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We reviewed studies on recognition technologies published in the last ten years. This review study was aimed toward identifying, appraising, selecting, and synthesizing all high quality research evidence published in the literature related to recognition technologies and on determining how they can assist learning and instruction. This study particularly focuses on summarizing the current state of knowledge in the following dimensions: (1) recognition technology and processes, (2) applications, (3) schemes, and (4) advantages and disadvantages. We reviewed seventy-two papers and identified eighteen recognition technologies. Our results showed that all of the recognition technologies under consideration featured different recognition processes and applications. In most studies, the participants were university students. Questionnaires and tests were the most frequently used data collection methods. Most studies used a group comparison as their research design. Finally, several advantages and disadvantages of the recognition technologies were identified and summarized in the papers. The most frequently cited disadvantage was a low recognition accuracy rate. Based on our results, several suggestions and implications are made for the teaching and research community.

Smart environments integrated with digital technologies have emerged as a powerful tool to support personalized, interactive, and adaptive learning experiences. The central objective of developing smart environment is to foster learner agency enabling learners to develop the ability to take ownership and manage their own learning process. However, developing learner agency presents a significant challenge. It requires researchers, practitioners, and system developers to understand the roles of teachers and students, the instructional design, and the affordances of technologies to transfer learners from passive recipients to active participants in their learning process. To address the need, this special issue collected twenty-nine articles which underwent a rigorous peer review process. The acceptance rate for this special issue was less than fifteen percent and only four papers were accepted and included. The four papers discuss the application of instructional approaches and various digital tools such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and mobile technologies to design smart learning environments which foster and evaluate learner agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators are exploiting the advantages of advanced web-based collaboration technologies and massive online interactions. Interactions between learners and human or nonhuman resources therefore play an increasingly important pedagogical role, and the way these interactions are expressed in the user interface of virtual learning environments is assumed to greatly impact the learning process. This paper presents an evaluation of how interactions for learning are expressed in the user interface of an IMS Learning Design (LD) runtime environment. Specifically, we selected Reigeluth and Moore's set of interactions for learning was selected and tested how these interactions are visually expressed and supported in the user interface of the Service Based Learning Design (SLeD) player. The findings show several drawbacks in the current way of visualizing units of learning during runtime. For instance, the synchronization of participants in corresponding learning and support activities is not clearly expressed, the current role remains unclear in multi-role settings, and the nested display of unit-of-learning contents impedes navigation. Drawing from these findings, the paper offers recommendations regarding future development of IMS LD runtime user interfaces.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially machine learning models that autonomously generate human-like content, has recently attracted significant attention in the education sector. This paper explores the potential of generative AI, including tools like ChatGPT, to shift from traditional outcome-oriented educational practices to a more balanced approach that values both the learning process and its outcomes. Traditionally, education has emphasized achieving predefined results, but the advent of generative AI tools, which enable students to easily produce tangible results, calls for a reevaluation of these practices. This shift suggests a need for a broader focus that encompasses the entire learning process leading to the final product, thereby promoting an educational practice that equally emphasizes both the journey and the destination of learning. Recognizing that the implementation of such practices, facilitated by generative AI, still requires exploration, this paper proposes a solution that integrates the experiential learning cycle and learning portfolio. This approach is designed to demonstrate the realization of process-outcome-balanced educational practices through the use of a pedagogical AI agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses university students' acquisition of simple and complex knowledge, in exploring whether the knowledge gap hypothesis (KGH) with its origins in community-based research into people's informal learning from mass media, provides insights into students' acquisition and retention of information. The KGH posits that attempts to equalise knowledge within a community by releasing new information into it often either has no such effect, or even worsens knowledge inequities. The present study set out to discover if members of a diverse student class, when presented with the same course-related information, both simple and complex, acquired knowledge at similar rates. After formal university education, those with less prior education acquired less knowledge from the same learning opportunities than those with more prior education at each survey point. Second, although entry education level led to different learning outcomes initially, those with less prior education did subsequently achieve the same level of knowledge as those with more prior education. The paper finally reflects on whether existing KGH claims, based on informal education through the media, apply in a formal education environment. (Contains 4 figures and 5 tables.)

