TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE TO EDUCATIONAL GAMES IN BULGARIAN SCHOOLS

Adolescents nowadays are accustomed to the use of ICT in their daily lives and they perceive quickly and naturally the information obtained from them. The game brings a few basic features (edutainment, easy skill and knowledge acquisition, curiosity exploiting) that are valuable for the perception and assimilation of school subjects (in fact it is a key driver of human progress). Serious games are a powerful tool for improving education outcomes because of their ability to hold attention and to present realistic simulations of the matters learned. The learning games are appropriate for the purposes of schooling, as students are an active part in the learning process and the knowledge obtained in a pleasant way retain for a longer time in the memory. The scientific community is aware of this opportunity but at the same time the education community is at the very beginning of an appropriate usage of games for teaching and training at schools. The serious games enter in some schools in Europe, but still they are not popular in many countries. A combination of several conditions is necessary to change the style and techniques of teaching: technical equipment in the classrooms, creating learning games that correspond to the subject curriculum, a positive attitude of the teachers. This study examines the attitude of teachers in Bulgaria to the educational games. The teachers’ opinions are collected and an analysis of their attitudes is presented depending on several factors: the teacher’s age, the teacher’s subject, and age group of students. The obstacles for the serious games’ wide usage in Bulgarian schools are discussed. In addition, we give some thoughts about which types learning games looks to suite for implementing different pedagogical methods in particular subjects. We hope that the analysis and conclusions made in this paper can be useful for teachers and educational authorities to understand the need of ICT-based games that are effective not only for entertainment but as an teaching tool.