A visiting study of partners of the Erasmus+ project «GameHub: University-enterprises cooperation in game industry in Ukraine» Number 561728-EPP-1-2015-1-ES -EPPKA2-CBHE-JP was held in the University of Applied Sciences FH-JOANNEUM in Graz, Austria from 20 to 24 June 2016.

The Ukrainian partners of GameHub project consortium are: National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Odessa National Polytechnic University, Precarpatian National University and Donetsk National Technical University.

The European partners of GameHub project consortium are: University of Deusto and Foundation of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain), AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow, Poland), FH Joanneum University (Graz, Austria), Virtualware Labs (Bilbao, Spain), Quality Austria (Viden, Austria).

The program of this visiting study provided theoretical and practical studying workgroups from Ukrainian universities by the members of well-known company Quality Austria on developing qualification requirements to undergraduate students preparation, and by the representatives of FH Joanneum University on education through play, as well as methodical and didactic ware of the education through play.

The other five Ukrainian Universities belonging to the project consortium such as National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Odessa National Polytechnic University, Precarpatian National University and Donetsk National Technical University, were also the members of training.

The organizers tried to share their experience of determining and formalizing the key learning competencies with Ukrainian partners. It can be used for the representing the system of competencies for computer game developers within GameHub project.

The learning material was proposed in the view of interesting problem tasks. The representatives of Ukrainian universities were involved in the solving of these tasks.

So, the team method of problem solving was chosen as a base form of learning. The total discussion was held at the conclusion of each task performance.

The result of the detailed discussions was defining the model of competencies, which are necessary for involvement of Ukrainian university graduates into the field of computer games development.

Some trainings were devoted to the methods of the education through play. It’s known that using computer games is a question of present interest, because computer games is a unique product of information technologies development. They help to model different situations, define the problems and investigate possible ways of their solving. The game contains all necessary conditions for intellectual growth of personality and society as a whole.

 The agenda provided familiarization of Ukrainian partners with new learning computer game “Stop Disasters”, where the learning process was integrated into the game situations. The members of trainings were proposed to determine the basic obtained competencies based on the game results.

Learning through game is a fruitful and promising method, which can be used in practice successfully.  Games are useful not only because of their content but they can be as training simulators for developing some human abilities, which include professional. The practical value of learning games is obvious.

The interesting excursion around the University FH Joanneum was held for the workgroups.