Talk presented at European Congress on Media Literacy, (Euromeduc). Bellaria, Italy, 2009

1. European Congress on Media Literacy Bellaria, Italie, 21-24 October 2009 Games and Interactive Medialearning just by doing Nelson Zagalo Universidade do Minho

2. Problems Videogame Literacy has the same problems that we had with Film Literacy. They are for sure a language, on their own, a media but also an art form, and so not reducible to the synthesis we have made with linguistics. There is no Grammar for Cinema (we discovered this in the 60’s) as there is no Grammar for Videogames.

3. The basics Consume, Critic and Create Audio and Visual Communication – critic Representation (drama and narrative) - create Interactivity - create Programming - create

4. Communication Critic Visual and Musical Arts

5. Representation Create Interactive Storytelling

7. Emergence

9. Videogame as an Art Form Consume, Critic and Create In the end if you want to comply with the 3 axes of literacy, being able to create will mean being able to perform multidisciplinary work. Using communication, arts, psychology and computer science very effectively. A set of knowledge, that normally is not suitable to find in only one person. There is no language or grammar - you learn by doing, by trying, by experimenting mixing different sets of knowledge – this is the quintessential of game interactivity.

10. Interact is to experiment What is the goal of teaching Interactive Media and Games? Is to use the powerful methodology of “learning by doing” not reducing it to anything related to describing or verbalizing syntaxes. The “thing” here is – experiencing through simulation - imprinting somatic sensations into the learner body and mind.