Advanced information communication technologies (ICT) offer significant benefits to applied communications, including potential cost reductions, service improvements, and expanded natural resource education in an era of ever-decreasing budgets. Limited guidance exists about how to design and implement virtual reality and augmented reality…

This study investigates an instantiation of a 3D virtual world-based Japanese learning curriculum within the context of a Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) classroom. Through a mixed-method case study approach, participants' natural acquisition of Japanese in a 3D virtual environment was examined. In the present study, four sources of data from…

This book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). It is organized as a collection of 14 research themes, each introduced by leading experts and including references to the most relevant literature on the theme of each cluster. Additionally, each chapter discusses four seminal papers on the theme with expert…

Software avatars are increasingly applied to support children's collaborative storytelling because avatars may serve as a transparent shield or as embodied agents to facilitate creativity in children. However, when using avatars, it is not easy for children to practise and refine their speaking skills by narrating their stories to an audience. The…

Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multiple media and gaming elements to tell a story that might be affected by participants' actions, have been used in the marketing and promotion of a number of entertainment related products such as films, computer games and music. This paper discusses the…

Using a framework of cognitive, social, and teaching presence, the nature of learning experiences in a three-dimensional virtual world environment (Second Life) and a text-chat learning environment without visuals (TeachNet) were investigated. A mixed method of code frequencies, coherence graphs, interviews, and a survey was used. The results…

This book is provided as a guide, encouragement and handbook for faculty to introduce digital media in language they can understand and provide strategies and activities they can quickly assimilate into their teaching. The authors are excited that more people will be able to benefit from the powerful help and guidance contained in this book. This…

Virtual worlds, computer-based simulated environments in which users interact via avatars, provide an opportunity for the highly realistic enactment of real life activities online. Unlike computer games, which have a pre-defined purpose, pay-off structure, and action patterns, virtual worlds can leave many of these elements for users to determine.…

Learning organisations face new challenges in the 21st century. Increased flow of trade in commodities, manufactured goods and information as well as mobility of people have led to increased global interdependence, interconnectedness and cultural diversity. People and teams within learning organisations have become globally distributed with the…

Like any infrastructure technology, Virtual World (VW) platforms provide affordances that facilitate some activities and hinder others. Although it is theoretically possible for a VW platform to support all types of activities, designers make choices that lead technologies to be more or less suited for different learning objectives. Virtual World…

The turbulent business environment requires business expertise from ever-larger personnel groups. The required business know-how is a combination of knowledge and several different skills, and it should provide the learners with an overall view of the functioning of a business organization as a whole. Moreover, while work is increasingly becoming…

NASA research into plant-based regenerative systems for sustaining colonies in space provides the core content for the Classroom of the Future (COTF), a NASA sponsored project that transfers research on space exploration to high school biology classrooms. This article describes and evaluates BioBlast (Better Learning through Adventure, Simulations…

Describes the design and development of a computer simulation and accompanying software to teach the scaleup of chemical processes to chemical engineering students at Penn State. Collaboration on the instructional development team is described, software modules are explained, and students' evaluations of the system are reported. (LRW)

Reports on a collaborative project developing CD-ROM multimedia resources for school leaders. Provides an overview of multimedia case-simulation concept, discusses collaborative project efforts with regional and state school leaders, highlights CD-ROM case design features, and summarizes preliminary findings associated with the Administrator Case…

Using 74 eighth graders, the effects of computer-assisted cooperative, competitive, and individualistic instruction were compared. Computer-assisted cooperative instruction promoted greater quantity and quality of daily achievement, more successful problem solving, more task-related student-student interaction, and increased the perceived status…