Successful problem-based learning (PBL) often requires students to collectively regulate their learning processes as a group and engage in socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL). This paper focuses on how facilitators supported SSRL in the context of middle-school game-based PBL. Using conversation analysis, this study analyzed text-based chat messages of facilitators and students collected during gameplay. The analysis revealed direct modeling strategies such as performing regulative processes, promoting group awareness, and dealing with contingency as well as indirect strategies including prompting questions and acknowledgment of regulation, and the patterns of how facilitation faded to yield responsibilities to students to regulate their own learning. The findings will inform researchers and practitioners to design prompts and develop technological tools such as adaptive scaffolding to support SSRL in PBL or other collaborative inquiry processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies have evidenced that mobile-assisted vocabulary learning, which allows students to create artefacts and engage in productive skills, can help them in vocabulary learning. However, there remains little research and validated approaches for designing seamless vocabulary learning experiences for young learners. In this paper, a seamless vocabulary learning system was specifically designed for young learners. The study involved three classes of primary 2 students to investigate the learning effectiveness of seamless vocabulary learning, with a focus on analyzing student-generated artefacts. The results validated the effectiveness of seamless vocabulary learning for young learners, emphasizing the importance of strengthening the connection between home-based learning and classroom-based learning. The study also indicated the pivotal role of providing students with opportunities to improve their artefacts constantly across different learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affect is an important element of the learning process both in the classroom and with educational technology. This paper presents analyses in relation to the identification of Action Units (AUs) related to affective states and their impact on learning with a tutoring system. To assess affect, a tool was devised to identify AUs on pictures of human faces. Action Units are combinations of individual facial muscles or groups of muscles that create facial expressions in association with affect. Pictures from a population of students were taken while using an intelligent tutoring system for mathematics in a secondary school in a suburban school in Veracruz, Mexico. The students were asked to interact with the tutoring system for 40 minutes and they were photographed with the tool at a rate of 1 picture every 5 seconds acquiring a dataset consisting of 16,800 photos. To achieve identification, the software analyzes individual pictures using Principal Component Analyses (PCA) and Euclidian distance. The tool developed to classify affective states shows 88.88% accuracy in the identification of AUs when matching the recognized AU to the Cohn-Kanade AU-Coded facial expression database. The analyses also elicited the most common AUs for the population and their association with learning with the intelligent tutoring system. These preliminary results shed light on the issues of affect in relation to learning mathematics with tutoring systems and pave the way for the implementation of coping strategies based on the automatic recognition of facial expressions.

Flow is the affective state in which a learner is so engaged and involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. In this sense, to help students in the skill development and knowledge acquisition (referred to as learners' growth process) under optimal conditions, the instructional designers should create learning scenarios that favor the learner's flow. One-way to obtain these scenarios is to incorporate the conditions postulated by the Flow Theory in the context of the instructional design process. However, little attention has been drawn to this integration, and how to apply the Flow Theory based on learning theories that provide theoretical justifications during the instructional design process. Thus, in this paper, we propose a framework to integrate the learner's growth process and the Flow Theory. It provides adequate support for the instructional design of learning scenarios that lead and maintain learners in flow state. We demonstrate the usefulness of this framework by presenting an application that helps designers to search and select learning objects that have the potential to maintain the learner's flow in a learning scenario.

With mobile phones now in the hands of virtually all of our learners, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to imagine environments that do not include learning through mobile devices in even some small capacity. The interest in mobile learning is reflected in the enormous number of publications which have appeared over the past 10 to 15 years, but there are still questions about when, how, and why learners will choose to use or not use mobile devices as a regular part of their learning (Stockwell, 2022). Furthermore, the "disruptive" nature of mobile devices (see Hampel, 2019) has caused mixed reactions from teachers, some of whom feel that they are a distraction in the classroom, while others see a shifting of responsibility to the learners as a positive that can lead to autonomous behaviours that facilitate learning. Making the most of learning through mobile learning is dependent upon understanding the expectations of teachers, learners, and administrators, and to capitalise upon the affordances of the device, the learning ecology, and the short-term and long-term goals of the learners. This paper explores how mobile learning can play a role both inside and outside of the classroom, and the impact that it may have on both formal and informal learning opportunities. It includes a discussion of the shifting roles of teachers and learners, and then going on to explore the myths associated with technology in the development and sustainment of motivation and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) is an effective approach for promoting active learning. When inquiry-based learning is incorporated into instruction, teachers provide guiding questions for students to actively explore the required knowledge in order to solve the problems. Although the World Wide Web (WWW) is a rich knowledge resource for students to explore using search engines, it is hard for students to filter out required knowledge from the unorganized web pages and the huge number of search results. In this paper, an inquiry-based learning support system with two advanced knowledge exploration modules, namely the Q&A module and the Segmented Supplemental Material (SSM) module, is proposed and developed to assist students' inquiry-based learning. This study also evaluates the effects of the proposed system on students' learning achievement and learning efficiency with the various supports provided by the proposed system. Experiments were undertaken on a "Computer Science" course for first year undergraduate students. The experimental results show that with the support of the two advanced modules, both the students' learning achievement and their learning efficiency were enhanced.

