To motivate learners to engage in writing courses and help to improve their writing performance, a mobile-game-based collaborative prewriting approach was proposed in this study. A quasi-experiment was implemented by recruiting two classes of non-English major students from a university in northeastern China. Class 1 learned to write under the…

One of the primary goals of education is to ensure that learners can apply their acquired knowledge in various ways and under different circumstances. However, this expected "transfer" does not always occur and, therefore, the acquired knowledge cannot be flexibly employed in different contexts. One way to minimize this problem is to…

One of the key trends in learning technology in recent years has been the growing interest in simulations and serious games. Much of the research into simulations and serious games has tended to focus on aspects of fun and engagement rather than on what is happening in the process to cause transferable learning. Much of it has been based on small…

It is increasingly common for an educational media project to span several media platforms (e.g., TV, Web, hands-on materials), assuming that the benefits of learning from multiple media extend beyond those gained from one medium alone. Yet research typically has investigated learning from a single medium in isolation. This paper reviews several…

If Neil Postman, were alive today, what would he say to Prensky, the originator of the term, "digital native", about the ways in which teachers should approach the wonders and perils of e-learning in their classrooms? As the Dean of a faculty of education which is devoted to both creating and critiquing a variety of digital teaching and…

In helping learners to make a novel meaning their own, such as when helping children to understand what a word means or teaching students a new concept in school, we frequently point to examples that share the aimed-at meaning but differ otherwise. This type of approach rests on the assumption that novel meanings can be acquired through the…

Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) activities were examined in comparison with effective, research-based learning strategies to observe any difference in student engagement and time-on task behavior. Experimental and control groups were randomly selected amongst the intermediate elementary school students ages 8 to 10 years old. Student…

This paper reviews a set of studies that examined what students learn in various virtual reality environments (VREs) designed to promote an understanding of environmental science. The goal of the reported studies was to provide an update to the classic distinction between the role of media versus method in promoting learning (Clark, 1999). Media…

Compares the advantages and disadvantages of using simulation games as a teaching tool. Describes some tactics to turn disadvantages into advantages, and concludes by describing the role of the game leader as crucial to learning outcomes. (Author/AEF)

Learning-disabled sixth through eighth grade students (n=25) received vocabulary instruction involving matching negation prefixes to root words. The students used an instructional computer game or a computer program that operated identically but without game features. Both programs produced equal gains in task skill, but the game produced higher…

This paper discusses the use of WebQuest, a World Wide Web-based multi-user game, in promoting learning motivation and navigation skills in K-9 students. WebQuest demonstrates ways to integrate games, Internet communication facilities, Web-based courseware, and database techniques together in order to assist learning. The following guidelines for…