With the increasing importance of technology in every day life it has become necessary to rethink the way we prepare young people in school for their careers. We already have a severe lack of skilled workers in Europe when it comes to jobs in the IT sector, however, basic IT-related skills such as computational thinking are needed in a vast number of jobs that are supported by computers.In recent years, Computational Thinking (CT) and coding skills have been promoted by educational stakeholders as skills that are as fundamental for all as numeracy and literacy. A number of initiatives addressing CT and coding/programming have been carried out, both at international and national levels. Despite the high levels of interest in developing CT skills among schoolchildren, however, a range of issues and challenges still needs to be addressed for the effective integration of CT in compulsory education. In fact CT is considered by OECD (2018) as an emerging competence domain in schools. The increasing and evolving role of CT in problem solving contexts is also reflected in the PISA 2021 framework: students should be able to demonstrate CT skills like pattern recognition, defining algorithms or decomposition.Unfortunately educational systems are slow to adapt to the needs, which is why it is necessary to aid with initiatives that involve teachers with the teaching knowledge, learning experts with the theoretical educational foundations and partners with the practical knowledge. The project RoboLoco is such an initiative with the potential to drastically improve the skills of thousands of students.In the RoboLoco project a consortium of experts plans to create engaging learning situations for students by designing a game that motivates them to acquire computational thinking. This is done through immersing them in a robot race in which they program whacky robots to race against each other on a 3D race track. Programming them mainly means thinking of algorithms that let the robots react to each other and to the race track. This could be dodging obstacles but also pushing other robots aside or evading the attack of another robot.The game will run on mobile phones so that it can be available on the personal smartphones of students and so that they will be inspired to play for fun. We will also add pedagogic materials for teachers which will help them integrate the game as a learning tool in class. The game will always give the player the opportunity to analyze the race and understand what went wrong or right and what could be improved in the robot’s race program. In addition it will include instructional videos and texts that are never forced on the learner but offer optional hints that can make the robots perform better. The excitement of competing against friends paired with the fun of improving a robot’s performance in every race will motivate the learners to increase their coding skills and to acquire computational thinking skills which are essential in an increasing number of work environments.

E-MaGIC was a project that gathered teachers, programmers and researchers from Portugal, Germany, Greece and Italy, sponsored by the Portuguese Erasmus+ Education and Training National Agency. This multidisciplinary consortium consisting of a software development company and teachers from different backgrounds and know-how, developed a cutting-edge educative game for mobile devices named Clash of Wizardry (available for free on Google Play https://bit.ly/2YkQNWW and on Apple App Store https://apple.co/34WXQHF) complemented by an innovative teaching approach which can help teachers support the training of mathematics skills of their students. The approach can be used both formally and informally to help improve school achievements and enable success, to promote inclusion (the game can adapt to the student’s skills) and to inspire students to become interested in science and maths.The consortium partners were:Gabinete de Modernização das Tecnologias Educativas from Direção Regional de Educação (GMTE-DRE) – Funchal, Portugal. The GMTE office develops, implements and coordinates ICT educational projects in Madeira schools. Belonging to the regional public body DRE, its major asset is to have access to schools (either formally or informally) where the project has been implemented and disseminated, having direct feedback from students and teachers.Ingenious Knowledge (Cologne, Germany) is a small company founded in 2010 that develops software tools and an innovator in game-based learning, being heavily involved in education research cooperating with universities worldwide. One of its main strengths is creating next generation serious games with the aim of making games that are good enough to compete with commercial entertainment games. The company was the project’s game concept designer and software developer.E.E.G. Acharnon (Athens, Greece) is a secondary school of special and vocational education for students aged 12 to 17 who have cognitive disorders and severe learning difficulties. This partner paid special attention to making the game usable and attractive to disadvantaged learners and made sure that the learning results were worthwhile.I.I.S. Leonardo da Vinci-Nitti (Potenza, Italy) technical and vocational secondary school has been active in developing new digital educational approaches. The school provided a testing ground and involved students with different profiles in