Abstract
A team of e-learning specialists was assigned the mission to design and develop seven short e-learning modules for young learners on popular topics with a prime focus on social-emotional learning. However, these courses had to be produced on a limited budget, hosted in a Moodle platform, and be delivered for free in asynchronous only mode. Hence, a playful method of meaningful storyfication was applied in e-learning to captivate attention and spark interest. In each module, a fictional story or metaphorical challenge with playful elements was introduced where learners were invited to assist the story’s protagonists or become the heroes themselves by engaging with content. As the role of teachers is vital for the adoption of technology-based solutions in education, a mixed method evaluation was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the method. Forty-two educators reviewed the courses, answered a questionnaire and participated in interviews. Results indicated that participants highly appreciated the narrative aspects, visual, and auditory elements rendering the e-learning courses effective for the target audience. This article can assist educators, distance education designers and developers to adopt a playful mindset and learn how to integrate practically storytelling elements into their classroom-based and online teaching.
Highlights
Computer-based activities such as e-learning courses can sometimes be perceived by children as uninteresting or boring tasks when they are disconnected from their interests [1]
This study aims to contribute to the elimination of tedious, monotonous content production in e-learning course design through techniques that can captivate young learners’ attention and interest towards Social-emotional learning (SEL) competence
This study focused on the teacher perceptions on the storyfication, the playful transformation through the storytelling of short online courses for school children on SEL skills, and contemporary topics related to environmental protection and citizenship
Summary
Computer-based activities such as e-learning courses can sometimes be perceived by children as uninteresting or boring tasks when they are disconnected from their interests [1]. This issue was further amplified in the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic period where all educational activities in physical spaces were canceled. As emergency remote teaching has distinct differences from distance education, the effectiveness of the former was not always desired, especially in the early stages of the pandemic [4] This unprecedented situation had an impact on pupils’ emotional and psychological state [5] increasing, for instance, anxiety levels among students [6]. Its main contribution is the suggestion of a narrative-driven procedure of storyfication to transform online learning into an engaging, motivating story in all levels of education
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