Seppo

Seppo platform allows you to turn your lessons into learning games

Seppo is an ideal tool for game-based learning. Whether you need it for a classroom or a distance learning - easily create lessons that combine creativity and collaboration.

English | Suomi

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HundrED 2019

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2019

HundrED 2018

Finland 100

Web presence

2012

Established

3.5M

Children

32

Countries

Target group

Students basic

Updated

November 2023

At Seppo, we want to make education more fun and exciting. Our goal is to see students enjoy learning and trying new things. The visible outcome of this change is not just in academic performance but in the holistic involvement of students, where they move, explore, and actively participate in their educational journey.

About the innovation

Pedagogical tool for teachers

Creating, maintaining and enhancing learning motivation in schools has become a growing challenge because the world around us offers increasingly exciting and motivating stimuli for children.

Schools have to keep up and make education exciting and relatable to the students' lives. There is a great need for ways to make learning fun in a pedagogically meaningful way.

Seppo, the gamification platform, has been procured for all Helsinki City Schools, from primary school to vocational institutes.

The Seppo platform motivates students to learn by transforming their school assignments into a game. Seppo games are a good way to learn, as they develop group work skills, media literacy, critical thinking, and digital storytelling.

The teacher can set the game in or out of the classroom: in class, the schoolyard, in the city centre or even a museum. The students solve the tasks with mobile devices and the teacher gives them instant feedback.

The teacher can communicate with the students using Seppo and follow them on a map using GPS. The game can be set so that it requires moving to a certain area or in a certain task. By doing so, Seppo motivates students to be physically active in any subject. Seppo increases physical wellbeing but there is evidence it can be good for wellbeing on the whole: gamification through Seppo has benefitted getting NEET youth back on board with school.

The idea for Seppo was born when high school history teacher Riku Alkio was visiting Rome on a field trip with his students. The students created "Amazing Race Church Edition" which took them to churches all around Rome. The game made students so enthusiastic that they raced each other from church to church. When the students were given time off, instead of shopping and visiting cafés the students headed back to the churches - to learn more.

Never before had Riku seen students so excited about studying. The experience convinced him that it is a great idea to use games to support teaching.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

Seppo makes it easy to integrate games into teaching and brings learning into new environments.

Impact

Students' enthusiasm for learning increases and they learn a variety of skills.

Scalability

Seppo is available in English, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch and Arabic and available for use immediately after the license has been purchased.

Academy review results

High Impact
Low Scalability

High Impact
High Scalability

Low Impact
Low Scalability

Low Impact
High Scalability

Media

Implementation steps

How to start using Seppo?

Navigate to the Seppo.io website (www.seppo.io) and get your own Seppo account. When logging in you will get to know the interface, available templates, and customization options. Seppo's intuitive design makes it user-friendly, even for those new to gamification. Start building your game content or use ready-made games. Players can quickly and easily log into the game by using the game PIN code or scanning a QR code.

Learn more about Seppo

Discover Seppo and the pedagogy behind it.

Learn more about Seppo on their website. On the site you will find general information on Seppo and the pedagogy behind it.

On the site you will also find user stories and experiences from teachers that can give you ideas for your own work.

Purchase the license

Licenses are sold directly to schools, enabling every teacher in the school to use Seppo.

The price depends on the number of students and teachers in your school using Seppo. Request a quote from info@seppo.io.

When you buy the license, you will get more detailed information on how to create and use the game. The following steps provide general guidelines for using Seppo with your students.

Select a subject and place

Decide what you want to teach with the game and where to play.

You can create a game for the subject you want, or combine different subject contents in a multidisciplinary or phenomena-based learning. You can also choose where to play the game.

Idea examples:

Math in the school yard
Health education in the school cafeteria
History in the city center
Language and literature at a library
Entrepreneurship at a mall

With younger students, choose a location you can easily monitor and provide assistance as needed. With older students, you can move around in a larger area - in the city center or a nearby forest - just like in PE classes.

You will receive more detailed instructions with the license.

Create a game

Make a game board out of a map, floor plan, or a picture related to the theme of the game.

You can use the map service in Seppo to track the students' movements during the game using GPS. Alternatively, any image file (jpg, png) can be used as a game board, so you can download an image of your school's floor plan as a map, for example.

The game does not always require moving around, so the image can also be a thematic one. For example, in a historical game the image can be related to what you are studying and act as the game board.

Adding tasks to the game

When creating tasks, it is a good idea to take advantage of the game’s location. The game brings learning to the real world, so it is easier to understand what is taught when it is relatable to your own life.

The task may be, for example, to identify tree species in the game area or to calculate the surface area of a place. The students could also create and document their own artwork in the classroom or any other game area.

Use different types of tasks, such as:

Tasks that can be automatically evaluated, such as multiple-choice assignments. They make it easier for a teacher to work during the game.
You can create a buzz with pop-up tasks that appear in each player’s game at the same time.
With creative tasks, students are able to express themselves in a versatile way while learning how to use the mobile device for content production and documenting their own skills. You can answer with text, images, videos, or audio files. For example, you can build tasks where students play out some kind of situation and film it or record their chosen arguments.

Tasks can also contain a variety of background material that students need to look into before answering the questions. This way students can naturally apply their learning to the real world.

In this video you will find more information on creating tasks.

The Seppo platform content library offers inspiration and ready-made tasks for your game. Seppo users can share their game in the content library and others can download it for their own use. This way you do not have to invent everything yourself.

Decide on how to keep score

Decide how to score the game - the choice is yours. It's worth noting that when playing, it's fun to gain a lot of points!

Let the games begin!

Divide the students into teams. The games are played as teams and a key concept of the game is teamwork.

Start the game by pressing the start button and guide the students to log in with the pin code. The pin code is game-specific and is created automatically when you create a game.

It's a good idea to complete the first task together in the classroom, so you can make sure that the students are able to answer the assignment questions. After that, students can go on to perform their tasks in their own order. The game proceeds by completing tasks.