This paper builds on research into using multimedia and hypermedia as creative writing tools and reports on a study in using a hypermedia authoring program with middle-years students at an Australian secondary school. The study explored a classroom where collaborative work built on the technical facilities and expertise of young people. The paper…

A verbal and e-mail survey was conducted of 30 senior high teachers in Alberta who teach computer programming courses in the Career and Technology Studies curriculum, in order to ascertain what courses at the intermediate and advanced levels were being offered, what programming languages were being used, why teachers selected the particular…

An observation on teaching introductory programming courses on SLN for a period of two terms led me to believe that online students try various ways to solve a problem. In the beginning, I got the impression that some of their approaches for a solution were wrong; but after a little investigation, I found that some of the problem-solving…

Programming assignments are used to assess a student's understanding of the theoretical aspect of programming and their ability to put that theory into practice. When assigning programs for students to complete, it is necessary to make sure that the problem is well specified, realistic, yet is able to be completed in a relatively short period of…

Since the explosion in multimedia computing, educators have been trying to work their way towards integrated human-computer interaction. Consequently, a large number of multimedia tools have been created, always following the trend of simpler and easier multimedia development. After outlining the transition from hardcore programming to modern…

Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) was used as a foundation to redesign a computer programming class for mechanical engineers, in which content was delivered with hybrid/distance technology. The effort confirmed the utility of CLT in course design. And it demonstrates that hybrid/distance learning is not merely a tool of convenience, but one, which, when…

The paper presents a part of authors' research results, they obtained within a wider research focused on possibilities to influence students' attitudes and approaches to individual subjects, mainly the less favourite ones. Following the empirically derived hierarchy of subjects identifying the degree of individual subjects popularity among…

This deliverable reports the technical and research development performed until M36 (January 2009) within tasks T5.2 and T5.4 of WP5 in the KP-Lab project, per the latest Description of Work (DoW) 3.2 [DoW3.2]. The described components are included in the KP-Lab Semantic Web Knowledge Middleware (SWKM) Prototype Release 3.0 software that takes…

This study was conducted on-site in Istanbul, Turkey, to determine the effects that mass media has on citizens' perceptions about fear of crime, in particular, and fear, in general. Specifically, the study was designed to (1) determine the tendency of citizens' media consumption, (2) determine the level of fear of crime among Turkish citizens, (3)…

Low retention rates in third-level computing courses, despite continuing research into new and improved computer teaching methods, present a worrying concern. For some computing students learning programming is intimidating, giving rise to lack of confidence and anxiety. The noncognitive domain of anxiety with regard to learning computer…

At schools special learning and programming environments are often used in the field of algorithms. Particularly with regard to computer science lessons in secondary education, they are supposed to help novices to learn the basics of programming. In several parts of Germany (e.g., Bavaria) these fundamentals are taught as early as in the seventh…

Building computerized mechanisms that will accurately, immediately and continually recognize a learner's affective state and activate an appropriate response based on integrated pedagogical models is becoming one of the main aims of artificial intelligence in education. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the various kinds of evidence…

Personalization of user interfaces for browsing content is a key concept to ensure content accessibility. In this direction, we introduce concepts that result in the generation of personalized multimodal user interfaces for browsing XML content. User requirements concerning the browsing of a specific content type can be specified by means of…

The use of the Web to deliver open, distance, and flexible learning has opened up the potential for social interaction and adaptive learning, but the usability, expressivity, and interoperability of the available tools leave much to be desired. This article explores these issues as they relate to teachers and learning designers through the case of…

The availability of digital multimedia technology poses new challenges to researchers, authors, and educators, even as it creates new opportunities for communication. VideoScheme, a prototype video programming environment is described, along with its applications in research, authoring and education. In terms of research, VideoScheme can help…