The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers' perceptions of the integration of digital games for K-12 education. Specifically, this qualitative investigation focuses on reflective dialogued gathered from a group of K-12 educators about their experiences and perceptions of learning about and playing digital games for teaching and learning.…

The present study investigated the phenomenon of buying "virtual assets" for game avatars. Virtual Assets are items that are bought with real-world money for an avatar in-game. Weapons, items, pets, mounts and skin customisations are the most popular examples. Using a qualitative methodology--in this case Interpretative phenomenological…

The use of the physical environment as a three-dimensional (3-D) textbook is not a common practice in educational facilities design. Previous researches documented that little progress has been made to incorporate environmental education (EE) into architecture, especially among the conventional designers who are often constrained by the budget and…

Reasoning about ecosystems includes consideration of causality over temporal and spatial distances; yet learners typically focus on immediate time frames and local contexts. Teaching students to reason beyond these boundaries has met with some success based upon tests that cue students to the types of reasoning required. Virtual worlds offer an…

Pervasive worlds are computing environments where a virtual world converges with the physical world through context-aware technologies such as sensors. In pervasive worlds, technology is distributed among entities that may be distributed geographically. We explore the concept, possibilities, and challenges of distributed pervasive worlds in a case…

This paper explores the use of a three dimensional virtual world (3-DVW) to delivery assertiveness training to young adolescents. The case study aims to understand how a sense of presence in VWs facilitates and affect the performance of students role-playing activities to enhance their ability to resist sexual coercion. The results indicate that a…

The core of instruction is the interaction between the student, the content, and the teacher. Good instructional design accounts for the students' needs and interests by personalizing the core to each student. Video games and simulations are one way to meet student needs and leverage their interests for increased student learning. In the 2011-12…

Purpose: The authors aimed to design a distributed lambda model (DLM), which is well adapted to implement three-dimensional (3-D), finite-element descriptions of muscles. Method: A muscle element model was designed. Its stress-strain relationships included the active force-length characteristics of the ? model along the muscle fibers, together…

A free program for the simulation of dynamic infrared (IR) spectra is presented. The program simulates the spectrum of two exchanging IR peaks based on simple input parameters. Larger systems can be simulated with minor modifications. The program is available as an executable program for PCs or can be run in MATLAB on any operating system. Source…

Objective: Compare weight loss and maintenance between a face-to-face (FTF) weight management clinic and a clinic delivered via virtual reality (VR). Methods: Participants were randomized to 3 months of weight loss with a weekly clinic delivered via FTF or VR and then 6 months' weight maintenance delivered with VR. Data were collected at baseline…

Technology development is moving rapidly and our dependence on information services is growing. Building a broadband infrastructure that can support future demand and change is therefore critical to social, political, economic and technological developments. It is often up to local policy makers to find the best solutions to support this demand…

Link failures in wide area networks are common and cause significant data losses. Mesh-based protection schemes offer high capacity efficiency but they are slow, require complex signaling, and instable. Diversity coding is a proactive coding-based recovery technique which offers near-hitless (sub-ms) restoration with a competitive spare capacity…

The objective of this study was to develop a "Virtual Design Studio (VDS)": a software platform for integrated, coordinated and optimized design of green building systems with low energy consumption, high indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and high level of sustainability. The VDS is intended to assist collaborating architects,…

Most, if not all, computerized adaptive testing (CAT) programs use simulation techniques to develop and evaluate CAT program administration and operations, but such simulation tools are rarely available to the public. Up to now, several software tools have been available to conduct CAT simulations for research purposes; however, these existing…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) once meant principally text-based communication mediated by computers, but rapid technological advances in recent years have heralded an era of multimodal communication with a growing emphasis on audio and video synchronous interaction. As CMC, in all its variants (text chats, video chats, forums, blogs, SMS,…