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Welcome to our avatar maker! This free online tool can help you create an avatar that looks just like you. There is no software to download and you can make as many avatars as you wish.

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Free Avatar Maker: How does it work?

This tool is very easy to use and can be a lot of fun. First, you'll need to select your gender. If you don't feel you fall into a traditional male/female identity, pick the gender that you feel most closely aligns with yours. The only difference between the two systems is the options you'll have to customize your avatar.

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Create your own free avatar in 4 different styles. You can save it as a scalable SVG image or in the more common PNG format.

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article I wrote about Dungeons and Dragons 

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article I wrote about Dungeons and Dragons 

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The corridor is dark, and in the torchlight you can barely see up to 10 meters. The air is damp, and if you reach out on the walls you can feel moss under your fingers - or something else, cold and slimy. You shiver from the cold, or maybe in disgust. Behind you, you can feel the heavy breathing of your fellow adventurers. You know Wayland is right behind you, you recognize the familiar sound of his chainmail. Your steps echo in the hallway and you keep walking, until you see that the tunnel opens up in some sort of wider cave. You can see something shimmer in the distance. You stop, and the group stops right behind you.
- Well, that's all you see. Flint, your dwarf is first in the line. What do you do?

- Ok. "Everybody, quiet", I whisper behind my back. "Maybe this is the place".
I try to listen for sounds, usually when we explore dungeons I have a special sixth sense for danger.

Y ou try to be as quiet as you can and you focus your attention in front of you, deep into the darkness. At first, nothing. Then you clearly hear a deep, raw, trembling sound coming from the cave. Something like a distant thunder. Or a very sinister breathing, a nightmarish sound that can only come from a body impossibly large and powerful beyond imagination...

This scenario will be very familiar to anybody who has ever played a game of " Dungeons and Dragons ". The sound? Who knows. Maybe a dragon is asleep, and you are stepping right into his treasure lair. Or maybe it's something else...

What happens next depends entirely on your choices, and on those of your fellow players. Maybe the adventurers will try to sneak in as silently as possible, steal the magic ring, and run away. Maybe they will wake up the creature, and try to bargain. Or maybe they will just shout their battle cry, and charge. In short, that's the essence of what a "role playing game" is.

Intro. What is "Dungeons and Dragons"?
(nerds, you can safely skip this. Although you probably won't).

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is probably the longest-lived and most successful tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) existing today. Many people are familiar with the term "role play" from different fields like theater, education, psychology. But first of all, a role play is... a game.
How do you play?
Imagine friends around a table. They impersonate specific characters to create a story together. That is a "role playing game". There can be a plot or a loose script, but the story as such is decided by the players and their interactions. It's a mix between improv theatre and collective storytelling, with possible touches of collecting cards, miniature play, and luck thrown in the mix.

Most of the times, one of the players takes a special role and becomes the "Game Master" ("Dungeon Master" in D&D). This person has the task to describe the world to the players, animate all the characters that inhabit it, and decide the outcome of pretty much everything that happens. It's a mix between the roles of referee, narrator, director, and coach.

Allright. Once we covered the basics, let's get to the six reasons why D&D is one of the coolest games experiences you can have.
1. It's fun! All sorts of it.
A modern theory of fun is based on the "4 keys" by Nicole Lazzaro.

An RPG experience activates all 4 keys to fun at the same time. This is the mark of a really good game, and helps to explain why Dungeons and Dragons has been successful for 40+ years.

Easy fun: it's playful, evokes sense of wonder, and people have generally a good time with it. A good game master will make starting very easy.

Hard fun: it presents players with problems and challenges to overcome, and rewards them with achievements, progression, new opportunities.

Serious fun: it requires concentration and discipline. A wizard has to learn spells (not literally, I mean to know what to cast, when and where). Healers are crucial to their teams, but they need to use their powers strategically. A rogue can really save the day by discovering and disarming a deadly trap, but this takes careful planning and execution. That's serious business. Very serious.

People fun: finally, a good RPG is a social experience. Players create the story together, and their only goal is to have a good time telling a fulfilling story. They compete, cooperate, and manage the complex relationship with the Dungeon Master - a mix between best buddy, referee of disputes, and Supreme Court when it comes to rules.

Such a rewarding experience is used to create bonds between parents and children, teachers and students, therapists and their clients, and it's also the objective of charity projects like this one.

It's a force for good.
2. It's the perfect storytelling practice. And you can explore infinite worlds, infinite times.
I explored the noir atmospheres of 1940s Los Angeles, trying to solve a murder case; I looked for a vampire in the gas-lighted alleys of London in the 19th century; I fought for my freedom as a gladiator in ancient Rome. The setting of an RPG can be realistic and historically accurate; fantastic; or a bit of both. Your story could be set in the galaxy far, far away of Star Wars, in the dark dungeons under Hogwarts, or in the universe of your favorite series or book.

A typical game of Dungeons and Dragons is set in a medieval fantasy world (duh).

