PATCH – WORLd

PArenTs and CHildren Working ORganizing and Learning together

PATCH-WORLd involve a partnership widely spread all over Europe that actively
contributes to the diffusion of the project objectives, activities and method which is
transferable both geographically and as a teaching technique to promote cooperation
amongst the various communities within the through joint experimental work,
exchange of experiences and virtual meetings of European users.

The direct involvement of the interested parties as receivers of the activities and their
effects is highly exhorted.

The project objective is to define an educational path both for parents and children, to
help parents and children to work, organize and learn together, promote and acquire
new competencies tied to the cognitive-dialogue, language, relation, confrontation,
also between generations, to realize a virtual community online, where the activities
are structured like a learning game and define its rules.
In this project children teach their parents how to use ICT tools, while the adults
single out contents based on their knowledge to be inserted in the multimedia online
learning application. Parents and children together realize multimedia e-learning
paths, enriching their knowledge and acquiring new strategic competences. The
learning path is organized through the use of an online learning game that involve the
users on the community activities.
The scaffolding of the learning processes supposes a collaboration and international
relationship between the people that are teaching (parents, tutor, teacher, pair…etc)
and the ones that are learning. The actors of the educational process work in a
dialogical system that allows a “fun-based” learning process.
In the first phase of the project children become teachers and parents become pupils.;
in the following phase parents teach the children how to learn, working as facilitators.
Moreover, this online learning process allows the players to play in a neutral
environment changing their roles adopted in real life and encouraging them to join the
game and giving to the proposal a great value.

Each participating partner country deepen various fields of interest in order to start
the experimentation phase, that is to say:

- Family General Use of ICT to discover in our countries the range of activities
undertaken through ICT both across households and within families. In
particular it’s important to check the most common ICT use performed by
adults (i.e. searching for information, shopping and paying bills…) and by
children (i.e. chat rooms, games ….)
- Family Communication and Relationships to discover in our countries the
advantages/disadvantages that ICT can bring to families by improving
communication between its members.
Identifying the gap in the level of ICT literacy between parents and children.
- Gaming and Recreation to discover in our countries the rule of the gaming
through ICT both for parents and children.
Check if the parents know the games contents and if they are able to
understand
- Education
To discover in our countries the use and the potential use of the ICT tools for
education and how parents and children interact concerning the use of ICT for
educational reasons.
Check if the parents/children have ever performed online courses and if there
are some educational moments during the week in which parents and children
working together in searching educational information through the web.
- Security and safety
To discover in our countries if the parents talk to children about the dangers of
the internet and if and how they encourage children to look at the information
they find on the web critically.
The purpose is to have a recognition:
 • on families and new communication technologies
• on how that technology is shaping family life and how families are shaping the
use of technology impact of communication technologies on family life
• on the new opportunities for family communication (email/chat and broadband)
This information, together with the critical and comparative analysis on social studies,
is the starting point of the project to define common characteristics of the subjects
studied. This allows the realization of a personalized and common learning path.

The project objective is also to create a virtual environment that will host the online
community and will be a sharing experience with integration characteristics. These can
be described as a place where things happen, you meet other people while
exchanging information.
It is oriented towards experience sharing and is based on certain main characteristics
such as communication and the feeling of belonging to a live reality in which things
happen, on encounter and confrontation, on the great importance of the informal
nature of learning and on the need to integrate these with formal contents and pre-
defined activities.

The main objective is the integration of formal and informal systems with specific
community functions which can fix place and events of social encounter favouring
virtual relationships and their transfer outside the web to facilitate the “in presence “
relations.

The project foresses the experimentation of the learning communities and of the
online learning game. Various instruments take part in this game:
The e-shop  will make participants more active and collaborative. It is based on the
number of points/credits (virtual currency) of the activities in the communities. The
system captures a post in the forum, writing in a wiki, filling in a form, carrying out a
task, taking part in a game.
The project aims at using transversally online multiplayer videogames – that is on
different domains – as with a quiz, a video/photographic competition, audio material,
etc.
It handles the participant’s score which increases according to the established rules
and allows the use of the accumulated points against the available awards. The e-shop
is an incentive tool and an instrument for visibility, fidelity and monitoring.

