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From Sustainable Mobility to Good Deeds: Supporting School Participation during COVID-19 Emergency through a Playful Education Platform

Published: 24 June 2021 Publication History

Abstract

The COVID-19 emergency has posed many challenges to the worldwide school system leading to school closures and massive adoption of distance education. These events affected not only the way education is delivered but also the overall school community’s wellbeing and cohesion. In this paper, we present a playful education platform originally designed to promote sustainable mobility in schools that has been adapted to support distance learning and community engagement during the health emergency. In the original version of the platform, the home-school distances traveled by students with sustainable means contributed to the advancement of the whole class in a collective virtual trip associated with playful learning material. Conversely, in a revised version of the platform adapted to the new context, students could advance in the virtual trip by reporting the good deeds performed at home. Findings from 161 questionnaires completed by teachers, families, and students, as well as results from online workshops with students, and the analysis of log files at the end of the school year revealed the opportunities and limitations of converting a playful activity conceived for being experienced in class into an online activity to be completed at home. The results show that the adapted version contributed to the school community cohesion and provided a positive experience to all its members, even though it was not able to completely overcome the generalized feeling of isolation. This paper contributes to understanding the social value of collaborative and playful digital activities that involve the entire school community, showing how technology can impact education and support communities in times of crisis.

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  • (2023)"We picked community over privacy": Privacy and Security Concerns Emerging from Remote Learning Sociotechnical Infrastructure During COVID-19Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100367:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023

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cover image ACM Conferences
IDC '21: Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
June 2021
697 pages
ISBN:9781450384520
DOI:10.1145/3459990
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 24 June 2021

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Author Tags

  1. COVID-19
  2. Distance learning
  3. Playful education
  4. Sustainability

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  • Research-article
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  • Refereed limited

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  • Fondazione VRT

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IDC '21
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IDC '21: Interaction Design and Children
June 24 - 30, 2021
Athens, Greece

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Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

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IDC '25
Interaction Design and Children
June 23 - 26, 2025
Reykjavik , Iceland

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  • (2023)"We picked community over privacy": Privacy and Security Concerns Emerging from Remote Learning Sociotechnical Infrastructure During COVID-19Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100367:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023

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