In October 2012, Microsoft will release the commercial version of its next operating system, presently called "Windows 8." This version represents a significant departure from the past. Microsoft wants this operating system to meet user needs regardless of physical platform (e.g., desktop, notebook, tablet, mobile phone). As part of this mission,…

This thesis is about a design process for creating "educationally relevant" tools. I submit that the key to creating tools that are educationally relevant is to focus on ensuring a high degree of alignment between the designed tool and the broader educational context into which the tool will be integrated. The thesis presents methods and processes…

The Australian Government's widening participation agenda--also referred to as the social inclusion agenda--considers equity through the triple focus of access, participation and outcomes. These foci are catalysts for re-examining teaching and learning approaches in formal education. This article considers this national refocus and the…

Conflicts occur when learners interact with pedagogical agents and virtual characters. Such conflicts--arising from technological limitations, psychosocial perceptions, and pedagogical inadequacies--hinder communication and interaction between virtual characters and learners, and impede successful engagement with learning tasks and experiences. To…

This article proposes three guidelines for mobile technology design that address the needs and goals of teachers who are considered mainstream with regard to technology use. Devices should be easy to learn and use, focused on the curriculum, and instruction-friendly. Only if the three guidelines are followed by hardware and software developers…

This paper shows how to use design patterns for building educational multimedia applications. The first section summarizes design issues related to organizing the information, the organization of the interface, and implementation. Navigating through information is covered in the second section, including problems, motivations, and solutions, and…

In this article, we present CTRL_SPACE: a design for a software environment with companion hardware, developed to introduce preliterate children to basic computational concepts by means of an animatronic face, whose individual features serve as an analogy for a programmable object. In addition to presenting the environment, this article briefly…

Most large enterprises now have some type of portal to organize their internal information services. Few, however, have the long history of the SPIKE project at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Originally developed during the 1994-1995 school year, SPIKE was an intranet information portal before the term "information…