This article reports on the longitudinal development of a computer-programming course designed to meet the needs of students who enrolled in a specific higher education game development programme during the period of 2006 to 2010. The students came from three different arts and designrelated strands of the programme, and had that in common that very few had taken advanced science classes as part of their upper-secondary education. This again meant that they were rather poorly equipped for learning computer programming, which they needed to master in order to tap into the full potential of the interactive and creative processes which their computers allowed for. Consequently, the programming course was designed in a way that allowed the students to practically engage in creating a computer game alongside being taught the actual programming skills, as well as the mathematics and physics needed in order to efficiently utilise those skills. A working hypothesis for the project was that if the responsible teachers were able to run the course in a way that cohered with the principles of problem-based learning, this would create an environment which would enhance the students' motivation to learn basic programming as well as the operative and innovation skills needed for fulfilling the course requirements. In addition, ideas developed within the field of situated learning constituted theoretical points of departure for developing the course. The article describes the practical and theoretical points of departure for developing the programming course and reflects on the experiences made from running it. Summing up, the authors conclude that the why and how of teaching needs to be in line with students' worlds in order for educational experiences to be considered as meaningful.

Many researchers, for example J.P. Gee, have been pointing out for years that game playing can give good learning. When school topics is Gamified we tap into the most important and established learning theories such as, Problem Based Learning, Situated Learning, Social Identity, Experiential Learning (learning by doing and learning just in time) and more. While this alone argues for using game playing in learning, we can add to this list.These days, children not only play games, but also modify them from early age, and this can be beneficial also in school. Letting the children do their own game development broadens the learning perspective even further and opens up new possibilities. Game development underpins creativity and let the children work with arts, design, animation and storytelling. It also develops technical skills such as programming, system thinking and requires basic understanding of mathematics and physics. And teaching the theoretical science while they are about to code it for their game is way more interesting and effective. And of course, it does so while the children have fun -the children hardly notice the learning because they are making games.Game development also invites informal learning into the classroom. If the children present their game ideas on the Internet and in game forums, they also get new highly skilled peers, from all over the world. This will also teach them language and cooperation, digital skills and competition, tradition and culture… Internet these days reflects all aspects of the real world.The children build on skills they already have [1] -most of them have been playing games or developed them in their spare time or even before they started in school. Which is mandatory for good learning [2].In Hedmark University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) we have used game development in teaching for almost 10 years, both for game students and teachers, and this presentation will give some examples on how to implement this in practice.HUAS has a complete game development tracks since 2003, and is now one of the biggest and most complete game educations in Scandinavia with 250 game students. HUAS also have various teacher educations and have the latest years also given teacher education in using and development games for learning.

Yes, they can! This presentation gives some examples from a project where ordinary elementary school teacher's design and implement games for their own teaching. Their assignment was simpledevelop and implement a pervasive game that can be played in the school and the local community during one school day. The game should be based on the Norwegian national curriculum goals, and should include digital clues, videos, animations and digital games, as well as a well-written story that connected the game to the curriculum and the learning goals. Many of the teachers made the digital games themselves in Kodu (Microsoft) or similar game apps for iOS or Android. Some teachers even made collaboration with other classes in schools thousands of kilometers away. We will show that what the children learn from the game is very cross-disciplinary and can be connected to other topics and learning goal than the main one, including history, language, geography, gymnastics, science (mathematics and physics), digital competence etc.The project was a collaboration projects between two Norwegian teacher educations in Game Based Learning. It was implemented between 2012 and 2015, and the classes for the teachers were implemented several times during this period. In HUC the course included teacher students are in their 4 th educational year as well as experienced teachers that had worked in elementary school for years.The games were implemented and tested in their classes or in their educational practice. The course required no previous knowledge in game design or digital skills.

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