The early setting was rather Tolkienesque (" The Lord of the Rings", where hobbits were replaced by halflings and Ents by Treants, for copyrights reasons), with influences by other authors like Robert E. Howard (" Conan the Barbarian"), H. P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock. The result was one huge fantastic world to explore, with tributes to all the genre classics.

Later, as the game and its player base expanded, new campaign settings were released as boxed sets, each an entire universe, bringing a unique twist to the game. The choice was endless, including exciting options like the post apocalyptic Dark Sun; the multiverse hopping of Planescape; the classic horror of Ravenloft; or feudal intrigue with Birthright (adopted by fans of the George R. R. Martin's " A Song of Ice and Fire " books as their favorite non-official game setting).

With so many options to explore, you could play an entire Dungeons and Dragons campaign without ever entering a dungeon, or meeting a dragon. Creative masters (such as myself, modestly) could always find a semi plausible way to include aliens, robots and dinosaurs - because of course - in their games. All our favorite subjects from movies and books became part of our games. As long as people had fun, no problem!

Coming from traditional boardgames, when I was introduced to the unlimited freedom of a RPG, I couldn't believe it. It changed my way to understand "game", forever.
3. It's a classic that created a genre and made history.
The first, amateurish version of D&D appeared in 1974, created by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, a 36-years old wargames fan who decided to write a rule system (" Chainmail ") to spice up his favorite hobby. Legend has it that the name "Dungeons and Dragons" was chosen by his two-years old daughter Cindy (or by his wife Mary Jo).

1000 copies were sold in the first year. Gygax understood he had hit a jackpot, and raised the stakes. In 1977, his company TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) published Dungeons and Dragons as a boxed set, focusing on storytelling and improvisation; a version for more hardcore gamers was released in 3 books as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (we called it AD&D and no, it's not an attention disorder).

The two games had separate developments throughout all the 80s. In 1989 AD&D 2nd edition was published, bringing minor rule changes, and a general tone more aware of the huge cultural impact it was having. The game sold 750,000 copies a year back then ( a lot), basically opening an entire new market.

In 1997 the game industry superpower Wizard of the Coasts ("Magic: the gathering") purchased TSR, and in 2000 a unified D&D 3rd edition was published.

At that time, the game was already a global phenomenon, translated into at least 18 languages. Its players base was estimated in 20 million people worldwide - that's like the population of Romania - who had already spent a total of 1 billion USD on its products.

D&D came first. It created the market, experimented, made some mistakes. Thanks to this game, so many other RPG systems were able to explore genres and niches. So if you enjoy LARP, computer RPGs, or even escape rooms, chances are you owe it to D&D.
4. The stuff you learn is real. And very useful.
All games are a learning experience. But the specific nature of tabletop RPGs makes for some unique opportunities.

As generations of gamers make their way into academia, the business sector and media, an increasing number of articles and research papers appears on the benefits of RPGs in education and personal development. There is a huge amount of material and a couple of TED talks on the topic, so I will not repeat. A couple of examples: a comprehensive analysis of learning through role playing can be found here; and an initiative by a group of teachers who develop resources based on D&D, here.
Here I will focus on what I have personally learned by playing Dungeons and Dragons.
This is the story of " War Games ", a week-long training for trainers entirely focused on game-based learning. We created avatars based on D&D characters and stats - adapted to our needs, of course.

A game of D&D is always a social experience - not always true with videogames - through which everybody can learn team work, the value of communication, cooperation and tolerance towards diversity. You end up meeting every week the same group of people. It creates community around a common purpose.

Making decisions: when I am confronted with a choice in a videogame, I usually save my progress, try out a solution, then re-load if I am not satisfied. In a RPG, instead, your choice is final and has consequences on the world and on other players. This teaches to deal with the consequences of actions and mistakes - very useful in the world out there.

Problem solving: adventures present players with open-ended challenges. Solutions are left to the creativity of the players, who need to manage resources and cooperate for a common result. If I could write " problem solving attitude " on my cv, it wasn't because I learned it at school.

Empathy. Speaking of which, the strongest feature of role play is to experience being someone else. How would a 120 years old Elf deal with this situation? Would the heir to the throne be afraid of the strangers coming from the north? And the shoe maker's son? This helped to develop my capacity to look at the world from different perspectives.

Acting and reacting. Finally, every player develops abilities to speak in public, react quickly and improvise. It's like a very eccentric toastmaster club, where you can expect minotaurs, wizards and fairies to show up. As an adolescent, didn't know how to deal with my shyness. Thanks to games like D&D, the problem took care of itself. It cannot be a coincidence that so many public figures from show business and entertainment have been (and still are) role players. Role playing helped me immensely to be comfortable with speaking in public and presenting my ideas to a group.

Not to mention, mastery of language, written and oral. And foreign languages, too. I was way ahead of my class in English language, thanks mostly to my passion for RPGs (and videogames). I knew words like "cloning", "maelstrom" and "beholder" when my classmates were learning basic grammar structures.

