Abstract:

Interest in the use of educational software to stimulate learning has motivated the development of educational environments, but for this to become a real way in the learning process arise two issues: the need for stable environments for formal and systematic development of educational software and the need for effective ways to engage students in the learning process within this latter context the gamification comes up with the proposal to engage students in the learning process.
There is a consensus on the significant improvements in motivation and engagement through the use of gamification mechanisms applied to education. However the gamification of content and its implementation in an educational software is not a simple process and needs to be studied. The use of formal techniques for application of gamification mechanisms in educational software has still been little explored and there is no consensus on the subject. Some works focus on, just use some of the mechanisms of gamification, such as medals, points, rankings and feedback empirically and unsystematically.
Gamification is the use of game design elements in extra-game contexts. In education and in the academic setting, gamification is still new and the main works on the subject are mostly concentrated in the current decade. According to the author of "The gamification of learning and instruction", major work on the subject, the gamification can be used to promote learning, recycling a typical content presented in a traditional class time or distance by including game elements, such as quests, points and medals, interconnected to create a learning opportunity in the form of a game.
The use of a software architecture for a particular domain is a way to define and describe stable environments for formal and systematic development of educational software. If architecture consider the gamification mechanisms Gamified Educational Software (GES) Development probability quality is more likely.
The architecture of a system reflects that all decisions should be taken in the design of a computer system, determining the organization and overall structure of the system. A classic definition of software architecture tells what is the system in terms of computational components and the relationships between them.
The importance of software architecture for educational applications was recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which proposed as part of its standardization efforts, the definition of a reference model Learning Technology Systems Architecture (LTSA). However the use of techniques for application of gamification mechanisms in educational software has still been little explored and there is no consensus on the subject.
This research aims to study the two problems presented: the need for stable environments for formal and systematic development of educational software and the need for efficient ways to engage students in the learning process. This work was based on a descriptive research methodology in the form of case study. The proposed research aims to relate the requirements, both functional and non-functional, to compose a gamified educational software(GES) architecture based on LTSA and case study based on the development of a GES using the proposed architecture.

Keywords:

Educational Software, Architecture, Gamification.