In this 30 minute webinar in English, Elena Shliakhovchuk (PhD) will share her thoughts on:

"The Refugee and migrant crisis: Can video games help?"

Video games and refugees”, this might sound like an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Games are fun. Social and political issues are problematic and complex. It is hard to imagine someone playing with these serious topics.  

However, video games already offer extremely powerful alternative education models. Gaining hands-on experience with differing worldviews and experimenting with different identities are the things that video games allow. As a result, people who enjoy playing video games may find it appropriate to learn about serious social and political topics from the same favourite medium.

Can video games challenge the existing mindset? Can video games assist in changing “fixed mental attitudes” towards “culturally other”?  Can videogames help to understand “others” and “strangers" better? Can video games be an awareness raiser and an agent of social change?

During this webinar, I will answer these and other questions from the existing current research point of view. Furthermore, I will name some proven-to-be-effective titles that you could start using immediately in your teaching practice, and I will give you some handy tips on how to teach with video games. 

Dr. Elena Shliakhovchuk is a pracademic, a digital game-based learning and teaching expert, intercultural trainer and consultant with 10+ years of experience working in real (Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Spain and France) and virtually. She is a speaker at international research conferences and an author, a peer-reviewer and an editor of articles, chapter and books on the topic of EdTtech and GBL. Contributed as an author of interactive tools for developing intercultural competence (diversophy® Ukraine, CulturalDetective® Ukraine, CultureConnector by Argonaut® Ukraine). Regional coordinator of SIETAR Spain.