Intelligent e-learning systems have revolutionized online education by providing individualized and personalized instruction for each learner. Nevertheless, until now very few systems were able to leave academic laboratories and be integrated into real commercial products. One of these few exceptions is the Learning Intelligent Advisor (LIA)…

This paper provides a review of the rhetoric behind the component movement in educational software, and a critical analysis and synthesis of issues underlying the movement. We draw on case studies of several significant recent component projects in order to assess claims and to uncover and examine issues that are less often considered. While our…

This study explores how collaborative inquiry learning can be supported with multiple scaffolding agents in a real-life field trip context. In practice, a mobile peer-to-peer messaging tool provided meta-cognitive and procedural support, while tutors and a nature guide provided more dynamic scaffolding in order to support argumentative discussions…

With advances in information and communication technology, interactive multimedia learning systems are widely used to support teaching and learning. However, as human factors vary across users, they may prefer the design of interactive multimedia learning systems differently. To have a deep understanding of the influences of human factors, we…

As Web 2.0 emerging technologies are gaining momentum in higher education, educators as well as students are finding new ways to integrate them for teaching and learning. Technologies such as blogs, wikis and multimedia-sharing utilities have been used to teach various subject matters. This trend not only creates new opportunities for us to afford…

Scaffolding has proven an especially interesting and promising area for supporting teaching and learning practices. Particular interest has emerged in scaffolding student learning in technology-enhanced environments. In this paper, we discuss how scaffolding is implemented in technology-enhanced environments, provide an overview of scaffolding…

The use of professional software is an integral part of a student's education in the mining engineering curriculum at The Pennsylvania State University. Even though mining engineering represents a limited market across U.S. educational institutions, the goal still exists for using this type of software to enrich the learning environment with…

Scaffolds to plan, monitor, and evaluate learning within technology-enhanced inquiry and modeling environments are often little used by students. One reason may be that students frequently work collaboratively in these settings and their group work may interfere with the use of regulative supports. This research compared the use of regulative…

Research has found that computer attitudes not only play an influential role in determining the extent to which students accept the computer as a learning tool but also future behaviours towards the computer such as using it for further study and vocational purposes. A sample of 183 post-secondary students was assessed for their computer attitudes…

This article focuses on an evaluation of the impact of an innovative instructional design of internships in view of a new integrated pharmaceutical curriculum. A key innovative element was the implementation of a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. Students were, as part of their formal curriculum, expected to work in a…

Discussion of the implementation of educational innovations in classrooms focuses on the implementation of ENFI (Electronic Networks for Interaction) among a consortium of colleges and universities using computer networks for teaching writing to deaf and hearing students. Situated evaluations of educational innovations are discussed, and two case…

Up to this point, university education has largely remained unaffected by the developments of novel approaches to web-based learning. The paper presents a principled approach to the design of problem-oriented, web-based learning at the university level. The principles include providing authentic contexts with multimedia, supporting collaborative…

There have been a number of frameworks and models developed to support different aspects of interactive learning. Some were developed to deal with course design through the application of authoring tools, whereas others such as conversational, advisory, and ontology-based systems were used in virtual classrooms to improve and support collaborative…

This paper reports on a naturalistic study of peer-to-peer learning, in a live, online video meeting context. Over a six-month period a group of international students of animation attended 99 live, online "study group" events amounting to around 120 hours of live "broadcast meeting time". Some meetings were very large, with up to 34 participants,…

Describes three projects at Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania) that developed novice programming environments based on structure editors: GNOME, MacGNOME and ACSE (Advanced Computing for Science Education). Tracks the evolution of the programming environments and courses, documenting important lessons and discoveries about novice…