Gaining points (virtual money) through community activities is an element of

motivation, therefore the users’ passion and individual is strengthened by external
factors linked to the recognition of one’s commitment. Obtaining an award is an
important motivation tool above all for young users and the different score for each
activity is also a way to direct community activities towards those objectives which are
considered a priority.

A further aim of the e-shop is the possibility to strengthen the visibility of each single
participant within the community and the team/group. Updated score boards at
various level (individuals, groups etc) that can be checked online by all users will give
the right visibility to the most active participants and will encourage competition.

The project aims at using multiplayer videogames online transversally – that is on

different domains – as with a quiz, a video/photographic competition, audio material,
etc. giving the socialising nature of the game, conceived for both adults and younger
people, the project attempts to overcome the limitations set by the competition of a
single user versus a computer by offering the former the chance to challenge another
person on the same machine or physically linking two machines together.

The web technology allows to overcome this limitation making the game more
important from a social viewpoint. The intention is to unite the ability to attract and
link in the online multiplayer videogames the enormous potential of experience based
learning by proposing a series of events/games as transversal as possible (e.g. usable
in different domains such as quiz games, video and photo completions audio
recognition etc).

The development of the learning games is pursuing the following objectives:

 Increase the level of attention on the community, maintaining it high during

the whole duration;
  Focus the attention on one theme;

 Recall competences already acquired and favour the active building of new
knowledge;

 Favour experience based learning;

 Facilitate the development of the community through individual and team

debate;

 Promote, encourage and contextualise communication between users.

Game Handbook: this output synthesises the activities of research and development
of an online virtual environment in order to define the structure and the rules of the
game the users of the online community will take part in. The handbook will include a
programme of the events/challenge rounds of the online game, the rules players are
required to follow and the actions which are not allowed. It will also explain the use of
the various tools and te evaluation method for the reward system.

The project activities main objectives are:

1) carry out a sociological study/research to find out the causes of the difficulty
parents have in approaching the technological tools used daily by their
children and to understand how both children and parents deal with new
technologies. By comparing results and findings of previous researches, by handing
out questionnaires to assess the level of the said tools as well as through interviews
and focus groups, it will be possible to define broadly the differences between the
relationship adults and younger people have with new technologies. Younger people
will obviously consider these tools indispensable in their daily use and will also have a
clear perception of the relevant risks, e.g. viruses, misleading publicity, incorrect
information or research work etc. On the other hand, parents may consider these new
technologies partly superfluous and dangerous. In fact, parent’s fears will no doubt be
different from those of their children. They would for example worry over the risk of
enticement by the Internet, over the use of violent programmes or the overdose of
both the Internet and videogames. These results will be the first scene of generational
confrontation through which the issues to be selected for the following phase will
emerge.

2) favour the encounter of different generations in an online environment which

users (both parents and children) will consider own or at least neutral. Virtual
communities are based on different communication models and the necessary
infrastructure to develop a relational network is given by an online communication
architecture able to meet the need of one-to-one and many-to-many communication
systems (Gummesson, 20021). Once a proper online environment has been set up,
young people and adults will be able to meet with the former leading adults into their
territory, showing merits and faults of computer communication. Furthermore, parents
and teachers will be given a guided tour of the extra-curricular activities young people
like to be involved in. Communication will be in fact focused on subjects both
generations have an interest in, also in real life, with the only difference that this will
happen through the use of interactive multimedia tools. Within this environment,
children will be able to teach parents and teachers the use of ICT by developing a
specific itinerary of topics and themes of major interest singled out in the research of
first phase. By the same token, once the adults have become familiar with those tools
they will be able to use them to pass their own knowledge on to the younger
generation. In this way adults will be using the same tools as their children to pass
competences which would usually be transmitted without using the Net. This approach
will link the basic knowledge of adults, which would go lost should it be excluded from
the Web communication system, with the language of the younger generation through
the use of tools which stimulate imagination and creativity.

