarding the effectiveness of preparing students for assessments in the nursing field. The results of the study indicate that the students held strongly the opinion that the EER was useful to prepare for exams. The comparison between results from traditional exams and EERs as assessment forms was indicated as a fruitful area for future research. Finally, Ms. Edinger-Schons presented an EER where effective team problem solving was studied. The research showed that effective teams used fluid physical movements and interactions with the artefacts, and had clear and affirmative communication among team members. 

Some of the key learnings and take-outs include the following:
  • Physical EERs in the HEIs are still in their infancy in Europe. EERs are more often driven as a bottom-up process with the educators as initiators, while the support of institutions consists of the provision of resources,
  • EERs in the HEIs are emerging in hybrid forms with the combination of physical and digital learning spaces, mixed groups of EER designer/ developers, and mixed groups of players,
  • The EERs facilitate stakeholder engagement which is extended both inside and outside the HEIs,
  • Targeting 21st century skills, clearly defining ILOs, acquisition of resources, and reaching out to collaborators are some of the crucial steps in successful EER development,
  • Lack of creativity, technical and storytelling skills; knowledge of pedagogies and game design, and time resources are among the most major challenges educators face in adopting EERs.
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Building upon the findings, the consortium will resume working on developing a pedagogical framework for the educators over the coming months. For further project updates and news, please follow us at UNLOCK project website (www.un-lock.eu), and social media accounts at LinkedIn and Facebook.

(*) University of Aveiro (Portugal), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), Münster University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), University of Granada (Spain), Bespoke (Denmark), Advancis (Portugal) and University-Industry Innovation Network (Netherlands)
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Educational Escape Room (EER)  games in Higher Education

10/13/2020

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Online forum on Educational Escape Room (EER) games in Higher Education | 1 October 2020
Setting to investigate ER games as an innovative approach to teaching and learning, Erasmus+ UNLOCK project invited academics, business and public representatives, and educators from all educational levels to participate in the half-day online event, to exchange knowledge and practices.
The event delivered the results of the research phase (WP4) of the project, of how escape games are used for pedagogical purposes in the higher education institutions (HEIs) and involved a thematic discussion session, and two presentation tracks to share best practices and research from educational institutions.
There was a total of 8 presentations and 52 participants in the event. Future networking bridges were explored among the participants, by the possibility of engaging with the project’s LinkedIn page (https://tinyurl.com/y5c6f4ux), where several themes in the scope of the project will be discussed among the community and updates on the project will also be disseminated.
This is the resulting word cloud from the question posed to the participants of the event: What are the skills, knowledge, and attitude an educator needs to possess to be able to create and implement an impactful EER game?
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second consortium meeting online

10/13/2020

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Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance Project UNLOCK: Creativity in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through a Game Design Approach second consortium meeting has been held in online via Zoom conference on 7th October, bringing together 25 representatives from 8 consortium institutions including University of Aveiro (Portugal), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), Muenster University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), University of Granada (Spain), Bespoke (Denmark), Advancis (Portugal) and University-Industry Innovation Network (Netherlands).

The day meeting covered the progress of the deliverables and the status of the research phase with input from all partners. In addition to the sessions dedicated for the project related decision-making and discussions, the consortium has had the opportunity to host Annabelle Beyer from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, to present the team about the simulation laboratory Think Space she coordinates and its didactic features. Selected as one of the good practices among the UNLOCK Project case study collection, Think Space represents a unique example as an educational escape room in its integration with the entrepreneurship course module to investigate the concept of uncertainty, and collaboration with the Escape Room company “Think Square” for its modern infrastructure and game design. As part of the presentation the discussions have focused on the impact of the COVID19 into the escape room operations and the systematic analysis of the student behaviour that take place through video recordings. On behalf of the consortium we would like to thank Ms. Beyer for her participation and very interesting insights she has shared regarding the working principles of Think Space.
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The first project results on the status-quo of the educational escape room games in the European context will be made available online in October 2021 via project website un-lock.eu, as well as an Online Forum taking place in the same month.
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