Ensino e aprendizagem de cartografia por meio de missões contextualizadas em jogos digitais de RPG

Abstract

The cartography teaching, within the context of Geography as a discipline, faces significant deficiencies due to a series of challenges that lead to learning gaps that persist throughout people's lives. The lack of resources, teacher training and updates, student disinterest, outdated teaching methodologies, among other factors, contribute to these issues. One alternative for change is to connect teaching with the students' realities, establishing links between the content and encouraging student agency in the construction of geographic knowledge, with innovations in educational technologies, particularly digital educational games, that value the students' experiences, knowledge, and identities. However, for digital games to reach their full potential, they need to be contextualized through engaging challenges that stimulate reflection, critical analysis, and engagement. In this context, one possible approach is to explore Role-Playing Games (RPG) as an environment for experimentation and the creation of quests/missions. Thus, this study aimed to develop cartographic quests within an educational digital game resource, focused on Geography education, capable of facilitating cartographic practice in an immersive and enjoyable way. This research is classified as a case study involving an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of strategies adapted for teaching and learning cartography through quests, seeking to obtain detailed knowledge of digital educational games, supported by a Systematic Literature Mapping to search for works with a similar focus on developing digital educational games in the field of Cartography. For the design and implementation of the quests, methods and techniques were used within Minecraft's modification development environment. During the activities, validations of both participants' experiences and knowledge were conducted, demonstrating a positive impact, with a significant increase in motivation among participants. Although the quests yielded satisfactory results, the formal content evaluation was unable to provide a detailed analysis of learning issues, highlighting the need for an automated approach for a more accurate assessment. This study aims to demonstrate that the active participation of teachers in the design of a digital educational game is possible, overcoming the challenges associated with the use of new digital technologies in education.