This article dwells on the role of gamified digital tools in promoting environmental self-awareness and action. In particular, it unfolds the outreach of a web application, developed within the European GoBeEco project, aimed at encouraging users to adopt ecological and sustainability habits. In this article, the focus is on the implementation of the project in Portugal, and, therefore, the data presented in the results reflect the involvement of participants on a national level. Overall, more than two dozen participants were involved in the validation of the application, which comprised three evaluation phases involving the distribution of questionnaires and the organisation of a focus group aimed at assessing the role of GoBeEco in fostering sustainable personal change and also evaluating specifically the role that gamified elements played in that change. Results show that the application had a very positive impact on the users and helped mitigate the well-documented gap between sustainable awareness and action, and, also, that the gamification strategy contributed to that purpose. We argue that the potential of these applications in Portugal is latent but still has room for growth. In this sense, the study also highlights future paths for the development and implementation of these tools, based on the features most valued by users—access to statistical data, examples from real life, gamified and fun elements, and focus on daily, individual actions, among others.

Being able to understand, express, and communicate emotions is widely recognized as a fundamental competence. For the younger generation entering the professional market, this is particularly relevant as, in this context, emotions are managed and communicated in ways (and channels) that are different from what they are used to and that can easily lead to misunderstandings. Therefore, it is important to analyze how young people deal with, understand, and interpret emotions, particularly in the context of a professional career where the ability to dialogue with different people and how to get around problems in a healthy and resilient way is essential. This analysis will allow one to design and create tools that allow the younger generation to improve their emotional intelligence and competence. This article introduces the League of Emotions Learners (LoEL) project, an innovative initiative that, through a game app, develops the emotional competence and intelligence of young people. The article then presents the results obtained in the initial validation that led to the positive understanding of its impact.

Design Thinking (DT) is a design process originally used in the conception and validation of innovative and technologically efficient human-centered solutions for ill-formed problems. Being an iterative and collaborative process with a human point of view, DT allows adopters to improve several intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, like collaboration, creative thinking, leadership, presentation, project management, ethics, storytelling, negotiation, empathy, willingness to learn, etc. As such, DT has been adopted in several other areas and has also become highly relevant in educational contexts to develop the aforementioned skills in students. It has also been shown to contribute to minimizing the school dropout problem by keeping students motivated and integrated in the school context. Nevertheless, to be successfully implemented, DT requires that the overall educational context is adapted and that teachers are trained to be able to guide, support, and give feedback to students. With that objective in mind and following an analysis of the current situation in secondary education schools in four European countries, a teacher training model was designed to organize and systematize the process of developing teachers’ abilities to manage an educational DT approach. This article presents the analysis of the current situation from the point of view of teachers and students and gives some hints on the resulting teacher training model for integrating Design Thinking skills within secondary education.

This article presents an initiative that addresses the problem of the digital literacy generational gap, targeting older adults that struggle to integrate the digital world and are unaware of the dangers of the online environment. The article has a European scope but with a special attention to the Portuguese context. The methodological approach started with a theoretical research on digital and online literacy of adults, followed by the design of an innovative training program specifically designed for this target group and finished with the results of the evaluation of the impact of the training. The overall conclusion, based on the achieved results, leads us to think that it is possible to improve the digital literacy of older adults so that they become effective online users while being alert to the dangers of the online world. Therefore, the work conducted is expected to contribute to a greater awareness of the importance and socio-economic possibilities that arise from the digital and technological investment for stimulating the integration of the older generation in the digital context.