Partner – The Three Cubes
Location – Klaipėda, Šalčininkai, Šiauliai, Švenčionys, Vilnius regions
Since 2022
Super Citizen was a civic education and media literacy project that aimed to foster change in the teaching and learning practices prevalent in Lithuanian secondary schools. The project employed technology and computer games to teach students resilience to disinformation, as well as active citizenship. A teacher-led sequence of six lessons was included, where the students connected to the Minecraft computer game platform and performed collaborative activities and tasks on the topics of disinformation resilience and civic action.
Studies have found that the contemporary teenager spends around seven hours each day using computers/mobile phones, which has increased two-fold since 2015. Moreover, concerns are frequently voiced that technology is involving even younger children, and that such extensive screen time is non-productive or even harmful. Therefore, the Super Citizen project aimed to challenge this popular belief and demonstrate that time spent playing computer games may indeed be useful, because it provides students with an opportunity to solve various real-life challenges through play. The major topics covered during the project were civil rights and responsibilities, disinformation, recognising fake news and the investigation of information sources. The project concluded with an event and panel discussion exploring the question, “How do computer games in schools help fight disinformation?”, which was broadcast live on Lithuanian news platforms.
This initiative offered valuable examples of learning and teaching through play. In the growing meta environment, the aim of such projects is to support the implementation of new educational technologies and incorporate them not only into non-formal settings, but also into the formal education environment. Through using computer games to simulate real-world issues covering a range of topics related to disinformation, critical thinking and democratic participation, the students developed essential skills to make informed decisions and advocate their beliefs and opinions in their communities.
During the project:
Over 1,500 students aged 13–17 years from 35 schools and 80 classes participated in the project
An 86% approval rate was received by the participating students, who indicated that during the lessons they increased their knowledge about resilience to disinformation and strengthened their collaboration, critical thinking, leadership and problem-solving skills
A positive impact was reported by the teachers, who all increased their competences in digital literacy and expressed a intention to use these skills in other lessons and/or daily life
The majority of the students showed strong interest in the lessons and rated the content at an average of 9 out of 10, while 92% of the students indicated an interest in learning through game-based methods in other school subjects