KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Regular:	Respondent
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

Hello?
Hello, can you hear me?
Hi, I can hear you, that’s good. 
Okay, great.  
Hey and I can see you now, hello.  
Well lovely to meet you, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed.  This is my first interview for this project, so if I’m a bit rusty, then you know why.  But basically what I’m intending to do is start off by just very briefly giving you a quick outline of the project, the kind of things we might talk about today, I’ll seek your verbal consent to record the interview and then we’ll get started if that’s okay?
Okay, no problem.  Also for me, I’m not sure that I am the right person to interview, so at the end if I am no good answerer, we can consider it. 
I’m sure you will have plenty to say.  I’ll talk about who we’ve contacted as well, just so you know why we’ve contacted you, but basically the project itself Gaming Horizons, it’s a project funded by the EU as part of the Horizon-2020 funding.  We’re intending to look at the ways in which video games can play a role in education, in culture, in society and we’re seeking the opinions of people we’re calling experts, we’re considering you an expert in your field, as someone who has done some work around video games in your area.  
Now that doesn’t mean that we expect people who we’re interviewing to have a wide perspective on everything about gaming, but what we’re going to do is, when we’ve recorded and transcribed and anonymised these interviews, we’ll be putting together what everyone’s saying, and kind of looking at the kind of landscape across research, across design, we’re speaking to some players of games, so we’re seeking views from a range of different stakeholders.  So that’s the project, the interview itself is going to be – I’ve not got a set list of questions, it’s going to be more informal, more open, feel free to stop me at any point.  There’s certainly not an expectation of right or wrong answers, if you’re not sure of anything then just say, I’m not sure.  We’re just trying to get your opinion really, now I need to seek verbally your agreement that this interview is being recorded. 
I cannot hear you. 
Can you hear me now?
Yes, now, now yes. 
I need to seek your agreement that this, or your understanding and agreement that this recording, or this interview’s being recorded, is that okay?
Yes, I agree that you record this interview, and then I will send you the document signed that you sent me yesterday. 
That’s great, thank you.  It will be transcribed, it will be anonymised and we can share the transcript with you if you would like as well, so you can see if you’re okay with what’s been said. 
Okay, nice, I will appreciate this.  
Okay, great.  So I’m just going to start, I’ve got possible areas for us to talk about and we’ll basically see where our conversation goes, and we’re aiming to talk for about half an hour, if the conversation goes that far, if that’s okay with you?
Yes, perfect. 
Lovely, thank you.  So first of all if you could just give me any kind of idea, any indication of your research interests and how they might connect with gaming?  So anything about your history in relation to gaming and research would be appreciated. 
Okay. I started using games in education many years ago, when I, not video games but only games, with some schools, classrooms of pupils in which they collaborate at least [0:05:19] to play some games at recess.  After this, I always thought that games could be a very great opportunity for learning and I managed a big project here in my region about ICT and education in schools, and then I co-founded an association with – it’s called [D Scholar 0:05:46] each top scholar and with them we have some, I don’t know how, some reasoning, because in 2011 there was a reform in the higher schools in which the computer science became compulsory, but the teachers were not really prepared for that.  The computer science was taught as an impassive mode, you only had to learn to use Office or something like that.  So we, as an association, [0:06:27] about using computer science and so on, promoted some coding, support for coding and also for this reason we organised some contests and training about using coding for designing video games.  So the idea was to train teachers and then ask the teacher to train pupils about the coding.  But the nice thing was that no training was made for students in designing video games, but they do, they already have some models and so it’s a six-years spent that we organised this initial contest about the video games, development in schools, and we started with the first year, so higher schools and then from this year we also open it to the primary schools and the younger [boys 0:07:32].  
For allowing these experiences and using the video games and coding I, and also because I was part of another project, a European project that was called BooGAmes, was called BooGAmes and was a European project, about European policy in the video games industry.  So I had the opportunity to know different policies in different regions for developing video games industry.  So the idea was not to have some kind of research, in how video games are used for learning, but how video games could be useful for development in some regions.  
And following the experience with video games, I was involved with another European project which was Jam Today in which, and the idea was that the best way to use games in education was to organise Game Jam so we started with the, it was my first experience of organising a Game Jam and we have some kind of constraint, so we have a three-year project in which every year the model was the same.  Some expert defined the content of the Game Jam, the assignment, so the first year was about ICT skills, the second year was about healthy lifestyles and the third year was about mathematic skills.