The art and craft of "being a DM". The last bit I want to mention is the Dungeon Master, a special figure who directs the game and creates the world in which others are playing. This can literally mark the difference between a boring session and a memorable experience. Nobody can "win" a role playing game, but the master (sometimes called "narrator") succeeds when others are having fun.

Gamers were a small community, back in Napoli in the 80s - and I was the first among my friends to discover RPGs. So, most of the times the role of Dungeon Master fell on me "naturally". Through years of dedication and hard work I learned the delicate balance between authority, trust, negotiation needed to ensure everybody's fun, while at the same time telling an engaging story. A DM doesn't have to be a natural leader, but learns how to keep others engaged, motivated and entertained.

These are valuable skills for leadership and life.
(Even says it).
5. It's a cross-media experience which continues today.
In conclusion, I can say without the shadow of a doubt that all those hours contributed to a great extent to my personal and professional growth. In short, D&D (and role playing in general) made me the person I am.

The game gained a cult following among the first generation nerds, and as such it was perfectly positioned to become a pioneer of convergence culture.

D&D inspired videogames appeared in the late 80s, like the dungeon-crawlers of the Eye of the Beholder series (1990-1993);

then came the Baldur's Gate series (1998-99) that made world exploration possible on an entire different scale, also thanks to its spin offs such as the spectacular Planescape: Torment which is still considered by many "the best role playing videogame ever made";

and thanks to more powerful gaming computers and consoles, it came the switch to first-person perspective of the Neverwinter Nights (2002) series, which opened the doors to online multiplayer play.

These games led to the contemporary masterpieces like "Dragon Age", "Dark Souls" and "The Witcher".

Did you know? D&D had a dedicated cartoon series (1983-85, inspired by " He Man and the Masters of the Universe ") which was not so bad, after all. Check it out:

And it has had a few official motion pictures (the first released in 2000) which are, uh, definitely forgettable.
Controversial stuff.
A new attempt is under production right now, the new D&D movie will be directed by Rob Letterman and will be released in 2021. Let's hope it's better than the predecessors, also because it can't be worse.

D&D was also periodically accused of corrupting young generations, inspiring suicide, satanism and/or various criminal acts, but this happens to every medium that cannot be fully understood by observers, from jazz music to stand-up comedy. So, yeah, there is that.
6. It's so hot right now.
It's true however that its early versions represented poorly ethnic, cultural and sexual stereotypes. The game has made giant leaps forward, as it moved towards its more modern forms.

In 2014 (40 years after the first book) D&D 5th edition was published. This came after two years of listening to the player base, and incorporating the feedback in the game design process. Hasbro, now owning the brand, really wanted to bring the game as close as possible to its community.

As I understand from friends and articles (I haven't played the new game... yet) the 5th edition seems to bring back the early feelings of fun, improvisation and exploration; it has a faster pace, less bulky rules and more space for players to be engaged.

All the efforts paid off. An " unprecedented growth" was announced in 2017: 8.6 million players in the US only, and 9 million viewers on Twitch. That's people watching other people play. That's right. If it sounds strange, think about football, billiard and chess. What's the difference?

The game is cooler than ever. Check its Youtube platform (more than 220,000 subscribers) with live streaming of games and events (the " Stream of Many Eyes " is a celebration of the game that brings together celebrities, players, fans and cosplayers),

or channels like Critical Role (a live gaming show with more than 300k subscribers). Their games are followed by millions of people worldwide (3 millions and half for the video below):

In another success story, Critical Role raised more than 900,000 British pounds on kickstarter to produce their miniature game. Their initial goal was 20k.

Against fears that electronic entertainment would take over everything, good old RPG seems to be alive and well, thank you very much.

Why? Because they are very different experiences. Compared to videogames, RPG are more relaxed, inclusive, creative. There is space for both forms to thrive.

Celebrity endorsements also contributed to the modern success. Back in the 80s, RPG was a hobby strictly restricted to nerds. But a lot of former gamers who made it as public figures are contributing to bring the game out of the basements.

D&D is a pop culture icon. It's featured in tv shows such as The Big Bang Theory (obviously),

but also The Simpsons, The IT Crowd, Stranger Things,

and in movies like Ready Player One (2018) and famously, in the opening scene of E.T. (1982).

Public figures from all areas of show business (names like Robin Williams, Moby, Vin Diesel, Stephen King, Jon Favreau, Elon Musk, Sasha Grey), have said that they play or have played the game. Really, the list is ever expanding and you can check it here.
And with so many resources out there, getting started has never been so easy. *
The popular tv host and comedian Steven Colbert never misses a chance to nerd out in his "Late Show":

So, what do you think? I hope you enjoyed the article.

Whether you are a veteran player and D&D is part of your life story (like of mine); or just a curious reader who would like to understand what's going on, my advice is the same: play. There is no age limit or requirement (although we liked to make fun of my younger brother, who started when he was 8, below the "legal age" of 10 as it was written on the box. We were horrible).

Parents play it with their children. Teachers with their students. Friends and spouses. It's rewarding, it's creative, its' fun. And as you can see, it creates memories that last for a lifetime.

