Empowering Digital Competences of Teachers with Designing Digital Learning Materials Through Gamification

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a pre-existing need, highlighted by EU and OECD reports (Cachia et al., 2021; Humpl & Anderson, 2022; OECD, 2021), for educators to be digitally competent. The rapid transition to online learning across Europe has raised questions about whether online platforms can truly support deep and meaningful student engagement. Since the quality of online and hybrid education depends heavily on the effectiveness of instructional materials, our project directly addresses this challenge. We aim to empower teachers by enhancing their ability to create effective and innovative digital learning resources that foster student engagement and learning. To achieve this goal, our project involves designing an online platform that integrates gamification and micro-credential features to support the development of teachers’ digital competencies in a flexible and verifiable way. This platform facilitates not only the improvement of teachers' knowledge about digital materials and their applications but also the development and reflective practice of digital teaching strategies.

The main objective of implementing the project was to enhance digital competencies of teachers and teacher candidates and improve their pedagogical digital skills by developing learning materials, ,to improve access to digital competence resources for teachers and educators and develop a micro-credential system. Specifically, we aimed to design a gamified learning management system (LMS) to foster teacher digital competence using the competition, collaboration and engaging features of gamification. In addition to this, we created and embedded a micro-credential system to LMS to recognize as well as assess the progress of the participants and also give them flexibility of choosing the path of competency development that they need. Furthermore, to facilitate knowledge and skill development required for being digitally competent, we have developed 21 lessons across 4 units within the framework of DigCompEdu. To facilitate teachers use of technology in a pedagogically competent ways, we developed a guidebook where we provided teachers technical information about how to navigate through our EmpowerDigiTeach LMS as well as pedagogical suggestions and opportunities for reflection on their digital tool use in their teaching.

To achieve our project objectives, we implemented a wide range of activities, including transnational project meetings and regular monthly online meetings. We conducted a needs analysis to identify teachers' requirements and developed a gamified LMS embedded with a micro-credential structure to support their digital competence development. This LMS hosts all educational materials, including videos, presentations, lesson content, and gamification elements for the digital competency course and micro-credentials. All materials are accessible across Europe: https://lms.empowerdigiteach.eu/education/?lang=en. Additionally, we: -Created 21 lessons across four units to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to develop their digital competency. -Designed a guidebook to support teachers in refining their digital pedagogy through reflective practice. -Conducted pilot tests, gathered feedback, and iteratively improved the final products. -Monitored activities and outcomes with project partners to ensure quality and alignment with objectives. -Organized multiplier events in each partner country to disseminate project results.

The project resulted in several concrete outputs as well as broader outcomes inluding: - We conducted a need analysis survey to determine the needs as well as gaps in teachers' digital competency by benefiting from the DigiCompEdu framework. - We developed high quality training materials including lessons plans, reading materials, presentation, videos and assessment tasks in 21 lesson across four units. - We created an innovative online learning platform, called EmpowerDigiTeach LMS, with gamification features embedded within the system to support teachers ongoing learning and collaboration. - We developed a micro-credential system including badges and certificated to be awarded to teachers as a result of their successful participation in the relevant learning materials - We developed a guidebook for teacher to help them develop and reflect on their practices related to integrating digital tools into their teaching. - We conducted pilot studies across four countries - All intellectual outputs were translated into partner languages and English to ensure accessibility and broader use. - We raised awareness and disseminated the results of our project by conducting multiplier events and publishing academic papers and presentations.