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In short, creating a game turns out to be a unique experience, emerging as a col-
lective enterprise. It allows us to look at games from a different perspective.
Moreover, that has contributed to the realization of a project, which was only a set
of mental representations at the beginning of sessions but has become a reality, a
video game that works.
8.5
Conclusions
Society demands that people face new challenges, implementing skills often lacking
in formal educational environments. Among those skills is the ability to create
something new and meaningful in specifi c social and cultural contexts (Connery
et al.
2010
; John-Steiner
1985
/1997,
2000
). In this chapter, we show how a formal
educational setting can become an environment that encourages creativity. In any
case, both the stage, organized around the game design activities in a school setting,
and the process of collaboration among students must be taken into account. The
innovative scenario was built on the following foundations.
First, the creative process was organized around a cultural product, the game
relevant for the actors in entertainment environments (Gardner
2011
; Gee
2013
).
The students, who at fi rst understand games as an object designed for leisure, dis-
cover new ways to look at them, once it is they who have created them.
Second, people have created the video game using two instruments (Cole
1996
):
materials embedded in physical reality, which include not only software but also
any type of technology, analogical or digital, which supports the activities during
the workshop, and tools linked to the participants' mental representations and the
collective ideas which have served as inspiration (Sawyer
2010
,
2012
).
Creativity is inseparable from the social context where it appears, and that can
happen from a double perspective. First, when people dialogue in small or large
groups, they are aware of their ideas, and they are forced to rebuild them, according
to other perspectives, in an environment in which the subject interacts with others,
which results in intersubjective processes. Moreover, we fi nd collaborative creativ-
ity. Second, people act in small groups, taking on different roles with positions,
goals, and functions (Moran
2010
) associated to these roles.
At the end of the day, it's the role one plays in the creation of the game which
allows him/her to integrate as an individual. Creation as a cultural becomes inter-
twined with individual activity (Sawyer
2010
). The construction of meaning is not
independent of the played role, which helps to bring different perspectives and to
mix them.
Summing up, this research sets up particular creative universes that educators,
parents, and researchers often forget. By being there and participating with the stu-
dents, we understand the world without sacrifi cing fantasy, which is so often aban-
doned in schools. Playing, imagining, and creating are indispensable activities that
humans, young or old, have to learn in the twenty-fi rst century.