evaluating this new approach in cooperation with the University of Salerno.The E-MaGIC project checked data from national and international reports which confirmed that mathematics is the common subject in which students have low achievements due to severe lack of basic skills and motivation. It was also found that the adverse maths social stigma has a general negative emotional impact on students though having enough skills (with greater or lesser difficulty) to effectively solve any given exercise / calculation / problem. Consequently, the question has arisen: how does this happen if scientifically validated maths curricula are being applied by qualified teachers? The answer seems to be that teaching focuses on explaining and many teachers feel like the curriculum doesn’t allow them enough time to simply train calculations with their students. In many cases the lack of calculation skills also leads to difficulties in understanding the mathematical thoughts that teachers try to convey. That is, students don’t feel a connection with the curricular contents which is reflected in their lack of motivation for maths and subsequent low achievements. These outcomes contrast greatly with the European Union proclaimed goals for its 2020 strategy. So, the consortium concluded that to meet the actual needs of our students, teachers need proper teaching tools, methodologies and strategies that can motivate students without neglecting the scientific value and content quality. Promoting their motivation to learn and study maths is essential for enabling them to follow scientific careers in STEM where graduates are needed.The major contribution from the E-MaGIC project was the creation of a game to train basic maths skills that can find its way into the personal space of students by running on their smartphones and tablets. Based on our initial research we developed the game and tested it with students. Their overall feedback was very good because the fun element (winning magic duels) is intrinsically connected to the learning element (solving equations). The game never forces students to progress to harder maths, but by offering more powerful spell effects with harder equations it tempts students to go beyond their limits. Thus, our students are not forced to learn new skills, however they quickly understand that by practicing their maths skills they will obtain better results, progressing in the ranking and earning bragging rights, making the game more challenging and fun.

"ROBOT CITY is a project that helps to encourage young people to explore the world of robotics. We have set up an interactive multimedia introduction to the world of robots and coding and provided a simulator to test how giving instructions to a robot works, as well as setting up a robot city, a virtual city that allows young people to showcase robotics projects. Additional materials have been provided, such as a manual and videos to be able to explain and use the Robot City application easily. Europe, as a knowledge society, needs many more minds capable of building and developing new technologies, so it is very important to get young people interested in a topic like robotics. The report ""New priorities for EU cooperation ET 2020"" states that ""knowing how to code is empowering. It allows us to understand the digital world we live in and to shape it. Basic coding skills are essential for accessing the jobs of tomorrow and today"". Unfortunately, it is very difficult to integrate robotics into national curricula and even if there is the will to do so, in most countries there are not enough teachers available with the skills to do so. Therefore, to keep up with the high demand for programmers and engineers, it is crucial to explore non-formal approaches to learning, especially if young people can be motivated to learn the required skills themselves and go beyond where teachers can take them. We have gone in this direction with the Robot City project, as we have created the app, available through the play store for free, tested it with teachers and young people and found that it perfectly meets the objectives of supporting robotics learning. It also allows self-managed learning, something that has been vital in this pandemic situation. Now more than ever it has been demonstrated that we depend on computer tools more than we had thought and that it is necessary to work on them, especially to support young people in their learning. With ROBOT CITY we are not just creating another curriculum to teach how to program robots. Instead, we focus on generating interest with an interactive video that allows viewers to choose a robot in a virtual world called ROBOT CITY and points them to a variety of sources to get involved in robotics. The simulator that has been created provides an opportunity for beginners to test ideas and practice their skills. It offers a way to enter the world of robotics without the monetary investments involved. Once students reach a point where they can build their own robots, the project provides them with a virtual city, a place to showcase the results of their work. In the virtual robot city, students can claim a space for their project, so that they can be inspired by the work of other young people in Europe. Both the simulator and the virtual city are available in the languages of the project partners: Spanish, German, Greek, Portuguese and Polish, as well as English, of course."

