Authoring Tools for Edutainment Environments to Design Active Learning Activities

Abstract

Engaging game features could be a tool to involve students in an active learning process. Edutainment is used to improve education by presenting learning concepts in a less stressful way. However, a multidisciplinary work team is needed to create these environments. Authoring tools are a framework that allows virtual learning environments production with a lower effort. The authors defined the RchEd architecture for edutainment environments. Based on this architecture, they propose an authoring tool architecture, named Archaud, which identifies two components to define simulation and knowledge arguments. A programming object oriented framework has been developed as an implementation of the Archaud architecture. This framework defines the entities to create edutainment modules that can be configured and connected. Based on this, an authoring tool was developed and a RPG game for an undergraduate Physics course was created. The authoring tool facilities were evaluated with the help of undergraduate professors.