So my real work was in terms of, not really about the research, but about organising this kind of [0:09:32].  It was very nice, because I got in contact with some video games independent students in my region.  We don’t have really a great video game industry in Italy, we are growing, but most of the studios are very, very small, two or three people, very young, [they invest from themselves 0:09:54] and then they make.  But for example in my town, in Torino, some studios organised the sense to work together and they got into their association, but it’s called T like Turin Union, and they work together in order to reinforce each other.  I talked with them and they helped me in organising the Game Jam, so I had the support of some kind of experts.  
We did a lot, this first Game Jams also, they organised in the same year, it was 2014, the first global Game Jam in Torino, so they made it a global Game Jam generally and we made the first Jam Today, Game Jam in June and it was very nice because we had a very good participation about one-hundred people, mostly students, university students and some of them have the experience in the Game Jam and found some kind of opportunity for work.  
In terms of research I would, after the Game Jam, before the cycle was, before some expert deal with the topic of the year, for example the first year was about ICT skills, they did find an assignment at the European level, all the partners of the project, and we are twenty-five partners in all, around Europe, organised that the local Game Jam, following the guidelines of the experts and then what the output of the Game Jams were some submitted to the teachers.  The idea was to make some kind of teacher training, asking them to evaluate the results of the Game Jam and to tell us if the video games designing could be useful, or could be some way used in the classroom.  
The first year was very, I meet a very big [0:12:18] but also some kind of frustration from the Italian feature because the idea of video games in classrooms was not really appreciated from the parents for example, because most of them said, ah my children are always on this console, please – and school stop with this, because I don’t need them to play some extra hours.  It’s very difficult, or maybe also some colleagues, as you know Italy has the average age of a teacher in Italy is fifty-one years old, so it’s very difficult to involve a teacher in changing their methodology of teaching and so on.  
But these things in any case are growing also here, also because coding was becoming always popular in Italy.  We were the nation with the most participation in Europe, called [0:13:36] and this is part, also tomorrow I will be in, a round table, because we get our local fair booker, that is called Salone [0:13:50] and the university is going to present a new, I don’t know, degree for educators in which they want to include also gaming, big data and other technological aspects.  So I’m very happy because they were spending very – good jobs for example, starting with the layer of evidence based education and they already are making work in classifying the kind of gaming for the different way of these could help in learning.  This is great news for our university, because the person at this teacher training was not now including these kind of schemes and competences.  
So this is in a way, a general way my experience with gaming, so I’m not a developer, I’m not a game designer, I’m a big fan of using video games in education, but my real activity is not really in say research, in video games. 
That’s great.  What you’ve talked about there is fantastic, and you’ve covered so many areas that I wanted, and want to talk about, so in terms of you being an expert I would absolutely class you as an expert in your field, and you have covered an awful lot already, so that’s fantastic.  
What you’ve just said then, there’s so many different directions I could go with asking questions next.  I think there are so many possibilities for how I could ask you the next question, but I think, I’m going to talk about, you mention some kind of resistance from teachers in terms of gaming, and there’s a difficulty there in getting gaming brought into education.  In light of that, what do you feel, why do you feel it’s worth doing?  What are the benefits of bringing video games into education?
I can talk from an empirical point of view because of course gaming raise motivation for students, they are very happy when they go to use a, every teacher who tells you her or his experience with gaming is poor said the same thing, students won’t stop to study when they use a – always the best is if the game was not a so-called serial or educational games.  
For example, I read an interview of a teacher in Rome that uses serialisation for teaching the history of Rome in a secondary school and she said that students [want stock 0:16:52].  Another experience in our city at also higher, they talked about this in Torino generally, and I heard a colleague from a secondary school here, he had to speak about the refugee, Syria refugee with his student, and this was very unhappy because there is some little deep in this kind of discussion, so he thinks to put the students in the situation of being a Syrian refugee and they, he made them to design a video game and a picture video game, very easy but about the, because it’s easier a job, that means treat the trouble, and they had to be some teams in which the father is the leader of the teams and they had to decide if they wanted to bring the men some kind of object stuff.  And so he said that it was very, very good the result and he’s planning to make some kind of, using this methodology for drop-out students.  I already said that to Geoffrey, the name of this teacher is Marcello [0:18:12] I don’t know if you get in touch with him. 
