Minister of Education presents new online game in Poing: "Open your eyes!" for right-wing extremism and fake news

Created: 02/18/2022, 06:00

By: Armin Roesl

Minister of Education Michael Piazolo and principal Sylvie Schnaubelt presented the online game on Thursday.

© Johannes Dziemballa

The new online game “Open your eyes!”, which can be used in the classroom, aims to sensitize students to the dangers of the Internet.

It was presented in Poing.

Poing – The opening scene of the online game could also have been filmed at the Bergfeldsee in Poing: A young man goes for a walk and sees a lot of rubbish lying scattered on the ground – leftovers from a party.

He discovers a live hedgehog under plastic packaging and saves it.

He points it into the camera and says phrases like "Our homeland is in danger" because of people who "do not follow our rules".

The man calls himself Constable Truth (played by actor Felix von Bredow in the film sequences) and introduces himself on his video channel with the words "for truth, fairness and a better world".

Actor Felix von Bredow plays the main character.

© Johannes Dziemballa

This is how the game begins, which the Bavarian State Center for Political Education (BLZ) is developing and which its director Rupert Grübl presented together with Minister of Education Michael Piazolo on Thursday in the Dominik-Brunner-Realschule.

In a live game, because the "online game", as it is called in modern German, is designed for teaching and is aimed at schoolchildren from the 8th grade onwards.

At the presentation, class 9b of the Poinger Realschule played the game, which focuses on video posts by Constable Truth.

(By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Ebersberg newsletter.)

According to Grübl and Piazolo, the goals of the online game entitled "Open your eyes!" are: to sensitize children and young people to the dangers of the Internet, to educate them about the dangers of manipulation and extremist strategies, and to identify fake news.

Felix von Bredow as Constable Truth.

© Johannes Dziemballa

As the game progresses, in which the youngsters slip into roles and have to interact and make decisions with Constable Truth in a chat group, it becomes more and more apparent that the supposed conservationist is not really about nature, but... no, on For once, there is no resolution at this point, the topic is too important, which is why the students should experience and work on it themselves in class.

Poing: Realschule students are the first to play in Bavaria

After the game, the students of 9b (an all-boy class) talk about their impressions and feelings during the game.

In a small round of talks with BLZ director Rupert Grübl and Minister of Education Michael Piazolo, some say they would not repeat some of the decisions they made during the online game with the current knowledge of the consequences.

"The game is good and teaches that you should be more careful when dealing with social media," concludes student Ferdinand Obermaier.

Do not “like” and share all information, messages and memes that are scattered in posts or chat groups, but question, research and classify them for yourself.

In order to be able to play “Open Eyes” in class, at least twelve young people and a game leader (e.g. a teacher) must take part.

There is a separate manual for the preparation and follow-up.

The online game and the documents are available at www.game-augen-auf.de.

More current news from the district of Ebersberg can be found here.