On Wednesday, 13 April, Hans vd Velden and Dik Bol of Stedenband Haarlem-Mutare participated in the sold-out National Conference Game Didactics 2022. There they gave a workshop about the serious games that Haarlem-Mutare is developing in an Erasmus+ setting. The national gaming conference was organized for the sixth time and had 220 visitors, mainly teachers, students and developers of educational games. This conference is a joint initiative of Hogeschool Utrecht (Learn by Games) and SAGANET, the Association for Serious Games and Simulations in the broadest sense of the word.
In the afternoon there was a game market where game organizers presented themselves; this was followed by about thirty workshops.
The workshop Hans and Dik gave for 20 interested teachers and professionals was about ‘#YouToo,’ an interactive educational game about cyberbullying, and it also showed a test version of ‘Gender Adventure,’ a game that is still in full development. With these educational games Haarlem-Mutare City Twinning is committed to a safe learning environment for children. The games – currently trial versions – are developed in the European education project ‘Citizen Games’ and are based on input from three NGOs from France and the Netherlands and five higher education institutions in Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ireland and Portugal. Free test lessons are now being taught in these countries. In Haarlem, a Stedenband team is managing these tests. The educational aim of the games is a discussion about cyberbullying and gender discrimination with pupils inside and outside secondary school and with youth workers and their pupils. There is a supporting website, teacher's manual and e-learning module. These are available in Dutch, English, German, Polish, French and Portuguese. The project is funded by Erasmus+.

Yes! 42 students, staff members from their universities and from the three partner NGOs are being warmly hosted by ISPGaya, in Porto, for 10 days of intensive work and fun. Students are teaming up to come up with the best possible idea of a serious game on fighting extremism, plastic soup or gender discriminations in public places. The greatest game concept will then become a complete educational tool for high-school students accross Europe.

The mobility was online and it was fun! 43 students took part in virtual training sessions, which occured prior the mobility, and in the mobility. Before the mobility, the students participated in introductory modules on the three topics that had been selected from a survey of middle-school pupils: plastic soup ; rights and duties of the European citizen ; and cybersexism. During the mobility, the college student were put into teams. Each team included students from different colleges and from different areas of study. Each team elaborated an idea and created a demo of a serious game on one of the three topics. After an intensive week of hard work and fun moments together, each team presented their finished serious game proposal to an independent jury of NGO and academic experts. The winning game idea will now be used as the foundation stone upon which our consortium develops a serious game. This game will be tested in high schools across Europe. The aim of the game is that the player will combat cyberharrassment and cybersexism by impersonating a range of heroic characters. More to come soon!

The winning team’s serious game idea from our online eMobility (which took place from 15th to 20th March 2020) has now been developed into a full game. The game consists of three levels. While playing, middle-school pupils impersonate a dragon, a princess and a knight. They fight against cyberharrassment and cybersexism, and they promote positivity. The game is being tested accross Europe. The feedback will be used to improve the game before it is placed on general release across Europe and the world! In parallel with the testing, the partner NGOs are working on a teacher’s manual and a e-learning module. Both of these will be released with the final version of the game.

It had been long months of online calls to finalise the middle-school game, #YouToo! The Citizen Games project partners have finally met again in person in Haarlem, the Netherlands, for their 5th transnational meeting. On 2nd and 3rd of December, they have prepared for the mobility event of January 2022. During this event in Porto, Portugal, 42 students from the partner universities will gather for 10 days in order to create serious game prototypes for high-school students. Three topics will be offered: waste management, gender discrimination in public places, fighting against extremisms.