Oh that would be useful to have his details.  
Yeah.  
Yeah if you could send, if we haven’t got his details, if you can send them through that would be fantastic. 
Yes, I gave these to Geoffrey I don’t know if he passed them. 
Geoff will have them then, that’s great, thank you.   He will be on our list. 
Yes, and Marcello for example, he’s also a developer, so he also, he is in the video games studios working and now he’s organising some training workshop for schools at primary and secondary level.  
Every time we talk about video games in schools, most people say, you make the school become a [Luna 0:44:52] park, this is – we need students to learn more and it’s very difficult to demonstrate that the video games are, for example, I found some studios about, they were imagining, they demonstrated a competition, something of them, make deeper learning, but I think we really need some very good practice in order to demonstrate and then this kind of discussion, evidence based maybe could help, because we have told them, please look at this data, it’s not fair because we are thinking about millennials or digital [0:20:00] these kind of things that are not scientific content.  But you can see that really using gaming, the right game for the right [0:20:12] could bring some benefits.  
It sounds like you’re seeing benefits, you’re first-hand seeing benefits but you feel that there’s not evidence there that can persuade others who are resistant to using games, would that be a correct kind of summary?
Yes, I think the best thing that would work as an example is that the teacher heard from their colleagues, because if I say something or a university professor said something, or a researcher said something, they didn’t accept, because they say, you are not with me in the classroom, you are not managing the student, you didn’t know really the problems we have to face every day.  
But instead, if they heard their colleagues that say, I use this kind of thing in my classroom and I see one, two, three, they are going to follow to her and to ask them more than the researcher.  So we need, or I need, because I really – to find some kind of breach, for example, some teachers that are easily involved with in research but are interested in [find more 0:21:34] and then using them as an ambassador in the school in order to use this kind of methodology. 
Thank you.  You’ve talked a bit there and you’ve mentioned once or twice the idea of serious games and entertainment games, and people often make that distinction, is that a distinction you make yourself?  Do you think of there being entertainment games and serious games?  I’m just interested in how you think about those terms?
Oh I didn’t appreciate much the serious game [0:22:13] I prefer light games, but because I work in the direction of the design institute and I understand that for example using a serious game is not really, hmm, it’s like [0:22:28].  Also I appreciate very much the alternative reality game, I read in the press very much [0:22:37].  But people, I’m not sure can appreciate the distinction, even though we are talking generally as parents or something like that.  Also now the parents are thirty years’ old people that should have played in their [0:23:01] with games and this is very different now, in respect of, not so much, also seven, eight years ago, some things are changing from this way.  But I see that there are very, very – they are very worried because they see that the most sensitive -  they see that their child are so full of these kind of tools they didn’t like, some of them didn’t like the child using these tools also in the school, so, also it could be convincing that they are not, they’re negative with technology.  
But they appreciate for example, in Italy, I notice there is some kind of movement about open education, intended as open air education and that’s bringing the child outside and make them run and play with nature.  But for example, one, it’s a big problem, for example, here in Italy is that most of the parents didn’t know also the EG classification.  So they, for example, we had some kind of problem with the government because of some members of the parliament that was against video games, and tell things about, that a child was using very violent games.  We are trying to explain that this is some kind of classification, they should know, but it’s not so. 
So there’s kind of ethical concerns there around different sorts of games and games not being one thing, but multiple different things, and two more for different audiences.     
We’ve talked a fair bit about video games being brought into the classroom and having a role in the classroom, I’m interested to ask, what do you feel the role of game─
Sorry, I didn’t hear you. 
That’s okay.  I said, we’ve talked a bit about games in the classroom, I’m wondering do you feel that there’s a benefit to video game play outside of the classroom, the kind of games that children or adults, or people play as part of their leisure or cultural lives, or part of entertainment.  What kind of role do you feel that they have in society?