With the benefit of multimedia and the learning cycle approach in promoting effective active learning, this paper proposed a learning cycle approach-based, multimedia-supplemented instructional unit for Structured Query Language (SQL) for second-year undergraduate students with the aim of enhancing their basic knowledge of SQL and ability to apply SQL to a database. The students were engaged into the earning unit by using the designed multimedia, were asked to explore SQL syntax errors using a game in the developed instructional multimedia and to share and discuss the cause(s) of the SQL syntax error(s) with the class. They then constructed, practiced, and applied SQL commands, and evaluated their own understanding using the multimedia. Research data were collected through an SQL achievement test, small projects, and a questionnaire. The results showed that the students who participated in this developed instructional unit had better ability to apply SQL to a database compared to other groups of students. (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.)

Recent developments in the use of social media for learning have posed serious challenges for learners. The information overload that these online social tools create has changed the way learners learn and from whom they learn. An investigation of learners' goals, motivations and expected outcomes when using a personal learning network is essential since there have been few empirical studies in the domain. Previous research focused on the factors that influence learning in virtual environments, but these studies were mainly conducted in an era in which online social media were not yet used for personal learning networks. The current paper reports findings of a study that examined factors impacting professional learning through networks. A personal learning network identification session and a brainstorm via Twitter ("Tweetstorm") regarding goals, motivational factors and outcomes of learning through networks were conducted. The article concludes that seven factors play a pivotal role in professional learning through networks: sharing, motivation, perceived value of the network, feedback, personal learning, trust and support, peer characteristics and peer value. Also, different perspectives, motivation, social media and collaboration, reciprocity, intrinsic motivation, innovation, status and reputation and networking strategies play an important role in motivation. Future work should focus on investigating the interplay between factors that influence networked learning identified in this article.

