Promoting classroom participation through micro-credentials certifications

Abstract

Adopting technology in education has inspired innovative teaching methods, including gamification and using micro-credentials to enhance learning. This project aimed to develop EduQuest, a web application designed to gamify the learning experience with digital badges. EduQuest enables instructors to manage courses while tracking student progress through integrations with external tools such as Wooclap. Additionally, EduQuest allows students to generate personalised questions based on their learning materials to improve the learning experience further.

EduQuest was developed with the Next.js Framework as the frontend for user-friendly web application interfaces and the Django REST Framework as the backend for managing core operations and handling business logic such as course management, data import and progress tracking. A micro-service component developed using Flask was also implemented to scale the functionality of EduQuest to generate quests using Large Language Models (LLMs). The project encountered challenges such as integrating Microsoft Authentication, optimising the badge issuance system using Celery workers, and improving overall system performance through data filtering and optimised data retrieval.

At the end of the development cycle, the system was evaluated, and user feedback was collected to assess its effectiveness in promoting student engagement through gamification. Although the system met its primary objectives, areas for improvement were identified in gamification elements and system performance. Future work includes enhancing gamification within quests, native support of live quizzes, and refining prompt design for more advanced quest generation. The outcome of this project indicates that EduQuest has the potential to improve the learning experience and promote student engagement to meet modern educational needs.