Abstract:

The current generation of learners desires fast, attractive, quality and effective training that utilizes the latest information and communication technologies and tools. This naturally leads to the need for new or changed pedagogical methods, approaches and strategies. The article examines the use of serious games (in particular, gamification) as a suitable approach for attaining effective education for modern learners. The authors present how the implementation of games and game elements and techniques influences student motivation. This paper reviews software systems which use gaming and in particular existing gamification plugins in the Moodle e-learning environment.

The game elements of electronic games that can be applied in training are explored - story/history, level, badge, leader board, bonus, reward, combo, challenge/quest, hidden treasure, game rules, game progress, team and time frame. An appropriate interpretation of these game elements is offered in a learning context, as well as their possible implementation through elements of the Moodle environment, which is the main e-learning environment of the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”, Bulgaria.

The authors’ main goal is to design and develop software for implementing structural gamification of learning, which integrates game elements and techniques with the e-learning process, without any changes to the learning content of the courses. The article introduces the two plug-ins developed to assist the authors of the Moodle courses in the creation of gamified courses. The first plug-in changes the design of a new or already existing training course in a gamified way - based on game levels (open or locked with input requirements), and offers support for how to apply existing Moodle elements in a game context. The second plug-in allows for adding specific game elements to standard e-courses that do not exist in Moodle or cannot be implemented with standard Moodle elements. This plugin implements the game elements leaderboard, avatar and game progress.

Keywords:

Gamification of Learning, Structural Gamification, Serious Games, Moodle Plug-in.