At Univaq, an Italian university with more than 18,000 students, the Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics (DISIM) has started a major research project: PolyGloT, which aims to make learning a fun experience through gamified learning.
This endeavor to implement gamified learning with numerous, innovative learning paths required fundamentally an interface that replicates the physical classroom in a virtual environment where professors and students can follow customized learning paths, interact with each other like in real life, and have access to all the learning resources in one place.
Project PolyGloT: How does a learning path work?
Project PolyGloT comprises an editor and execution engine designed to support teachers, enabling them to create and execute customized learning paths for their students and seamlessly integrate the necessary platforms for these learning sessions.
In other words, PolyGloT has two main objectives:
- Help teachers create learning paths consisting of activities that students must complete in a specific order.
- Centralize and unify all the learning resources and online tools in one environment to boost students’ concentration.
In this context, the project PolyGloT required a virtual interface that emulates the physical classroom, and where:
- Students and teachers can spontaneously interact with each other.
- Learning paths can be neatly implemented and followed.
- All the learning digital resources and tools are centralized and available.
And this is why they decided to try WorkAdventure.
A room, a learning exercise
How do learning paths work?
WorkAdventure’s interface is smoothly connected to PolyGloT through a set of APIs that allow it to replicate the learning activities of a determined learning path created by a teacher within a virtual world.
What exactly is a learning path? Learning paths are a sequence of interconnected nodes, each one of which proposes a determined activity or “step” for the student.
To give an illustration, one node could be a:
- Recorded lecture
- Quiz
- Writing exercise
- Brainstorming session
- True or false test
- Reading assignment
- Coding activity
And more examples of learning tasks can be included in the previous list.
Each node belongs to a larger plan designed by the teacher, who can determine the order of each activity, drawing a path composed of learning exercises.
Additionally, the content of each activity (node) can be automatically created and implemented by generative AI, facilitating the process of designing a learning path for the students.
“And the integration to WorkAdventure is very simple in the sense that we divide the space, the rooms, and each room is devoted to a specific type of learning activity.”
Antonio Bucchiarone, associate professor at Univaq.
Emulating gamified learning paths with WorkAdventure
Thanks to the integration of WorkAdventure into PolyGlot, it is possible to emulate the drawn learning path inside the digital world by assigning specific nodes (learning activities) to specific rooms. Thus, each room in the virtual platform can hold an exercise for the students (a node of the learning path).
Moreover, thanks to WorkAdventure’s interactive and spontaneous interface that replicates the experience of the physical classroom in the virtual realm, it is possible to configure in every room (and node):
- Individual tasks (single player).
- Collaborative assignments (multiplayer).
“In my opinion, having a tool that provides a unique space to do all these types of different learning activities is amazing. In a sense, it’s very powerful for me. So, a unique space where the student can execute different types of activities that are orchestrated by various learning tools. This is amazing”
Antonio Bucchiarone, associate professor at Univaq.
All the gamified learning resources in one environment
As it was stated, each activity proposed in each node can rely on a digital tool or platform, and one of PolyGloT’s main objectives is to centralize all the educational resources to maintain contextual continuity for students, improving their concentration.
In this scenario, WorkAdventure contributes by proposing a virtual world that unifies all the necessary digital resources and tools.
In fact, within WorkAdventure’s digital world, PolyGloT successfully embeds all the required learning resources, such as:
- Video lectures.
- Quizzes.
- Coding activities.
- Gamified tasks.
“So at the end, the WorkAdventure is our UI that also provides all the facilities to integrate the tools and communicate with our execution engine with AI that we are also using. And also, the collaboration with the students is something that we want to have in the picture. And WorkAdventure, in my opinion, is the right tool to have this nice interface for students”
Antonio Bucchiarone, associate professor at Univaq.
Walking through the process of gamified learning
How does this gamified learning work? It’s simple. Firstly, the teacher provides a set of learning paths for the students. This set is injected into PolyGloT’s engine and replicated to WorkAdventure’s virtual world thanks to the API technology.
Subsequently, once the students connect to the digital world, they will spawn in a specific area where they can select one or various learning paths, which shall be ordered according to different criteria, like the date of the deadline or the examined topics. Once the students have selected a specific learning path, they will follow the indicated directions and execute one task per room.
During this whole process, the teacher can monitor the status of the execution of these learning activities. Additionally, students can keep an eye on the advancement of each learning task, and they can check how many points they have received for each activity.
Furthermore, while executing this learning path, the students can ask their teachers or the AI-powered bots for feedback, having continuous support within the learning process.
Finally, once the students have finished their learning path by executing and completing all the tasks that were assigned to them in each room, they can receive an award, like a badge or a certificate.
