Our case study is a response to the need for research and reporting on specific strategies employed by software designers to produce effective multimedia instructional solutions. A systemic approach for identifying appropriate software features and conducting a formative evaluation that evaluates both the overall effectiveness of the multimedia…

Using 3D virtual environments for educational purposes is becoming attractive because of their rich presentation and interaction capabilities. Furthermore, dynamically adapting the 3D virtual environment to the personal preferences, prior knowledge, skills and competence, learning goals, and the personal or (social) context in which the learning…

Traditional e-learning systems support "one-way" communication. Teachers provide knowledge for learners, but they are unable to use a student's learning experiences to benefit the class as a whole. To address these problems, this study explores e-learning success factors via the design and evaluation of an e-learning 2.0 system. This study…

Purpose: Learning Chinese is unquestionably very important and popular worldwide with the fast economic growth of China. To most foreigners and also local students, one of the major challenges in learning Chinese is to write Chinese characters in correct stroke sequences that are considered as significant in the Chinese culture. However, due to…

Recognition of students' facial expressions can be used to understand their level of attention. In a traditional classroom setting, teachers guide the classes and continuously monitor and engage the students to evaluate their understanding and progress. Given the current popularity of e-learning environments, it has become important to assess the…

Today various types of tablet computers are used, including iPad and Android Tablets. These individual portable digital devices can be used as e-book readers to support mobile personalized learning. Though many studies have investigated e-books by targeting undergraduate students, yet less attention has been paid to children. Therefore, an…

Symbolic circuit analysis is a cornerstone of electrical engineering education. Solving a suitable set of selected problems is essential to developing professional skills in the field. A new method is presented for automatic validation of circuit equations representing a student's intermediate steps in the solving process. Providing this immediate…

This paper describes the development and evaluation of web-based museum trails for university-level design students to access on handheld devices in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. The trails offered students a range of ways of exploring the museum environment and collections, some encouraging students to interpret objects and…

The possible benefits of agent expressiveness have been highlighted in previous literature; yet, the issue of verbal expressiveness has been left unexplored. I hypothesize that agent verbal expressiveness may improve the interaction between pedagogical agents and learners, ultimately enhancing learning outcomes. Evidence from a quasi-experimental…

The synchronous tool that is right for developing an online course depends on the context, needs and priorities. This report compares synchronous, virtual classroom systems Elluminate Live! v. 9 and Dimdim v. 4.5. The researchers compared the features of each system in terms of facilitation of communication, presentation of course content and…

Background: e-status is a web-based tool able to generate different statistical exercises and to provide immediate feedback to students' answers. Although the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is becoming widespread in undergraduate education, there are few experimental studies evaluating its effects on learning. Method: All…

This paper presents a comprehensive usability study conducted within the context of a Europe-wide project. The design of the evaluated e-learning platform is based on an innovative approach to the education of young Europeans by integrating into the curricula of a Europe-wide network of 14 schools different state-of-the-art technologies in…

Argumentation is an important skill to learn. It is valuable not only in many professional contexts, such as the law, science, politics, and business, but also in everyday life. However, not many people are good arguers. In response to this, researchers and practitioners over the past 15-20 years have developed software tools both to support and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction) of e-feedback interfaces. The experiment compares a traditional visual approach with a multimodal approach in order to determine the impact of multimodal metaphors upon the user's understanding, reasoning and engagement with the…

Recent research indicated that students' ability to construct evidence-based explanations in classrooms through scientific inquiry is critical to successful science education. Structured argumentation support environments have been built and used in scientific discourse in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, no research work in the…