Maybe you won't like D&D, but for many it has been a "gateway game" to other, more gratifying experiences.

With my friends we enjoyed exploring other settings and game systems (like Cyberpunk 2020, Vampire: the Masquerade, The Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Stormbringer, Star Wars, and more) but at some point we always wanted to get back to the roots. There is a unique sense of familiarity and joy that can only come from rolling a "natural 20". For us, it was like going back home.

Here is a story: we used to play in my parent's garage for hours and hours, until late and night. The neighbours were obviously annoyed, and decided to complain to our parents. One thing was particularly disturbing, they said: they couldn't understand why we kept shouting " twentyyyyyy! ".

They couldn't understand. But now you can. Game on!

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6 reasons for everybody to play Dungeons and Dragons

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The corridor is dark, and in the torchlight you can barely see up to 10 meters. The air is damp, and if you reach out on the walls you can feel moss under your fingers - or something else, cold and slimy. You shiver from the cold, or maybe in disgust.

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Written by Pui Ying Law

Teacher Trainer in Helsinki

Before scrolling down, imagine for a moment, what will the world be like 20 years or so from now? What kind of jobs will the students you are teaching now be doing? Think about what life was like 20 years ago and all the changes you have seen happen. Then imagine what will happen in the next 20 years.

The future of work needs the 7Cs

A few years ago, a student told me in a career counseling session that he would like to become an E-sports player in the future. I was intrigued by this back then: a "new" career option he was passionately telling me a lot of interesting ideas about this career goal. It is fascinating to see the abundant new career opportunities in the 21st century booming beyond our imagination.

To give you an idea, the following jobs have emerged only since the year 2000: social media manager, digital content creator, UX designer, cyber security consultant, and many more. Together with the growth of slash career and attaining entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly easier, the working culture in the 21st century is quickly evolving and definitely very different from the past.

By one popular estimation, 65% of our children entering primary school today will ultimately end up with completely new job types that don't even exist yet. To think a bit more, a baby born today will be in his/her 30s in 2050. If all goes well, the baby will still be around in 2100 and might be an active citizen of the 22nd century. These facts remind me of the famous quote from John Dewey, who is an influential philosopher and educational reformer:

"If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow."

Being educators in this century, how do we best prepare our young people for a future of work that doesn't exist yet, careers that have not yet been invented, and a world of unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties? How can we teach the skills that are needed to enable them to navigate and flourish in the world of 2030, 2050, or of the 22nd century as responsible citizens living a fulfilling life? Are you pondering similar questions? I guarantee that you are not alone to look for the answers to these big questions! Let's discover the 7Cs in education to bring you onto the right path.

From 4Cs to 7Cs

The 21st-century skills movement emerged at the beginning of this century. Since 2002, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) has been the leading advocacy organization in the United States focused on infusing 21st-century skills into education. The famous 4Cs framework developed by the P21, may not be novel to you nowadays, is a pioneer to call for education that develops critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity to prepare young people for citizenship and the workforce in the global society. This movement has been transforming school curricula around the world aiming to develop young people's strong mastery of content knowledge, as well as the acquisition of a variety of soft skills.

The changes of the world didn't stop in 2002, so do the skills that we need. The 4Cs framework is soon expanded into the 7Cs to address the fundamental changes to lifestyles, knowledge acquisition, and ways of thinking in the 21st century. In 2009, 2 experts from the P21, Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel published a book " 21st-century skills: Learning for Life in Our Times ". They broaden the 4Cs to 7Cs, in response to the increasingly ubiquitous digitalized and mediated environment.

To show you what I mean, let's think about how our habits of listening to music have changed in the last 20 years. While the earliest streaming service was invented just about 20 years ago, as of the first quarter of 2021, global streaming music subscribers have risen to 487 million! New opportunities also come along: creating and sharing music has never been as easy as now! As a result, competencies of analyzing digital resources, using digital tools to create and share then become the newly added prominence in the 7Cs framework. By the same token, analyzing the megatrends and the rapidly changing digital landscape in the 21st century, Bernie and Charles put forward a new version of the 21st-century skills, which encompasses 7 core competencies starting with the letter C.

So, what are the 7Cs in education?

The 7Cs of the 21st-century learning

According to Bernie and Charles, the 7Cs are as important as content knowledge in the curricula we teach daily. These competencies are skills that employers, the workplace, and modern society are looking for in the 21st century. If we believe our work as teachers is mainly to prepare students for a successful and fulfilling future, we should give opportunities to our students to strengthen these skills across content areas.

The 7Cs are: Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, information, and media literacy, Computing and ICT literacy, Cross-cultural understanding, and C areer and learning self-reliance.

Critical thinking

The ability to solve problems and reason effectively.

The work culture is increasingly demanding flexible analytical skills, therefore, being able to analyze and reason effectively and integrate diverse sources of information systematically into problem-solving is a huge strength in any career.

Creativity

The ability to think creatively, to work creatively with others, and to implement innovations.

The 21st century demands continuously innovating new services, better processes, and improved products for the well-being of humans and the global economy. It is no surprise that creative work is highly valued.

Collaboration

The ability to cooperate, to compromise, to achieve consensus, and to build community.

Collaboration is the nature of how work is accomplished in our civic and work lives. Much of the significant work is accomplished in teams, and nowadays, global teams.

Communication, information, and media literacy

The ability to communicate clearly and effectively in a diverse environment; access and evaluate information, and analyze, use, and create media effectively.

The power of the media and the ubiquity of communication technologies in all aspects of life make strong communication skills even more important. The ability to effectively analyze and process the overwhelming amount of communication and media content is immensely needed in many careers.

Computing and ICT literacy

The ability to apply technology effectively and ethically

Successful modern businesses and organizations rely heavily on technologies to operate. Knowing how to apply suitable technology will significantly benefit your life and career path.

Cross-cultural understanding

The ability to minimize barriers across diverse ethnic groups, cultures, and ideas, such as preconceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes that distort our understanding of other people and hinder us from working effectively and creatively with team members regardless of the diverse differences.

Understanding and accommodating cultural and social differences, and using these differences to come up with even more creative ideas and solutions to problems, will be increasingly important throughout this century. Cross-cultural interaction skills both online and face-to-face in the international working environment are more important than ever.

Career and learning self-reliance

The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age and to manage changes. The capacity to commit to lifelong learning for developing adequate life and career skills.

In a rapidly changing world full of uncertainties, committing to lifelong learning builds the resilience to adapt to changes. Every career path requires constant updating of skills and knowledge in the 21st century.

The 7Cs in education give opportunities to bridge our everyday teaching and school education with what our young people will need when they are out in the world.

5 ways to bring the 7Cs into teaching and learning

Now that you understand what the 7Cs are and how important they are, you may start wondering, how do we integrate them into our teaching and learning? Normally, some teachers may feel a bit overwhelmed, but rest assured, when we implement the 7Cs, we are not doing extras, we are just doing things differently. Read the 5 ways below and you will know what I mean.

Shifting mindset of what means teaching

What do we mean by teaching in the 21st century? Take a look at the new balance below (adapted from Trilling and Fadel, 2009):

21st-century learning - a new balance between:

Don't get me wrong, when we implement the 7Cs in education, we don't completely wipe off the list on the left of this table, instead, we are shifting our pedagogical practices toward a new balance, leaning more to the right side of the table. The new balance is not a "yes-no", nor "either-or" concept, but a spectrum, a continuum that blends both approaches. Focusing on applied skills doesn't mean abandoning the teaching of basic skills and knowledge. 21st-century teaching and learning mean striking the right balance of pedagogical approaches for your students.

Implementing the 7Cs in education starts from teachers' mindsets. As one teacher put it, "I had to unlearn the idea that teaching was about my content; I had to learn it was about their thinking and their skills." The shift in our mindsets motivates us to look for pedagogies that focus on developing students' thinking and skills, on top of the content being taught.

Invite questions, not answers

Using questions effectively is the key to responsible, active, resourceful, democratic citizenship in the 21st century. Therefore, nurturing students' ability to question is fundamental to envisioning that future. The classroom has been described as the cradle of democracy, and the teacher is one of the most influential nurturers of the democratic process. Think for a moment, to what extent do your classroom practices encourage questioning and reasoning? When you are asking a question, do you normally expect students to give some "correct" or "expected" answers, or do you expect to spark their curiosity to ask you questions?

Isn't it normal to expect an answer when we are asking questions? Partly true. If we aim to develop students' critical thinking skills and creativity, the functions of our questions will be different from when we aim to check students' understanding of specific knowledge. Why we ask a question would determine how we ask the question! As a result, the responses we invite will also be different.

Changing the way you ask questions will certainly transform your classroom into an active place for inquiry, discussion, questioning, debates, and all of these contribute to building students' 7Cs.

If you would like to deep further into this topic we have written two blog articles: " Use Questions Effectively: How To for Asking the Right Ones" and " Use Questions Effectively: Why Ask? ".

Create opportunities for connection

According to connectivism, learning in this digital age is a process of developing networks and connections. Knowledge is created through connection, particularly with digital technologies. Think about your own experience of learning something new from social media, online networks, blogs, or information databases. Almost all of us nowadays are learning from accessible networks where people are happy to share their knowledge. In the information age, the huge amount of data means that no one is able to know all, we need to communicate and collaborate in order to succeed together.

To prepare our students to interact and collaborate in this globally connected world, we need to promote collaborative learning, such as group collaboration, discussion, allowing different viewpoints and perspectives for decision making, problem-solving, and making sense of information. Creating opportunities for connection in real life and the online arena would help students to develop their competence to collaborate and communicate in a diverse environment, as well as their information and media literacy. How often in your class, students get to interact and collaborate with their classmates, communities, and online networks? Creating opportunities for connections in your teaching will facilitate students to acquire the 7Cs!