3) create an online multiplayer game environment in which adults and young

people may compare competences in the field of new technologies and especially on
topics of common interest also inside the web. The game will be played either by
single opponents or by team (e.g. parents vs children). At the end of the various steps
the players will have gained a number of points or benefits which will allow access to
the following sessions of the game, to other simulations or to events linked to their
hobbies and interests

The target
The project has been developed for groups or communities of people of different age
and social contexts such as education, sports, volunteer work, religious groups etc.
The objective is to favour communication between parents and children which, during
adolescence, is marked by a high degree of generational conflict and a radical change
in behaviour. In the attempt of overcoming the inevitable distance on parent and
children thinking, the project focuses on the relational aspects trying to create a
situation of emphatic communication made of reciprocal respect and satisfaction, thus
the choice of creating above all the conditions for talking about “something else”
selecting the areas of natural contact between different generations. The more
relevant areas seem to be sports, schools, religion and volunteer work. The matter is,
therefore, to allow parents to talk about “something else” with their children in order
to keep the communication channels open and avoiding consolidated disagreements
over “hotter” issues.
Approach

The basic approach and the theory framework of the PATCH-WORLd project is the
constructivism paradigm, according to the principle arguing that knowledge,
development and learning processes are not innate skills of the individual, but they
are functions generated by social interactions, multiple relations and specific contexts.
The methodological/didactic approach is the development of a dynamic environment
with resources and ways to enlarge it according to precise editorial planning, to an
animation plan and a programme previously agreed upon. Therefore, in the same way
as “real” communities must be supported by events which strengthen the feeling of
identity and belonging in this way developing reciprocal knowledge, the project aims
at promoting within the online community events which would act as a stimulus to
attract and capture attention as well as being a way to favour the debate on pre-
defined topics.

The events are based on community services specifically developed and usable
transversally in various domains. The preparatory sociological research has defined
the more appropriate services. During the preliminary planning the attention was
focused on online multiplayer learning games such as: driving school, audio file guess,
(music, language etc), photo contest, videographics, treasure hunt, quiz, web quest.
Some of the events will require the use of cameras and mobile phones cameras (or
similar tools). The aim of this initiative is to transform tools considered a-critical
(mobile phones, mp3 readers) in critical reading tools promoting in this way the
constructive use of ICT competences young people already have.

From the pedagogical and organizational point of view, the project is based on the
assessment of online virtual environments as tools for the strengthening of
communication between parents and children. The activity is carried out through
enquiries, surveys and focus group work within the target groups. The objective is to
define the most used and widespread communication methods as well as merits and
faults in the use of technologies. Also the knowledge level in the various age groups
should be assessed.
The research has determined which techniques and methods are more appropriate in
order to guarantee (in terms of probability) the most efficient way to communicate.
The objective is to develop, through ICT tools, a simulation educational method
allowing the exchange of competences and know-how between parents and children
through a game/cooperation teaching method.
The project intends also to determine which social characteristics of the virtual
environment are needed to develop an heterogeneous community which can
overcome the obstacles found in real presence by introducing a reward method for the
best teachers and learners to encourage people to join the community. The
development of the online itinerary represents an added value to meet the objectives
given by the fact that in virtual reality the de-personalisation of the role is easier to
attain, in this way toning down and minimising the parent/child conflict. The online
environment developed on the so called social software (all those software
applications allowing individuals to relate with each other, to cooperate in the web and
to create online communities) becomes a neutral ground for the players which are
therefore encouraged to learn from a teaching method structured as a game. The
main objective is to create a cooperative method based on a real interdependence in
performing a task by the group members, in being committed to mutual help and in a
sense of responsibility towards the group and its objectives.

The project intends to experiment a teaching approach linked to the use of ICT with
the development of online tools in order to support a new teaching “research/action”
model, defining new roles for the target groups (parents or children). This educational
model aims at personal growth and improvement offering in all its steps tools and
experiences, also applicative and practical, to learn how to interact and operate in the
society and in the labour market.
“Transversal competences” such as relational abilities, tam working, diagnostics and
life long learning (LLP) will improve through the use of this method.
The approach is therefore based on active participation in the learning process as well
as on task sharing and on the clear intention of adding value in order to create
something going beyond the mere exchange of information or the implementation of
instructions received. Sharing is the foundation of the model adopted by the project. A
didactic approach based on a one way transmission of codified notions from teacher to
student does not facilitate the learning process, just like a top-down type of
communication which implies different levels of hierarchy does not allow to establish a
constructive relationship specially between parents and children.
The project intends to show how the creation of a web environment, free from the
elements characterising the parent/child relationship, can encourage conversation,
exchange of opinions and debate among peers. Cooperation and learning stem from a
common activity of knowledge acquisition through “practice and story” communities
aiming at exploitation of adult experience and of the sense of concreteness and
immediacy typical of the younger generations.