A General Architecture for the Integration of Educational Videogames in Standards-compliant Virtual Learning Environments

Although Virtual Learning Environments have become popular educational tools, they remain a very active research topic. Two important aspects being discussed for next-generation VLEs are how to track the performance of the students for assessment and how to provide personalized learning experiences (i.e. adaptive learning). In this line, educational videogames could contribute thanks to their highly interactive nature. However the combination of VLEs and educational games requires solving diverse conceptual and practical challenges. In this paper we present a general architecture to integrate games in VLEs with special emphasis on how to abstract the communication between the videogames and the VLEs for assessment and adaptation purposes.