Authentic problem solving

Solving authentic problems is a learning adventure that deepens understanding, hones skills, provides emotional satisfaction, ignites creativity to reveal new ways to work and learn.

Learning methods that provoke authentic problem-solving include, for example, inquiry learning, design-based learning, and project-based learning. All these pedagogies bring forward authentic, complex questions, problems, or challenges in the real world that are relevant to students' real lives. When students are engaged to solve real-world problems, not only they will learn the knowledge, but also learn the application of the knowledge. By then, the knowledge for students will become more than just a grade on a paper, but relevant, practical, and useful in real-world and daily lives. By implementing these student-centered pedagogies, our students will be well-prepared to become problem solvers in any career.

Formative and sustainable assessment

Lifelong learning is an increasingly essential competence to live a fulfilling life in the 21st century. Learning knowledge and new skills throughout our whole life is beneficial to our career development and overall well-being. Studies have found that it can improve our self-esteem and life satisfaction, alleviate stress and anxiety when face changes.

So, how do we prepare our students to become lifelong learners? Formative assessment and sustainable assessment are effective tools to help them develop the capacity for self-directed learning and self-regulation: formative assessment aims to provide feedback that guides learners to reach their goals ( assessment for learning), while sustainable assessment, which derives from the concept of sustainable development, aims to help learners to meet their future learning needs beyond the time scale of a given course or program, by the use of ongoing self-assessment by students to monitor their learning (assessment as learning).

Formative assessment is usually done by teachers or peers, sometimes the learners themselves, while sustainable assessment is often done by the learners themselves with suitable tools provided. For formative assessment strategies and tools, I recommend you to read this or this.

For sustainable assessment, which is part of formative assessment, teachers usually provide students with suitable assessment tools, such as rubrics that clearly describe the observable learning performance and invite the students to make reasonable evaluations and judgments on their learning performance.

To what extent does your school emphasize assessment for learning and assessment as learning? How are you going to implement them in your teaching to help your students to develop their career and life skills?

Conclusion

We may not have a magical crystal ball to see the future, but have you heard of the saying "The best way to predict the future is to create it"? By implementing the 7Cs into our education, we are now sketching a picture of the future world together!

What are your thoughts about the 7Cs in education? How is your experience of implementing 7Cs into teaching and learning? Share with us your thoughts, experience, and questions in the comment box below! We are happy to hear your stories and learn together!

If you want to know more about the 7Cs, I have recently designed a one-week teacher training course: The 7Cs: Learning for Life (and Work) in the 21st Century

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The 7Cs of 21st-Century Teaching and Learning (From 4Cs to 7Cs)

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"If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow.": the 7Cs will help you to provide quality teaching

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The training kits (T-kits) are methodological publications for trainers and facilitators working with young people, written by teams of field experts. They are easy-to-use thematic educational material designed for training and facilitating learning with groups of young people.

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T-kits - Youth Partnership - pjp-eu.coe.int

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The training kits are thematic publications written by experienced youth trainers. They are easy-to-use in training and study sessions

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Compass: Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People

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Compass was first published in 2002 within the framework of the Human Rights Education Youth Programme of the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe.

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Presentation of 3rd Primary School of Oreokastro, Thessaloniki, Greece

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Presentation of 3rd Primary School of Oreokastro, Thessaloniki, Greece

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It was a great experience to be  in Prague and to attend the Game-based Learning course supported by Carmine Rodi and his team. I met very interesting people and I hope I wiil meet you again in a future Erasmus+ course or collaborative project.
Best wishes,
Fani Pella

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fpella@hotmail.com

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Start!

Presentation

LOCATION

Santa Coloma de Gramenet is a town of Catalonia in the province of Barcelona.

Population: 120,000 inhabitants.

Area: 7 km2.

Our experience as a Secondary school begins in 2018. In this short period we have grown a lot.

13 classrooms-groups of 22-30 students.

350 pupils and 45 teachers.

Which are our identity traits?

Computer for each student

Values, emotions and comunication

- Weekly evaluation of students' progress (personal and academic).

- Constant communication between teachers and family.

- 2 departments specialised in the attention for those students who require more attention: one for students with special needs and another for new arrived students.

- Workplans and different learning methodologies to assure that every student develop his/her best attitudes and skills .

- Interdisciplinary knowledge + emotional education + values.

Thinking about the future: SDGs 2030

These goals have the power to create a better world by 2030, by ending poverty, fighting inequality and addressing the urgency of climate change.

Every positive action has the power to make a difference.

Project Based Learning: 6 hours per week
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AVANCEM: multilingual project that promotes the learning of different languages at the same time. Catalan, Spanish, English, French and other natives languages of our different student born abroad, such as Arabic, Urdu and Chinese.

STEAMCAT: innovation programme based on global and cooperative working to search real and creative solutions. The subjects involved are Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathemathics.

Students are the protagonist of their own learning

The earliest 30' in the morning

30'

30' of relaxing time to read

Our Principal with some of our students show our Secondary School.