The goal of the project Early Coding in Schools is to spread the learning of computational logic and coding skills in schools to young learners (ages 6-14) while instilling knowledge and appreciation for their home countries. In the last years decision makers are beginning to see how important it is to understand how computers work since they are all around us. We see the first countries requiring young students to be educated in computational logic, even though teachers are not really prepared for it yet. With the advance of modern technology the ability to code is as important as reading or understanding maths but many schools have difficulty teaching this vital skill to their students. Most teachers do not have the required skill or experience in guiding young learners in gaining knowledge and interest in programming. In order to address this issue we intend to develop a learning environment that is suitable for young learners in which they can be guided by their teachers. This environment should be easy for busy teachers to use without requiring a background in programming themselves and without too much preparation. The environment will be fun for the students so they are motivated to use it and simple enough for teachers to add to their current classroom curricula. The program will also encourage learners to explore a virtual map of their home region. In order to gain access to content regarding notable features of the map the students must learn small coding tasks which let them travel from one place to the next. This will give them access to videos or text as well as allowing them to earn virtual badges showing off their newly acquired coding skills and knowledge of their region. This allows teachers to combine two important subjects in their classrooms. The tool will be accessible through a browser interface so that there is no technical barrier for schools.In the project we will develop several of these regions and we will keep this part modular so that the tool can be adjusted to any region. Once the software development is finished we will run a large scale trial in which we involve at least 300 students and observe their learning success with the tool. We will then prepare the tool and share it on an EU-wide scale, informing teachers and schools about it and helping them implement it in their own classroom. We will also train teachers in teaching early coding skills with this tool so that they can serve as multipliers and help others.

Digitalisation and globalization ever more determine people’s daily lives, offering a large variety of new visions and lifestyles and turning the world into “a global village”. Thus, there are increasing requirements in language learning as options of working and living abroad – especially within the EU. Even though English as the lingua franca is the most important foreign language, learning one or more of the other 23 languages spoken within the EU is advisable with regard to extended traveling/tourism throughout Europe as well as to the requirements in the world of work.Language learning, however, is largely restricted to schools, meaning that most students tend to become demotivated for the simple fact that it is mandatory. On the other hand, especially the younger generations, the so-called digital natives, have grown up with digital devices and games that usually require at least a minimum knowledge especially of English, usually hardly connected with learning effects produced at schools.Motivation can easily be hightened when relying on the “fun factor”, thus adding the incentive of voluntarily and by one’s own choice taking up the vocabulary and grammar of a foreign language needed to also get along in real life (intrinsic motivation).Combining the “fun factor” and the younger generations’ love of playing digital games with language learning, the project therefore aims at developing, testing and implementing an application for learning English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, on levels A1 and A2, as the underlying concept of an adventure game to be played on mobile digital devices.The app addresses young people aged between 12-17+, i.e. students at secondary level, using it both within the educational context and during spare time, as well as language learners of all ages who wish to learn any of the six most relevant European languages more playfully instead of or alongside ordinary learning at schools or courses.The project aims at developing an adventure game the contents of which include elements of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), creating a game setting at the turn of ages between the Middle Ages and modern times, based on well-known tales and our common European history. Players will create their own individual avatars on a gender neutral basis also taking into account individual preferences as to profession, life etc. (e.g. a trade person, a knight, life in the countryside or a town). Players will have to interact online with other characters in the game and master challenges that they are presented with via books (AR elements) in which they find further information, thus stimulating reading and immersing oneself deeper into past and present aspects of our common European history, cultures, societies and economies.Even though the adventure app will mainly aim at motivating self-learning approaches and flexible, individualized progress, it is also considered to be used at schools, offering an innovative pedagogical tool in language teaching, introducing/furthering low-level implementation of digital devices.On a technical scale, the app will present incentives for immersing with various aspects of digital programming, enhancing interest in STE(A)M, maker education, DIY programming etc. Teaching personnel will be offered a manual and teaching material for full integration of the app and its contents both in language as well as cross-subject teaching (e.g. history, geography).Each player may choose their own pace of learning, which allows for a far better inclusion of students with learning abilities below average. Highly motivated students and those with higher learning abilities will be provided with additional challenges and tasks within the game.The app will also widen learning space and time as it provides the possibility of learning “on the go”, wherever and whenever the learner decides, thus allowing a more playful learning with much greater motivation. It will also enable them to learn several foreign languages if wanted, together with a local, regional, national and international community of players.The aspects of playing the game on an international European level and of its being based on the common European history along with the notion that language learning throughout Europe needs to be given joint, focussed interest has brought the partners of this project together: The Goethe-Institut as the coordinating institution has already cooperated with the UK partners in this project in a project on language learning in primary schools (2015-2018), yet with very different priorities and aims. The coordinator from the Goethe-Institut in London has already taken part in an eTwinning project with one of the partners in Italy. All the other new partners from Italy, France, Germany and Portugal have been included both for their expertise and in order to widen the existing partnerships.