Learning computer skills while attending classes at
the School of Humanities of the University of Padua can be little
engaging. Low interest on the subject is paired by low resources
by the School. Yet, effective computer skills are increasingly
important in a society were everyone knows how to use a
smartphone but might get lost while using a complex software.
In this paper we address the problem of motivating students
to acquire computer skills in word processing by organizing a
series of activities based on a gamification approach. A suite
of automatic tools give the students control of their learning
progressions, provide immediate feedback to their activities, and
engage them by modulating the difficulty of the proposed steps.
Initial results with a group of History undergraduate students
are presented, together with a proposal for a novel approach that
is under test.
