Computers in Primary Schools, Educational Games

This chapter is focused on the use of digital games at primary school level. In particular, the chapter briefly presents different modalities in which digital games can be introduced and considers, in particular, their role in stimulating and assessing students' transversal skills, that is, those cross-skills that are at the basis of the learning of many different disciplines. Early activities in this field appear to be particularly effective, especially if we consider that thinking skills develop slowly and that primary school offers usually a more flexible context, both as far as curricula constraints and time organization, to introduce nontraditional activities. Logic and spatial reasoning skills are in particular considered making reference to research studies performed at the Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche (Institute of Educational Technology) of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche the Italian National Research Council.