Easy Creation of Game-Like Virtual Learning Environments

Motivating students is a major issue for current Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Videogames are known to have a very addictive effect on their users. We have the intuition that such a phenomenon is partially due to the autonomy support videogames provide to their user. In fact, modern theories of motivation such as the Self Determination Theory (SDT) have shown the positive motivational impact of autonomy-support. In SDT, the need for autonomy refers to the need for someone to see his behaviors as self-endorsed, to be in total control of his activities. Following this, we are currently developing a multi-agents system called MOCAS (MOtivational and Culturally Aware System) in order, among other things, to investigate and clearly determine the impact of autonomy support on learners’ motivation in hybrid applications of ITS and videogames. The creation of such a kind of ITS is in general very time consuming and necessitates highly technical knowledge (3D programming, networking...). If the development of virtual learning environments was made easier, a new population of non technical authors would have access to such a tool. For example teachers could create virtual learning environments for supporting their student’s home works. This paper introduces MOCAS and presents our ongoing efforts to facilitate the creation of virtual learning environments through it. To this end we are also developing a set of authoring tools integrated in a more complex system called IBIS (Intuitive Builder for Intelligent Systems). IBIS is aimed at providing easy-to-use authoring tools for MOCAS (even for non-computer specialists)