The COVID pandemic has affected more than 1.6 billion children and youth in 161 countries due to school closures. A lot can be done to at least reduce the impact through remote learning strategies which do not repeat what already takes place but explore new ways of doing things without missing out on the benefits of classroom-based learning.

The best approaches are based on the use of existing infrastructure so that they are immediately usable. To this end, Minecraft is the best-selling video game to date and runs at almost every home that has a kid who attends primary school. Minecraft is an ideal digital learning environment for delivering independent or guided learning experiences and the project will explore language teaching within the engaging and creative context offered by the world of Minecraft where children already spend a significant amount of time playing. That is why the project EPITOME is implemented with goals of:

• Supporting the use of digital learning spaces by European educators to improve the virtual education experience
• Improving educator competence in the use of tools like Minecraft for educational purposes
• Creating an EPITOME Minecraft world as well as associated guides, instructional material, and a handbook
• Building the EPITOME Foundry, constituting a community of practitioners to share knowledge and experience

More information about the project and its outcomes can be found at https://epitomeproject.eu

The project is supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.