Festivities and school trips

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Our best ingredient... our team

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Thanks!
Instagram: institut9_santacoloma

email: institut9@institut9.cat

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Start! Presentation LOCATION Santa Coloma de Gramenet is a town of Catalonia in the province of Barcelona. Population: 120,000 inhabitants. Area: 7 km2. Our experience as a Secondary school begins in 2018. In this short period we have grown a lot. 13 classrooms-groups of 22-30 students. 350 pupils and 45 teachers.

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"Let's Play" with theories of Fun and Flow

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"Let's Play" with theories of Fun and Flow

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The game of D&D that started it all | Stranger Things

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A city full of colour (Caro)

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Macu’s Hunt

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A1 Level qcer game the Italian name of places side A

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A1 Level qcer game the Italian name of places side A

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Don't upset if you finish the Game as a farmer. That's the real world in Middle Age

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Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit - The True Danger of Gamification - Extra Credits

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Jane McGonigal: A game can give you 10 extra years of life

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Jane McGonigal: A game can give you 10 extra years of life

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The game that can give you 10 extra years of life

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When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. She dove into the scientific research and created the healing game, SuperBetter. In this moving talk, McGonigal explains how a game can boost resilience -- and promises to add 7.5 minutes to your life.

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With the anti-COVID19 measures (hopefully) relaxing a bit, I am running several training courses on how to integrate the power of games and play in personal and professional life.

Strangely enough, games are still somewhat underestimated in educational settings everywhere. Especially in old-fashioned systems there is a running assumption that "fun is bad for learning" (wrong, there is a ton of science to prove it) and educators who want to work more with game-based learning (what is it? not to be confused with "gamification". A good article is here) are still seen as risk takers who use non-orthodox methods.

Things are changing, sometimes not so fast, but the crushing evidence shows that games are extremely powerful tools to activate personal engagement, emotions, long-term memory, creativity and social connections - and these are all crucial dimensions in learning. So, long story short, every learning experience can be made more effective by including some "gamey" aspects in it.

One thing to use are educational games: games that are designed with a clear educational purpose in mind. They are great, but they suffer from a couple of issues: 1) they are usually low-budget compared to commercial games (because, sadly, education suffers from budget restrictions even in the luckiest cases); and 2) sometimes they are, well... boring not so engaging! Maybe because their learning objectives are a little bit too obvious, on the nose, or because they were not created following a clear game design approach. What I am trying to say is, if we want to keep our people (players, students, learners) engaged, FUN should always come first.

Learning will follow for sure if the teacher / facilitator does a good job allowing some time at the end for individual and group reflection, asks good critical questions that help focus the discussion; and harvests conclusions in a way that brings closure and favors insight.

That's why I like to use commercial games in an educational setting. They look and feel good (a very important part of why we love games so much is that we enjoy them as multi-sensorial aesthetic experiences); they have been thoroughly play tested; they usually tell fantastic stories, sometimes inspired by major book or movie franchises; and the more popular they are, the better, as chances are some people will already be familiar with them.

Here follows a short overview of 5 popular boardgames I use in the classroom, and my experience with them. Some are super popular, some maybe less but they still offer interesting learning opportunities, so I hope everybody can discover something new reading the list.

I really love this little gem because it describes dynamically how ecosystems are formed and evolve over the course of time. And yes, because it's about dinosaurs (even if it doesn't say so). Players compete for scarce resources (mainly: food) as they control a bunch of "creatures" just out of the primordial soup. The way these creatures evolve will depend on a number of factors, as they create complex and delicate interconnections and food becomes more or less abundant. Some will choose to develop huge and aggressive carnivores (think: a T-Rex with the largest mouth you can think of), others will prefer placid herbivores who rely on factors like hard shells or numerous packs for their survival. And what about generating an intelligent omnivore who can climb trees and use tools? The fun thing is, these abilities can be acquired or lost, once they become useless. It's dynamic, and players get to represent millions of years of evolution during the span of one game.

In my experience, not everybody likes this game because it's not exactly immediate to play. Allow yourselves half an hour to familiarize with the rules, or make sure somebody is there to give a fast and effective introduction. But thanks to its elegant mechanics, meaningful gameplay and evocative artwork, once this experience kicks off, it can really suck people in.

Dixit (2008)
by Libellud

EVERYBODY loves this game. Literally everybody. And it's a testament of its fantastic design, a masterpiece balance of so many of the ingredients we love in games: inspiring, dreamy artwork; easy and captivating mechanics; a social experience that can be hilarious, thrilling and an opportunity to shift from easy to deeper topics in a heartbeat.

In Dixit, players draw wonderfully illustrated, surreal cards (out of the many available decks, that can be all combined) and have an opportunity to describe them with a short story. The goal is to have most people - but not everybody, so it's not too obvious - guess which card matches our description. It's an incredibly easy interaction that leads to fantastic dynamics: guessing, bluffing, reverse psychology... in other words, lots of fun.

