Video game dynamics in unplugged mode for innovative and inclusive teaching

The authors of this essay analyze the educational opportunities offered by video games by experimenting with an unplugged design, carried out within the framework of a Laboratory of Educational Technologies at the Degree Course in Primary Education Sciences at the University of Roma Tre. The aim was to enable students, future teachers, to build, in teams, a video game environment that could be reproduced even in the absence of the digital devices on which it is usually implemented and through which it can be reproduced. This last circumstance can occur in many school complexes, unfortunately still lacking adequate structures and instruments. The educational and pedagogical mission of the Laboratory was also to allow future teachers to experiment in a protected environment, the university one, the video game principles applicable even in disadvantaged class contexts. The educational objective was to ensure that the students involved in the design of the game master the philosophy of gamification, so that they could take advantage of it wisely and consciously in their future classes.