“Il Gioco delle Forme”: Design and Development of an Educational Exergame

The study presented here concerns the results obtained from the development and the experimentation of a didactic exergame realized by the University of Salerno. The aim of this exergame, called “Gioco delle Forme”, is to evaluate, measure and “train”, by means of a playful activity with a high degree of body involvement, the skills of visual and motor integration, skills that for scientific literature are strictly linked to learning processes and considered very important in recent pedagogic debate as concerns the visual and spatial component present in specific learning difficulties. The focus of the study is on the design and development of an exer-game essentially based on manipulation of shapes involving the whole body, fundamental aspect both for the assessment of visual-motor integration skills or for the emotional participation of the user because “motor activity – not representationalist verisimilitude - holds the key to fluid and functional crossings between virtual and physical realms”(Hansen, 2006, p.2); this activity can also be considered as a preparatory skill for the spatial acquisition of concepts like geometrical forms, graphemes, etc. The exer-game is based on the following skills: grabbing, turning, shifting geometrical forms to make them matching with figures on screen.