Using role-playing game in a Virtual Learning Environment for a new approach to physics classroom lessons

Although the term “digital native” by Prensky is not appreciated by all pedagogical researchers, it perfectly describes the nowadays students that continuously deal with technology. Over the last ten years, the way in which education and training are delivered has considerably changed due to the introduction of new technologies. One of them, very promising, is Game-Based Learning. The work proposed in this paper stems from the experience of the last teaching years to students aged 14-15: the physics lessons given using games, competitions and group collaboration are much more effective than the more traditional frontal lessons. In this work, we propose a constructivist approach in which youngsters are called to be the main actors of the learning process and in which a personal construction of their knowledge is a must, starting from their needs and their motivations. Role playing games fit very well these requirements and in order to reinforce this didactic (and non technical) choice we motivate it by referring to the Gardner’s theory of five entry points (strictly related to his theory of multiple intelligences) with examples of possible role playing game implementations. The approach that we propose in this work combines two fundamental aspects in the state of the art of e-learning panorama (that commonly are not combined): the integration of Intelligent Pedagogical Agents into Virtual Learning Environments.