The NUCLEO project
NUCLEO is an instructional framework that uses a pedagogical approach deeply grounded in the socio-constructive stream, in which students collaborate in small teams to reach the solution of real-world, open-ended, ill-structured problems as they would do in a classical problem based learning scenario. The difference is that in our system, the real-world is a virtual fantastic one.
The learning takes place in a futurist scenario in which, conducted by a metaphor, the students (represented by configurable avatars) get immersed into a civilization threatened to destruction by a terrible menace. In order to combat their enemy, selected members of the community are trained in the weapons of knowledge by competing among them to solve a mission, as it happens in "Ender's game", the book by Orson Scott Carr which serves as inspiration. Thus, the learning environment reproduces the training of the warriors in a multi user virtual reality environment which is provided with several tools needed for collaboration and problem solving by means of a connection with the Learning Management System database (we are currently using Moodle).
Our project is focused on three main objectives:
- Integrate our solutions in a LMS platform.
- Motivate students AND maintain concrete learning objectives.
- Turn passive listeners students into active learners.
Our approach contributes to the research of new ways of learning in the following ways:
- First, it is connected to a LMS and the virtual reality is used as a 3D skin to access tools and data from the centralized database, therefore both tools work complementary.
- Second, it differs from classical game based learning in that we are not trying to disguise educational content as fun but turning the whole learning scenario into a multi player role game. Our idea is that solving problems and playing games share many features. In fact, from a certain perspective, what players must do to progress through a game is to solve the problems immersed in the narrative of the game, which is essentially what problem based learning is about.
- Third, we have developed an instructional framework aimed at changing student's attitude towards learning that has obtained very promising results in several testing performed in several actual learning contexts in the Spanish higher education context.
We have some videos showing the current state of the project:
