The consortium of 6 partners from 6 countries represents a best practice partnership of (small) companies, institutions, NGOs, and Universities.
The project “LearningGames” is rooted in the experience of the project promotor W-Point (Austria) with non-formal learning frameworks in adult education and his interest in researching about the cognitive and educational value of games and their practical application. The company has 12 years of experience with European projects in this area that have been repeatedly considered by the Austrian National Agency as “best practice examples”. Over the years the manager of the company Gerardo Wolf Perez has experimented with various ways of evaluating informal learning process in general and learning games in particular.
ECG - Cooperativa Cultural CRL from Portugal ECG - Cooperativa Cultural CRL from Portugal is a non-profit, multisector, startup organisation acting in a context of „social economy“. Their focus lies on formal and non-formal adult and senior training activities as well as event management, e.g. with UTIS (Senior University) of Braga. The key person of ECG for "LearningGames" is Manuel Moura contributes to these tasks with his skills as a trained I.T. systems administrator and computer programmer and his experience as a founding member of "Economia Solidaria", a proposal for an alternative economics based on the principals of reciprocity, cooperation and sharing.
The Latvian Academy of Sport Education (LASE) is the only education institution of a specialized university type in Latvia that trains sport specialists. Ieva Rudzinska, the key person for Learning Games is, together with other staff members of LASE actively involved in OSRESS (Outdoor Sports And Recreation Education Summer Schools) which is carried out by a consortium of European universities. To a great extent the summer school’s work is built on learning games and movement games.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) is part of the largest higher education campus in the UK and one of the most extensive education centres in Europe. The Faculty of Education at MMU is a leading UK centre for educational research and study. Professor Nicola Whitton leads research in professional learning and pedagogic innovation within the Education and Social Research Institute. Her research specialism is the use of games in Higher Education and she has published widely on this topic, including a recent book "Digital Games and Learning: Research and Theory" (Routledge, 2014).
A strategic activity of Sofia University, the oldest University in Bulgaria, is the preparation of future teachers and training of present teachers in different spheres of education, including education of different languages. Assoc. Prof. Ilka Birova has a big experience as a lecturer of second language education methodology and as a teacher of Russian as a second language. Her activity as a teacher and explorer at the University is closely relevant and connected with the topic of this project: as a lecturer and researcher she supports the main concept of game as an important educational method and technology in present education.
VUC Holstebro-Lemvig-Struer is part of the public education system in DK, and provides only for adults learners over 18. VUC is one of the places in Denmark where you can meet the largest diversity of people in eg. age, social group, education, political belief, religion, ... VUC makes an effort to try to bring different methods into the teaching and using games is one of them. The key person for the project is Mona Blaabjerg Nielsen who has been a teacher for 32 years and has always used games in class.