Technology-enhanced learning continues to provide opportunities for increased interventions in educational programing. For teacher education programs, novelty pales in comparison to providing meaningful instruction and enduring outcomes. The use of avatars has provided integration of research evidence that increases intended behaviors; however,…

Simulations and virtual or remote laboratories are increasingly used in schools. The extent to which individual experimental skills can be acquired when experimenting in digital applications is, however, questionable. This paper focuses on finding multimedia features for digital experiments to support the transfer of measured values from the…

At universities, we observe a great range of variation in previous knowledge and decreasing mathematical competences of students -- partly due to less limited qualification rules at universities in Germany. To address the challenges which arise by teaching very heterogeneous student groups we use e-tutorials as an addition to traditional classroom…

Research into virtual field trips (VFTs) started in the 1990s but, only recently, the maturing technology of devices and networks has made them viable options for educational settings. By considering an experiment, the learning benefits of logging the movement of students within a VFT are shown. The data are visualized by two techniques:…

The purpose in this study is to examine the effect of "Online Learning Environment based of Caricature Animation" which is prepared for "Human and Environment" and "Sun and Space" units in the secondary school 7th Grade Science and Technology course, on the success and attitude of the students for humor. The…

The Speak Up National Research Project annually polls K-12 students, parents and educators about the role of technology for learning in and out of school. For the past thirteen years, Project Tomorrow's® annual Speak Up Research Project has provided schools and districts nationwide and throughout the globe with new insights into how today's…

Game technology has been widely used for educational applications, however, despite the common use of background music in games, its effect on learning has been largely unexplored. This paper discusses how music played in the background of a computer-animated history lesson affected participants' memory for facts. A virtual history lesson was…

In the context of practicing intercultural communication skills, we investigated the role of fidelity in a game-based, virtual learning environment as well as the role of feedback delivered by an intelligent tutoring system. In 2 experiments, we compared variations on the game interface, use of the tutoring system, and the form of the feedback.…

The theory and lessons of knowledge exchange, in both a physical and virtual environment, suggest a framework for understanding the specific requirements for a digital design class in "Second Life". Through teaching and observing students who were asked to complete a machinima project, our research provided examples of the strengths and…

The online virtual world Second Life (www.secondlife.com) has multiple potential uses in teaching. In Second Life (SL), users create avatars that represent them in the virtual world. Within SL, avatars can interact with each other and with objects and environments. SL offers tremendous creative potential in that users can create content within the…

User-created virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are a hot topic in higher education. Thousands of educators are currently exploring and using Second Life, and hundreds of colleges and universities have purchased and developed their own private islands in Second Life, including the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). Because it is so easy…

Guided by the principles of learner-centered teaching methodology, a Second Life project is designed to engage students in active learning of virtual commerce through hands-on experiences and teamwork in a virtual environment. More importantly, an assessment framework is proposed to evaluate the learning objectives and learning process of the…

By comparing two-dimensional (2D) chemical animations designed for computer's desktop with three-dimensional (3D) chemical animations designed for the full immersive virtual reality environment CAVE[TM] we studied how virtual reality environments could raise student's interest and motivation for learning. By using the 3ds max[TM], we can visualize…

This paper examines the effective deployment of conversational agents in virtual worlds from the perspective of researchers/practitioners in cognitive psychology, computing science, learning technologies and engineering. From a cognitive perspective, the major challenge lies in the coordination and management of the various channels of information…

Humans draw on their stereotypic beliefs to make assumptions about others. Even though prior research has shown that individuals respond socially to media, there is little evidence with regards to learners stereotyping and categorizing pedagogical agents. This study investigated whether learners stereotype a pedagogical agent as being…