Conversation Design for Raising Awareness on the Responsible Use of the Internet : Co-design of a Chatbot Game with Secondary School Students

The rapid process of digital transformation and servitization experienced on a global scale in recent decades, further accelerated by the pandemic crisis, has radically altered the life experience of societies, with technological innovations leading to the emergence of new ethical and legal challenges. The issue of digital literacy and the acquisition of basic skills for responsible use of the internet has become one of the most urgent prerogatives in international government programs to address psychosocial phenomena such as those related to online grooming, cyberbullying, cybersuicide, cyber racing, or online scam- ming. The proposed work introduces the use of participatory game design as an empowerment tool for young students. The case study of the NetWalking project, developed by an interdisciplinary team of practitioners and researchers in several secondary schools in the city of Palermo (Italy), describes the experimentation of co-design activities of an edugame with a conversational interface (chatbot), which exploits the logic of nonlinear storytelling to actively engage students in playful learning activities, contributing to the development of hard skills (STEM) and soft skills (self-assessment, teamwork and information management).