I haven’t that experience now because my daughter is very old, out of home.  But for example, I know that some people really develop a great skill also outside the school and mostly outside school.  You know, for example, to be very informative about a topic connected to the game.  Or, for example, there is a kind of, YouTube VIP which they are recording themselves playing and they become a very big influencer because very good with speaking online, so I know that for example, when there are some kind of fair here for example, comics, books, fairs, there is also video games, many people are going there to meet their idol, they’re playing on there, and many, many students are interested in gaining a VIP on YouTube because of their playing.  
On the other side I was very surprised when I read the book of Leigh Stones about, called The Class, in which she said that family doesn’t know at all what their child, or what children are doing with the computer at home.  
Also the teacher didn’t know what the students are going with, the computer at home, because she brought – there is a real separation between the two courts, and the competencies of the children and you develop at home, or with computer, are not [0:28:04] in any way.  So I think that could be very interesting for example, with when, definitely, because sometimes it happens that teachers are informant about some kind of interest the students have outside the schools, and they try to, I don’t know, report into the school, report into the life of the children.  
For example, I heard about some episode of cyberbullying in a school and it’s not really connected with the games but it’s one of the older students was very fond of [0:28:49] and using this kind of competencies, the teacher asked him to become a tutor for small children and so this helped in, overcome bullies [0:29:03].  So maybe if, I think that the real – now some kind of cap is very difficult to, to dissolving for example for the age of the teacher and I think that they’re really reciprocal teaching, of peer teaching in this kind of way would be very useful. 
Okay, that’s great, thank you very much. 
I just want to briefly return to something you were talking about earlier, because I think I could probably benefit from you just talking a little bit more about it.  You talked about the Game Jam sessions, would it be possible to just briefly outline what a Game Jam might look like?  If I was in a Game Jam, if I was there observing it, what sorts of things would you see going on in a Game Jam?
Okay, the Game Jam is very interesting because usually the rule is that you don’t have to make it, you have to make a team.  You have to make a team for developing the video game and you should have different skills in your team, because you need some computer experts, some artists, and some game designers.  So usually what happens is that people meet at the start of the day, the assignment was discovered and then people, who don’t know themselves, try to start to build these teams.  This is already a very nice part because people have to present themselves to the others, or maybe to present his or her idea for the games, and the others will decide to be part of the team for the ideas they are presenting.  
Then it was, the first part is almost one day, or six to eight hours is about designing the game, video game, so they have to identify the idea, the kind of game they want to develop, and for example, we have set also board games, not necessarily a video game, so for example, in the, like in the second edition it was about healthy lifestyle, a student of economies, economics students developed a board game in which you have some kind of resources at the first day of your life and you have to employ them in the best way in order to live longer. Then after the – during the Game Jam there are also available, some tutors or mentors, or experts which the different teams could ask for help in order to solve some idea and to check that their ideas are ready, I don’t know, coherent with the assignment for example.  Something happens that they already have some kind of game in their mind and they want to modify or using that idea in a different contest.  
So for example, it happened to me that following the first edition about the ICT skill there was a developer, a clinical game, and I asked, I should’ve told them that it is not correct with the assignment.  Or maybe one thing, but it’s very nice, because I think the Game Jam are very useful for learning and then we talk also about the other schemes they start.  It’s better they don’t have a clear idea of the time constraint and the resource constraints, they have big ideas, they want to make a very wonderful game the first day, and then the second day they are completely frustrated because they see that they cannot realise what they expected to do. 
In our Game Jam they, usually they last two days with the night included, but the global Game Jam for example is two nights and two days, so they have more contact.  
People who attend the Game Jam also if they have any specific skills, no one will ask what value they want to do, but also you can attend because you’re interested in the topic.  For example, my difficulties was to involve the teacher in Game Jam, because of course having a teacher on an expert of the topic in the team, it’s very useful but of course people don’t like to [0:34:13] one weekend at some stage of their life.  
Also living together in the same room for a matter of two days and a night is very, I don’t say, very useful for building and for example, I see in the second edition there was a very big problem with one team, also the formation of teams are interesting, because the most effective team are three or five people, but if they are eight or more every time something happens and for example it was an issue with healthy, it was a psychology team and at the end they were working in separate rooms because there was some problems amongst them.  
So they learn to respect the constraints of time, they learn to respect the scope of the game, they have to make brainstorming, re-formulating an idea, they have to work together with people they don’t know, with different backgrounds and they will learn a lot.  So for example, I see that people who came one time return because it’s considered a mix of learning, engagement, entertainment because also there is some kind of entertainment, people don’t sleep and continue to work, eat and play, it’s very, very good experience. 
