Role play game to prevent school bullying

Fear not: a new interactive game lets you be an invisible friend of someone bullied at school.

Currently, over 1,000 children in Europe are part of a pilot study which aims to explore the impact of the software, named ‘Fear Not!’, and its impact on bullying among pupils.
 
Scientists from the UK, Germany and Portugal who have contributed to the application are all members of Kaleidoscope, a pan-European research network on technology-enhanced learning.
 
In the game, children take on the role of an invisible friend to a victimised character to discuss the problems, possible solutions and coping strategies. The subsequent advice could help a victim in real life.
 
“This 3D interactive virtual environment provides a safe haven for individual children, where they witness bullying scenarios without being directly involved,” said Rui Figueiredo, a scientist at the Institudo de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores in Portugal and one of the Kaleidoscope researchers involved in the project.

Emergent narrative techniques

“We use emergent narrative techniques, which enable the learner to direct the path the story should follow.”
 
Bullying is an often underestimated problem in the everyday life of school children, and studies show that this behaviour can be found in nearly every school and that the incidence is considered to be quite high.
 
Bullying can take many different forms including name-calling, spreading rumours and lies, as well as threatening, blackmailing and beating up other children.
 
The Kaleidoscope research group involved on this project will present more of their work at the upcoming Kaleidoscope 2007 Symposium, taking place from 26-27 November in Berlin.
 
More information about the event is available here.

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