Teaching Migrant Children in Switzerland with GDevelop

Michael Walder has been an educator for over 20 years. Now, he uses GDevelop to teach language and programming skills to migrant children in Switzerland. This is his fantastic story.

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Can you please tell us a bit about yourself, and the work you do?

My Name is Michael Walder and I am a teacher for primary school education. I received my degree in 2001 in Bern, Switzerland and my first job was in the Peruvian Highlands in the city of Huánuco. My students were children from a Swiss family, their parents taught in a theological institution. That’s where I began to understand how it feels to be a foreigner in a different culture. After more than two years in Peru, I went back to Switzerland and stayed there for four years.

Colegio Suizo Peruano Oxapampa.

One day, I asked my wife, why don't we try to live in Peru for a while? So we planned a 3 months trial, but it ended up in more than a 10 years residence in this South American country. In this period we helped to build up a school in the small city of Oxapampa in the Peruvian cloud forest, where we wanted to offer the kids a good place to learn and taking care about nature. ( peruanosuizo.org).

Finally, better possibilities for education for our two daughters brought us back to Switzerland. They grew up the most time of their lives in Peru and felt like migrants when they came back. I got a job in the neigbour municipality where 80-85% of the children are migrants and don′t speak German at home. So migration was always a very present topic in our home and still is.

Why did you choose GDevelop as a classroom tool?

I started to create games, when I studied for a CAS in digital leadership in education. First I created my games with Scratch, but then a group of students asked me if I can be their coach to program a game.

I started to look for easy to use game engines and found GDevelop, it offered exactly what I needed, and it was platform independent. The games can be exported to a wide range of devices and operating systems, so it was a good choice to learn it.

In what way, if any, does a no-code engine allow you to overcome language barriers when teaching STEM concepts?

GDevelop itself has a wide range of supported languages, which helps to engage quickly with the game engine. No-code engines like Gdevelop help to achieve quick success in your programming skills and help to understand basic concepts of computer science.

Michael's students enjoying working with GDevelop!

What do you think is the importance of STEM education for migrant children specifically?

STEM is the base of everything, that’s around us, so it’s crucial to understand how things work and be critical to estimate the consequences that our activities may have. On a personal level, kids with a broad understanding of science and good language skills get better jobs, a higher education level and better income. If they choose a career they like, they will be happier and less vulnerable to consume drugs or believe in fake news.

On a society level, our democracy can only work if people are educated and understand the decisions they take. It’s obvious to see in the everyday news what the lack of education and integration causes in many countries of the world.

Do you think open source software important in classroom environments? If so, why?

Students working on projects.

I am a great fan and advocate of open source software in education. It’s so important to teach with freely available apps. Specially for migrants with low income, OSS is an opportunity to use and work with technology. It’s sad to see that a few tech giants dominate the edtech sector.

In my case I′ve been working with Linux many years and I have fewer issues then with my Windows school Laptop. I am convinced that this setup would work in a school environment too.

How have the students responded to using GDevelop?

Basically, I use GDevelop in two ways:

For my younger students, I develop games where they can improve their language skills in German or French. Specially for boring stuff like verb conjugations, games offer a much more entertaining way to practice, than with worksheets or text books. In my company (didaktis.ch) we develop textbooks too and combine them with educational games.

One of Michael's educational games.

The combination of handwriting and practicing with games brings good retention for language learners. Specially for migrants, a game brings advantages: it offers immediate response, if the student’s answer is correct or false, and they can practice better than with traditional methods.

Their parents often don't speak German and can't help them to study.

My older students use GDevelop to learn how to program and can learn basic concepts like arrays, types of variables, if/else, screen interactions etc.

What does the future hold for yourself, your students, your school and your district, in terms of STEM education and GDevelop specifically?

Hopefully we can establish a group in our school (dennigkofen.ch) where interested students can create educational and entertaining games and exchange with each other. One of my goals is to create a game where you can explore the human body as a blood cell.

Students playing and learning on gd.games!

On the way through veins and arteria you have to deliver Oxygen, combat viruses, bacteria, infections and other health challenges. In different levels yo learn about cells, chemistry, genetics and human metabolism.

Another project that I am working on is called didaquiz. We are creating an easy to understand tool to create interactive content. I hope that we can reach many schools all over the world to share content for learning.

More about me:

• Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miwalder/
• My company homepages:
  • https://didaktis.ch/
  • https://didaquiz.com/
• School in Peru: https://peruanosuizo.org/
• School where I currently work: https://dennigkofen.ch/
• Some of my games with GDevelop: https://gd.games/miwalder

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Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us, Michael! And thank you for what you do for migrant children. We're honored that GDevelop is a small part of their learning journey.