Play, playfulness and gamification (PlaPlaGa)

Societies, organizations and individuals would benefit on more playful approach to the everyday encounters and to learning, education and wellbeing. Although playfulness has been studied from 1970's, its connection with higher education, teacher education and teacher work remain scarce. We investigate play, playful, gamified, and arts-based interactional processes in authentic settings, and consider individuals as embodily personalities. Participants in our studies include children, students, pre-service and in-service teachers in different environments. Environments refer to affordances that can be found for instance indoors, outdoors, nature, digital technologies, and FabLabs. We employ quantitative and qualitative methods, particularly participatory hands-on, mind-on and body-on approaches. The results are useful when developing educational programmes and their curricula, enhancing work life expertise in the field, and cultivating better pedagogical practices. In addition, the results are useful in guiding decision-making in the society.

MANIFESTO Play, Playfulness, Gamification (PlaPlaGa)

Every researcher is a creative collaborator, a source of insight, and a genuine individual with unique strengths and perspectives.
Creative collaboration thrives when we remain open to new ideas and emerging phenomena. It takes readiness to embrace uncertainty, willingness to learn from failures, trust in one another, and a spirit of curiosity and playfulness. Collaboration is a skill and a mindset.
We believe in the power of shared knowledge, shared emotions, and shared presence.
We believe in bold ideas and in hands on, mind on, body on, and senses on ways of working.
We believe in pedagogical use of emergent technologies.
We believe in the possibilities that arise when science, playfulness and art meet, and in the transformative potential of human interaction.
We bring together people driven by passion and purpose, confident that they will inspire one another, and inspire change in the world.
This is PlaPlaGa—welcome in!

Play. Think. Transform. Together.