The "SNOWBALLS" web-based e-learning system and its development

"SNOWBALLS®" is a learner oriented system web-based e-learning system. The name stands for "Self Navigation Web-Based Literacy Learning System". The students, the users of the system, have developed it in a seminar style course under the supervision of the authors. Through abundant discussions from diverse aspects, they decided to introduce an e-learning platform with an online textbook and online quiz for the study part, a forum and avatars for communication, and multiplayer quiz battles and rankings for competition among students. Students read the textbook and then do the quizzes to check if they have understood the text. To keep the motivation high, we introduced the quiz battles. When a student wins the battle, he earns 10 snowballs (points). Snowballs are also awarded for good participation in the forum, and for correct answers in individual quiz trials. Students appear as avatars and can choose a nickname in the system, so they do not have to show their actual identity. We believe that this will take away the hesitation to interact with one\´s peers in a second language. The avatars can be customized by shopping for clothes using the snowballs earned through the quiz-solving, quiz-battle, or communication in forum. Students not only designed or decided what features the platform should have, they also made the content by themselves. They wrote textbooks and made quizzes on the essential fields of engineering. Through close collaboration between teachers and students from several departments during the development of SNOWBALLS, there still is a constant flow of new ideas, improvements and feedback on both the educational content and the system.