bordergames

Working ideas for the forthcoming workshops to be organized.

Introduction

Our proposal consists of working on two different levels using the action –research method as a way to work and dialogue with people.

1. First : During the morning sessions we could work with educators/ social workers/ mediators like Social Pedagögen - Erziehers- kunst und Kultur erziehers und cultural workers, vermittlerinen/ vermittlerenen, etc..

Our intention here is to discuss and get to work with the software and the dynamics used in the videogame workshops so the cultural and social mediators can gather technical skills and pedagogical strategies to build up new curricula or educational applications.

Our aims here is to discuss and design with the mediators involved from different associations/groups which activities could be developped, which strategies are needed to work with technical resources and which motivations and issues can be discussed and negotiated within the workshops with the community we are going to be engaged with. Here we hope to establish a "short term" learning community with the local mediators to enrich and produce real interchange, a shared environment of different activities and pedagogical strategies to work with Bordergames as a real toolkit to work within critical multiculturalism, intercultural projects , antiracist and no border campaigns and community and social work either with migrants or not.

2. Second : During the afternoon sessions, we could work in different Barrios ( Berzirke) and with different organizations getting some of the "morning" discussions and dynamics into the field work : scenarios, characters and basic story lines could be drawn out of these sessions, with technical applications and practical work with the people that want to be involved as future authors/user of the just produced version.

As we consider ourselves active practioners , the aim here is to put in real practice the morning discussions and activities, and then to rethink the translation of theorical frame in reality. After that we can gather more perspectives and critical reflexions of the applications, to inform again our theories and strategies, in a continuous reflexive circle between theories- praxis- theories and so on… Here we think is necessary to have a specific educative and mediating experience with groups to think about the process, and a first prototype version of Bordergames to use as a real toolkit.

Finally , some of our nicest experience has been checking how the limits between the people working in these two levels can be deleted to create dialogical learning and networking situations in learning communities. Our aim is not only to participate as teachers, but to engage new people to be in the position of teaching and appropriate the Bordergames project in new contexts and realities.

In fact two of the people coming to these workshops are two kids who started coming just for the storytelling and who are now coordinating workshops themselves. Of course, also in Berlin if there are kids willing to discuss and learn dynamics and tools we should be able to include them in the morning sessions and engage them as future educators/mediators as well…

In these last two years Fiambrera Obrera has been working to develop a completely free software for a videogame engine and editor. This software lets us not just producing easily conversational videogames but also modifying and adapting them from quite a friendly interface.

Our aims are to work/collaborate with those organizations working to enhance the autonomy of migrant populations (kids, second generations refugees, asylum seekers, no border associations etc..) who can through this set of tools approach a number of objectives:

* endowing migrants and refugees with the possibility of expressing directly what they feel to be some of the most relevant elements of their stories by writing themselves the scripts and choosing the characters and scenarios of the game. In this sense it is a possibility to recreate their own realities and life experiences in the urban space.

* getting technological literacy in 3d, character animation and basic programming which might prove useful not just for the development of their own versions of the game, but also as experience and skills for their access to the labour market and as critical application of technical resources .

For us action-research here means a formative resource method to develop workshop with mediators in which first we discuss and provide the technical skills required to use the Bordergames engine. After that we apply it into reality fostering this translation with a real community of group. This step will translate the discussions and theoretical frames to the reality itself, hoping to apply a reflexive praxis of what can be done and what it is possible in the social field to do with/by Bordergames. In this sense we hope to discuss, apply, and improve Bordergames and its critical possibilities in our shared different realities.

Our main purpose with action –research is to create networking situations and working groups, and to articulate our Bordergames proposal in the complexity of the "already activated" initiatives in the different local contexts, and then to create a level of self-sustainability for the different collectives and associations.