Finger on the screen: Using a strategy video game to mediate curricular learning

A multidisciplinary university team (Chilean-Spanish) and teachers at a public school in the region of Valparaíso (Chile) carried out an initiative to design and implement an educational sequence that, by including the use of the strategy video game Age of Empires in their activities, could mediate curricular learning in the subject areas of social science and mathematics. The application of this class design involved working with 78 students at K7 level, who made use of the video game in three ways: levelling, inquiry and evaluation. A descriptive case study methodology was used to compile and analyse data in order to identify and describe the sessions and the interaction types occurring in the relationship between peers, the role of the teacher and the contribution of the video game. The main results show, on the one hand, how important it is (i) for teachers to learn how to play, (ii) for them to take part in a co-operative forum to design new settings for learning, and on the other hand, (iii) the types of collaboration and co-operation emerging among students, and (iv) the opportunities offered by the video game to approach the facts of phenomena.