Today, the Internet plays a major role in distributing learning material within third level education. Multiple online facilities provide access to educational resources. While early systems relied on webpages, which acted as repositories for learning material, nowadays sophisticated online applications manage and deliver learning resources.…

Mobile devices could facilitate human interaction and access to knowledge resources anytime and anywhere. With respect to wide application possibilities of mobile learning, investigating learners' acceptance towards it is an essential issue. Based on activity theory approach, this research explores positive factors for the acceptance of m-learning…

This paper presents a quantitative approach to multimodal discourse analysis for analyzing online collaborative learning. The coding framework draws together the fields of systemic functional linguistics and Activity Theory to analyze interactions between collaborative-, content- and technology-related discourse. The approach is used to examine…

E-Learning is a vast and complex research topic that poses many challenges in every aspect: educational and pedagogical strategies and techniques and the tools for achieving them; usability, accessibility and user interface design; knowledge sharing and collaborative environments; technologies, architectures, and protocols; user activity…

Virtual worlds have been linked with e-learning applications to create virtual learning environments (VLEs) for the past decade. However, while they can support many educational activities that extend both traditional on-campus teaching and distance learning, they are used primarily for learning content generated and managed by instructors. With…

Two small studies, one an "eye-tracking" study and the other a "remote observation" study, have been conducted to investigate ways to identify two kinds of online learner interactions: users flicking through the web pages in "browsing" action, and users engaging with the content of a page in "learning"…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the design of a context-aware service for synchronous support in web-based educational systems. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed service supports synchronous interaction among tutors and students, based on their current context, thus increasing the communication channels, the reasoning and…

This paper describes the design of a synchronous World Wide Web-based distance education environment developed at the Telematics Laboratory of Computer Engineer and Informatics Department (CEID) and Computer Technology Institute (Greece); the environment uses telematics services to conduct lessons over computer networks, simulating a traditional…

This paper describes a communication system accessible by a World Wide Web browser. The main advantage of this system is to encourage a collaborative way of learning using asynchronous communication channels. The conversation is strongly structured by the system itself which helps the users to coordinate their actions, playing their respective…

At present, the design of computer-supported group-based learning (CSGBL) is often based on subjective decisions regarding tasks, pedagogy and technology, or concepts such as "cooperative learning" and "collaborative learning." Critical review reveals these concepts as insufficiently substantial to serve as a basis for CSGBL design. Furthermore,…

As the need for distance education grows, requirements for the development of high-speed network-based real-time distance learning systems increases. MHEG-5 is the fifth part of the MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Experts Group) standard, and it defines a final-form representation for application interchange. This paper…

This paper describes IRI (Interactive Remote Instruction), a computer-based system built at Old Dominion University (Virginia) in order to support distance education. The system is based on the concept of a virtual classroom where students at different locations have the same synchronous class experience, using networked computers to communicate…

The design issues involved in the effective use of computer-mediated communication in a multimedia distance education environment are examined, with particular reference to recent and current initiatives at the Open University in Great Britain. A description of the components of the Open University's electronic campus (the conferencing system and…

In order to provide teachers and students with electronic learning environments that support mentoring and collaboration through electronic means, the authors developed software that supports same time/different place educational collaborative activities over the Internet. These activities focus on teaching students how to organize and systematize…

This paper describes the design and features of LEA (Learning Environment with Agent), an educational system which has the features of both synchronous and asynchronous group learning environments. The first section discusses group learning environments, including differences between individual learning and group learning, and the classification…