Someone Else’s Shoes
A Pilot Digital Game aimed at 11-16 year olds
Designed to educate students about the causes and effects of migration and to explore intercultural relations between people in their wider social and political contexts
Influenced by the type of role play exercises used in intercultural awareness training
Game format – children and teenagers spend a lot of time plugged into games and the internet
Projects such as Future Lab and the Serious
Game Initiative e.g ‘Darfur is Dying’

Someone Else’s Shoes
To encourage a better understanding of the dynamics of migration
To address racism (causes and effects) and encourage intercultural awareness
To encourage both media literacy and critical media literacy
To entertain but in a way that is challenging and does not trivialise racism or the plight of migrants

Someone Else’s Shoes
Many of the exercises used in ant-racism training are interactive, are based on role play and rely on ability of participants to imagine or visualise t
Appeal to young people
Appeals to universal sympathy/imaginative empathy
Engage the learner at various levels in the process of self-directed learning
Specific Irish classroom resource looking at a range of legal, economic, historical and cultural realities

Someone Else’s Shoes
Serious games are “games that use the artistic medium of games to deliver a message, teach a lesson, or provide an experience” (Michael and Chen, 2006 ) t category of an “activism game”
Team primarily interested in games’ ability to encourage reflection and critical thinking
According to the Fair Play? Report (1999:2), “video games' unique interactive capabilities may make them even more likely to influence children's attitudes, beliefs and behaviours than more traditional forms of media.”

Someone Else’s Shoes
Central underpinning question – to what extent can a ‘serious game’ help teachers and children to explore complex issues around multiculturalism, racism and identity?
Addressing 2 types of learning – t
(a) the first is about improving media literacy skills (e.g.,to what extent does a visual, interactive format help with information retention?).
(b) raising intercultural awareness & encouraging critical thinking about a range of issues around racism, cultural and national identity, integration, intercultural communication, etc.

Someone Else’s Shoes
It integrates a range of different exercises and strategies
It can be played at different levels of complexity and intensity
It provides teachers and students with a range of auxiliary learning resources
It encourages critical thinking and debate

Someone Else’s Shoes
Factual Learning about Darfur, migration etc.
Critical/Analytical learning about the role played by the media in representing minority groups, events, individuals etc.
Students are encouraged to engage in wider philosophical debates about intercultural conflict and harmony

Someone Else’s Shoes
Will be piloted in schools commencing
September 2010
Schools currently being sought to participate
Pilot feedback will determine future development of the game
Further information and student and teacher worksheets available on the game website at http://www.someone-elses-shoes.ie
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