At the heart of the game is the ability to tell stories: the fundamental human ability to see patterns and connections that are not immediately visible, and to draw other people into our own imaginary worlds. It's fast to learn and guarantees virtually endless repetitions, and it can be so immersive, many don't really play it to win, but more for the pure fun it offers. Used as an educational experience, it's a workshop for wordsmiths, and an opportunity to exercise social deduction, creativity, abstract thinking and interpretation. Many like to use it as a reflection tool, like a less intimidating version of Tarots or wonderful coaching cards.

Codenames (2015)
by Czech Games Edition

Codenames is a more recent game that became an instant classic. It's essentially an easy party game where players have to guess words, based on a few cryptic hints given by their team mates. Make a mistake, and you may give a point to the other team; make a big mistake, and it's game over for you. The game is wrapped in a "spy story" narrative, which makes it more immersive and raises the suspense somehow.

This is it, it's incredibly easy, a full game lasts no more than 15 minutes, and you will want to play another one right away. The team element makes it fun and there are enough cards to make sure you will not run out of ideas so soon. And then, why not try the other existing versions: the Disney-themed "Family Edition", "Harry Potter", "Marvel", or "Pictures" which uses pictures instead of words.

One great aspect of this game is that it's so immediate, nobody will ever hate you for bringing it to a party. It's great to practice strategic thinking, team communication and language skills (it's translated in many languages). A family-friendly, almost-casual party game that can also offer deeper experiences to those who look for a more mature challenge.

Some pictures are so iconic you can hear them. I am sure for many people this is the case when looking at this box, obviously recalling the 1975 Steven Spielberg movie poster (ah, in case you haven't seen it, go watch it now. Seriously, and thank me later). Can you hear the shark theme?

A giant white shark decides to relocate to Amity Island, a small community that lives off the income from East Coast beachgoers. Summer is coming, and the shark is hungry.

A simple idea, masterfully executed is behind the success of the movie, and the game tries to follow those footprints as faithfully as possible. One player is the shark, has a bunch of special abilities, moves secretly across the board, and more importantly, gets to eat people. Everybody else is a shark hunter, a ragtag team of characters with different profiles and abilities (again, if you have seen the movie, you will instantly recognize them). The game is divided in two phases: Amity Island, where the hunters try to pinpoint the predator's location before... uh, all the swimmers are turned into shark food; and the Orca phase, a climactic kill-or-be-killed battle where the hunters try their hardest to defeat the beast, on a sinking ship.

It's not an entirely casual experience, as it takes about 30 minutes to learn the game, but it can make for a very rewarding experience. And obviously a stronger one, if one is a fan of the movie. Or of sharks. The one-versus-many gameplay opens the door to many opportunities to replay it, as everybody will want to be the Shark. It's a fun experience that can be used to reflect on teamwork and communication, smart use of resources, strategic thinking, bluffing and deception.

And yes, you will find yourselves repeating these words again and again.

I know, in 2021 this may sound like a very dark and creepy joke but really, "Pandemic" (the board game, not the real one) is a classic that made history and deserves a place in every anthology.

In the classic version of the game (the one I use), players cooperate as members of a special task force with the goal to eradicate several - not just one - deadly viruses that threaten humanity. The game takes place on a big board that represents the Earth, each character has a specific profile and abilities (which gives space to some role-playing and more strategic thinking), and players have to communicate and cooperate to the best of their abilities if the want to stand a chance.

It's already difficult to win the game, despite the fact that as a simulation, it's much easier than the real-world scenario we are currently in. For one, in "Pandemic" (the game) there are no conspiracy thinkers that will spread rumors about the credibility of the threat; no populist faction or tv channel will openly sabotage your work just to win the next election or make money; and once a vaccine is developed, everybody will take it so we can win the game, and move on. If only, right?

But still, a match can offer a thrilling experience and you will always be sitting uncomfortably on the edge of your seats, trying to use your team's abilities in the best possible way in a race against time and luck (drawing cards ensures that events will happen at random and this will make each game unpredictable and unique). It's a very reach experience where all players have to cooperate, and I recommend it as a team building, as an exercise in group communication, leadership and long-term strategic thinking.

And you? What are some of your favorite boardgames that are also rich learning experiences? Feel free to write in the comments and let's have a conversation.

I am always looking for suggestions on what to buy next, and I think I will write another post like this at some point in the future.

Thank you for reading! And keep on gaming :)

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With the anti-COVID19 measures (hopefully) relaxing a bit, I am running several training courses on how to integrate the power of games and play in personal and professional life. Strangely enough, games are still somewhat underestimated in educational settings everywhere.

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naikemendez@gmail.com

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Hello, I am sending the link for the games folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UWXB9ceQHSVycWCghDg4PMVrQs0TEknq

also a folder where you can upload all pictures/videis of the week, so it stays organized on one place: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s6D9x_8wcBmsL6wmX9o4AkUC713fB01o

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peterbernad@gmail.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/peter.bernad.3

IG: @peter_silj

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kachuti@gmail.com, kachutova@nejedleho.sk

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mruiz@institut9.cat
mruiz365@xtec.cat