It sounds like those people are drawn into that experience by the idea of gaming and the idea of games, and that’s the motivational factor that gets them in the room together, would that be correct?
Yes, yes.  Of them, some ideas continue to develop after the Game Jam.  For example, some kind of team tried to continue to work, or one presenter, not in my Game Jam, but in the global Game Jam and the first Game Jam in Torino, there was a team with a blind girl with them and they did a lot with their game, from the point of view of a blind girl, and it’s going to be published in the States, so it could be also an interesting – and the thing that said, Marcello [0:37:22] is with the game we understand, we become empathetic with students, but what I think is also that students became empathetic with different situations, they can play other roles, so it could be very useful for learning. 
It sounds really worthwhile and really fascinating and actually something that sounds fun to be involved with as well.  So it’s great, sounds really good. 
I’m conscious of the time, I’m going to ask one final question if that’s okay.  I just want to ask about how you see the future in this area, so I suppose thinking of gaming and we’ve talked a lot about education or gaming and society, what do you feel are the opportunities for the future in this  area?  And the challenges in this area?
Regarding the opportunity, I think, but I’m not the only one, many studies say that gamification would be very interesting for everything, so you can have a rehabilitation, or I don’t know how to say brain activity for [0:38:42] people using gaming and so on.  So we have to discover all these opportunities, from the development of people but also for the economic development, because for example it would be developing games also to work.  Also if you are in a depressed area, for example, i.e. I have a colleague that is a very good graphic that works with a company in the US and makes graphics at his home in the night. 
From the other point of view we should have some kind of charities in order to know that, I don’t know, I think that Facebook for example is a great example of communication and it’s really difficult sometimes not to become addicted to these kind of things.  So this is the master, I also read an article in which they said that also religion is kind of gamifying and in the future when we have less work for people and because many of these - they are talking about the rising of the useless class, which are people who don’t ever work and became useless and that we need some kind of activity to make them be occupied, and if they thought about the gaming or the art, or something like this.  This is at the end of things I didn’t like to see in the future.  
Okay, yeah, definitely.  
Thank you very much, and before I turn the audio off, is there anything that we’ve not covered that you’d like to say?  Is there anything that you think, I’d actually quite like to talk about but we haven’t done so far?
No, at this stage the only other topics that we did not cover that I’m also working on is about the gender in video games.  So there is something about, so sex [0:41:07] something happens, usually about women developing gaming better and some kind of [0:41:17] from others, and also I’d like to, I don’t know, I think it’s mostly a problem of the industry not about the learning actually.  But I’d like, that also the industry will be more attentive to this kind of problem because for example, I think they’ve solved it now but from two years ago or more, there was a case of a young girl that she wanted to play with a female avatar, she had to play with a male avatar.  
Do you see, in the kind of activities that you organise in terms of gender, do you see less of a take-up or less of an interest from girls?
Yes, because this is the side of developing, so it’s considered that, it’s part of the general problem of gender games, and less interest from girls in scientific activities for example, we have some kind of, a Game Jam for girls especially because she were some kind of scared but if you interview them they said, no, no, no, for me it’s the same, I don’t feel so – but the numbers say other things so for example when I organised the first Game Jam I had about eighty-five percent of male and the number increased but also the majority of people, participants [0:43:05] may not be men. 
What do you think needs to change that picture?  You talked about the industry, what would need to change in the industry to make it more of an equal opportunity?  That’s a big question, I don’t expect you to solve it.
I don’t know, because I think I was working [0:43:34] schools, let’s organise an activity involving girls, for example in the contest we had the schools here, we have, in the final at primary school, three male and two female, in the higher school we have only one female, on five, so something happens after ten years old, because until that age things are quite the same, but after then, something happens because I don’t know, a model of something girls became disinterested, not more interested in these kind of things. 
So something changes.
Yeah.
If you’ve got that kind of involvement at a younger age then there’s something there happening, as children get older. 
Yeah.  
Thank you very much.  We’ve covered so much and you have absolutely make a contribution to this project through your answers, so I really, really appreciate your involvement and yeah, just like to thank you for your time.