Collaborative learning environments found with gaming communities can provide excellent structures to study the way that learners act within informal learning environments. For example, many of these gaming communities encourage gamers to create videogames and virtual world walkthroughs and commentaries. Walkthroughs and commentaries provide…

While researchers are examining the role of playing games to learn, others are looking at using game design as an instructional tool. However, game-design software may require additional time to train both teachers and students. In this article, the authors discuss the use of Microsoft PowerPoint as a tool for game-design instruction and the…

Creating a design theory for Constructivist Gaming Learning Environment necessitates, among other things, the establishment of design principles. These principles have the potential to help designers produce games, where users achieve higher levels of learning. This paper focuses on twelve design principles: Probing, Distributed, Multiple Routes,…

The purpose of this paper is to present the rationale and principles that guided the design and development of PARENTS, a multimedia case-based environment. Following a development research approach, the tenets of constructivist learning, and the advantages of case-based instruction, we developed a multimedia program in which we utilized and…

Discusses the development of an Enriched Learning and Information Environment (ELIE). Highlights include technology-based and theory-based frameworks for defining ELIEs; a socio-technical definition; a conceptual prototype; a participatory design process, including iterative design through rapid prototyping; and design issues for technology…

Discusses the concept and design of an enriched learning and information environment that was originally developed at Indiana University in partnership with AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph). Topics addressed include constructivism, cognitive tools, representing expert behavior, apprenticeship, technological tools, information tools,…

The study of database systems is typically core in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes related to computer science and information systems. However, one component of this curriculum that many learners have difficulty with is database analysis and design, an area that is critical to the development of modern information systems. This paper…

The design of computer-­based learning environments has undergone a paradigm shift; moving students away from instruction that was considered to promote technical rationality grounded in objectivism, to the application of computers to create cognitive tools utilized in constructivist environments. The goal of the resulting computer-­based learning…