As online environments and tools have evolved over the last 15-20 years, their use for role-based learning has expanded. This analysis draws on work for an Australian project that has been sharing and developing knowledge about the use of online role-plays in higher education. We describe the learning needs that online role-play can meet, and give…

Making learning objects available is critical to reuse learning resources. Making content transparently available and providing added value to different stakeholders is among the goals of the European Commission's eContentplus programme. This paper analyses standards and protocols relevant for making learning objects accessible in distributed data…

This study explores how to make diverse learning/instructional materials compatible with e-readers when the instructor pioneered to adopt e-readers into a course of the graduate level. What problems did the instructor encounter when she used the e-readers as a major tool to deliver learning contents, such as the process of converting the…

For technology-enhanced learning, the idea of "learning objects" transfers the technologies of content management, methods of software engineering and principles of open access to educational resources. This paper reports on CampusContent, a research project and competence centre for e-learning at FernUniversitat in Hagen that designed…

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning-making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to…

This paper explores and discusses arguments for the use of virtual environments and interactive avatars in supporting the achievement of student learning goals within conventional educational contexts. It describes and evaluates arguments promoted by some authors (eg, van den Brekel, 2007; Deuchar & Nodder, 2003; Dickey, 2003; Facer, 2004; de…

This paper reports findings of a pilot study that examined the pedagogical potential of "Second Life" (SL), a popular three-dimensional multi-user virtual environment (3-D MUVE) developed by the Linden Lab. The study is part of a 1-year research and development project titled "Modelling of Secondlife Environments"…