Abstract:

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) supported by technology is an innovative challenge in the area of education, from kindergarten to higher education. Within the international Be Emotional-Techie project, by promoting SEL through technology, our vision is to prepare today’s students for the present and future, which will impact in a positive way individuals, families, organizations and society in general.

Considering SEL as the process of developing social and emotional competencies to positive adjustment, and based on the research available, there are evidence to endorse positive results when technologies are used in pedagogical approaches and to support learning. Nevertheless, more rigorous research is needed, in particular focusing the role of emotions on the learning process, the influence of the positive relationships between students and teachers, and the impact of interactive technology specifically designed for the promotion of social and emotional competencies.

This paper describes a game-based approach to assess and teach social and emotional competencies to children and young people and presents the framework “ecosystem of social and emotional learning and technology”, literature review, requirements, development and evaluation of a scientific and technological gaming platform – Emotechie Serious Play, for use with preschool, primary and secondary school children, from 5 to 14 years old.

The Emotechie Serious Play for mobile/tablet was produced by a multidisciplinary team in the areas of psychology of emotions and information and communication technology and aims to teach children to identify and manage emotions and social relationships, promoting self-awareness, emotion regulation, empathy, cooperation and communication, and responsible decision making. Through the serious games, these competencies will be learned and trained by children, and are organized sequentially and with different levels of complexity. The platform, in addition to the serious games, have a backoffice tool that collects information (physiological and psychological self-report measures) for a database. The knowledge generated enables and indicated intervention in the classroom context.

The requirements and design of Emotechie will be described, reporting data from children and teachers, from Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Spain. A focus group with teachers and online self-report questionnaires for children and teachers was used. The implementation and evaluation of the Emotechie followed an iterative process, in which intermediate versions were presented and discussed with experts, children and teachers. The usability field tests were carried out with real users. The Emotechie Serious Play platform is an accessible and useful product, which can be used by children and teachers, allowing its quick dissemination to different contexts.

Assuming that by using education technology, the learning process can be improved, and that educative technology can be a tool to increase and spin out the students’ learning, this Serious Play platform can provide data and evidence, that can define, support and guide policies and practices for the promotion of SEL using innovative technologies.

Keywords:

Serious game, social and emotional learning, technology, game-based learning.