TY - BOOK

T1 - Independent evaluation of the Little Big Planet 2 project in Wolverhampton’s Local Education Partnership schools

T2 - Outcomes and impacts – Final report

AU - Passey, Don

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - This project and its outcomes relate in important ways to current issues raised about the future of key industries in the United Kingdom (UK). The Livingstone and Hope report (2011) highlighted a major set of issues facing the video gamesand video effects industries in the UK. As they said: “difficulties filling vacancies are having a real impact on video games and visual effects companies’ growth prospects. They are forcing some companies to recruit from abroad, turn down lucrative work and in some cases move their operations overseas”. Ray Maguire, former head of Sony Computer Entertainment UK, and now the Chair ofBAFTA’s Video Games Committee, said (in The Guardian, 2011) that he would like to see a computer club in every school to encourage young people to join these industries. In this project, 15 schools were involved, and evidence from students at the end of the project indicated that 6 more students had become interested in the video games industries, 5 more in the games software industries, and 4 more in the visual effects industries. The project helps students to think ahead. As one student said: “I think that it really helps you, as up until this, I hadn’t really thought about being in the gaming industry and that it’ssomething that you could do and a new experience of something that I have never done before”. If the level of outcomes from this project could be replicated across all 5,000 secondary schools in the UK, then 5,000 more young people would be likely to become interested in the video games and video effects industries each year. This could clearly have a marked effect on the current industry shortages.

AB - This project and its outcomes relate in important ways to current issues raised about the future of key industries in the United Kingdom (UK). The Livingstone and Hope report (2011) highlighted a major set of issues facing the video gamesand video effects industries in the UK. As they said: “difficulties filling vacancies are having a real impact on video games and visual effects companies’ growth prospects. They are forcing some companies to recruit from abroad, turn down lucrative work and in some cases move their operations overseas”. Ray Maguire, former head of Sony Computer Entertainment UK, and now the Chair ofBAFTA’s Video Games Committee, said (in The Guardian, 2011) that he would like to see a computer club in every school to encourage young people to join these industries. In this project, 15 schools were involved, and evidence from students at the end of the project indicated that 6 more students had become interested in the video games industries, 5 more in the games software industries, and 4 more in the visual effects industries. The project helps students to think ahead. As one student said: “I think that it really helps you, as up until this, I hadn’t really thought about being in the gaming industry and that it’ssomething that you could do and a new experience of something that I have never done before”. If the level of outcomes from this project could be replicated across all 5,000 secondary schools in the UK, then 5,000 more young people would be likely to become interested in the video games and video effects industries each year. This could clearly have a marked effect on the current industry shortages.

KW - video-games technologies

KW - curriculum development

KW - teamwork

M3 - Commissioned report

BT - Independent evaluation of the Little Big Planet 2 project in Wolverhampton’s Local Education Partnership schools

PB - Lancaster University

CY - Lancaster

ER -