Emotions play a significant role in healthy cognitive functioning; they impact memory, attention, decision-making and attitude; and are therefore influential in learning and achievement. Consequently, affective diagnoses constitute an important aspect of human teacher-learner interactions motivating efforts to incorporate skills of affect perception within computer-based learning. This paper provides a discussion of the motivational and methodological issues involved in automatic affect inference in learning technologies. It draws on the recent surge of interest in studying emotions in learning, highlights available techniques for measuring emotions, and surveys recent efforts to automatically measure emotional experience in learning environments. Based on previous studies, six categories of pertinent affect states are identified; the visual modality for affect modelling is selected given the requirements of a viable measurement technique; and a bottom-up analysis approach based on context-relevant data is adopted. Finally, a dynamic emotion inference system that uses state of the art facial feature point tracking technology to encode the spatial and temporal signature of these affect states is described. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Intelligent learning technologies are often applied within the educational industries. While these technologies can be used to create learning experiences tailored to an individual student, they cannot address students' affect accurately and quickly during the learning process. This paper focuses on two core research questions. How do students regulate affect and what are the processes that affect regulation? First, this paper reviews the affect regulation methods and processes in an intelligent learning environment based on affective transition and affect compensation. This process, along with affect analysis, affect regulation, intelligent agents, and an intervention strategy can be used to analyze specific affect regulation methods and improve the affective regulation system. Seventy-two 7th grade students were randomly placed into an experimental condition that used Betty's Brain, an intelligent tutoring system (ITS), or a classroom control. A lag sequence analysis and a multinomial processing tree analysis of video data captured at 25-minute intervals revealed significant differences in affect transitions frequencies between the two groups. Based on the results of the above analyses and after-class interviews, we found that Betty's Brain was able to promote effective affect-regulation strategies to students in the domain of forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept maps have become a widely used educational tool around the globe. The advancements in computerized interface technologies have enabled even more alternatives for using concept maps in teaching and learning. This study investigates the effects of two different touch technology-based concept mapping interaction modes on students' learning achievements and learning attitudes in a natural science course, as well as their degree of acceptance of using concept maps to learn. Ninety two sixth graders were randomly divided into three groups. Experimental Group One was taught using the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB)-based concept mapping approach, Experimental Group Two learned with the touchscreen-based concept mapping approach, while the control group learned with the traditional paper-and-pencil-based concept mapping approach. The experimental results show that, in terms of learning attitudes toward the natural science course and the degree of acceptance of using concept maps to learn, the students were significantly more positive about the two touch technology-based interaction modes than they were about the traditional paper-and-pencil mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational data mining and learning analytics have become a very important topic in the field of education technology. Many frameworks have been proposed for learning analytics which make it possible to identify learning behavior patterns or strategies. However, it is difficult to understand the reason why behavior patterns occur and why certain strategies are used. In other words, all of the existing frameworks lack an important step, that is, result confirmation. In this paper, we propose a Result Confirmation-based Learning Behavior Analysis (ReCoLBA) framework, which adds a result confirmation step for exploring the hidden reasons underlying the learning patterns and strategies. Using this ReCoLBA framework, a case study was conducted which analyzed e-book reading data. In the case study, we found that the students had a tendency to delete markers after adding them. Through an investigation, we found that the students did this because they could not grasp the learning emphasis. To apply this finding, we proposed a learning strategy whereby the teacher highlights the learning emphasis before students read the learning materials. An experiment was conducted to examine the effectiveness of this strategy, and we found that it could indeed help students achieve better results, reduce repetitive behaviors and save time. The framework was therefore shown to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) has been measuring ICT in education since 2009, but with such rapid change in technology and its use in education, it is important now to revise the collection mechanisms to focus on how technology is being used to enhance learning and teaching. Sustainable development goal (SDG) 4, for example, moves beyond measures of access and increasingly focuses on the sustainability of education including issues of educational quality and student outcomes. A reassessment of how ICT in education is measured to support the attainment of the SDGs by 2030 is thus a timely endeavour. The paper discusses four aspects: (1) evolving mission, methods and core principles of ICT in learning and teaching; (2) nature of ICT in education in accelerating the emergence of new learner-centred pedagogies; (3) types of learning activities associated with the use of ICT including those for leaders, teachers and students; and (4) usage and deployment patterns. This paper proposes extensions and adaptions to the existing UIS data collection instrument to enrich its capacity for understanding how ICT is being used in learning and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to improve the design methods for serious games (games for learning) by identifying a set of well-established pedagogical misconceptions and presenting design guidelines to avoid these. It analyses the pedagogical principles and models that are commonly used in serious game design, and contrasts these with evidence and advances in instructional psychology and instructional design research. The paper particularly focuses on (1) the concept of experience-based learning, which many serious games comply with, (2) the concept of learner motivation, which most games strongly claim to support, and (3) the score systems that many games use to track and display progress. Structural design weaknesses are exposed and countered with a large body of research evidence from the literature. A set of practicable design guidelines are presented that help to avoid the pedagogical flaws and contribute to improving the design methods for serious games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the use of adaptation patterns in the task of formulating standards for adaptive educational hypermedia (AEH) systems that is currently under investigation by the EU ADAPT project. Within this project, design dimensions for high granularity patterns have been established. In this paper we focus on detailing lower granularity adaptive patterns based upon learning styles. Several patterns from existing AEH system case studies are identified and classified according to an extended learning style "onion" model. This model forms the basis of a learning style taxonomy, introduced here, whose components determine adaptation patterns for AEH. These patterns are of importance both for authoring, as well as for interfacing between adaptive hypermedia systems. From an authoring point of view, these patterns may be used to establish a fine-grain approach to instructional strategies that can be implemented in AEH systems, as a response to a particular learning style. The implementation of this adaptation pattern taxonomy is discussed, both generally and in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important issue in personalized learning is to provide learners with customized learning according to their learning characteristics. This paper focused attention on scheming learning map as follows. The learning goal can be achieved via different pathways based on alternative materials, which have the relationships of prerequisite, dependence, and sequence. Besides, owing to distinct learner characteristics, different learning materials with various forms have distinct effects on learners, such as learning performance (benefit objective), learning time (cost objective), and so forth. Accordingly, scheming learning map is not only the NP-hard combination problem, but also the tradeoff multiple objectives optimization. More importantly, it is not only impossible for instructors to scheme the fitting learning maps for learners, but also difficult and time-consuming for learners to scheme their fitting learning maps by themselves. Hence, this paper first proposed an innovative approach based on enhanced genetic algorithm (GA) with Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), to facilitate the search for the near-optimal solution of learning map. Moreover, a web-based learning management system based on the proposed approach was developed to help instructors facilitate the customized learning itineraries for learners. The experimental results from simulations showed that, not only in terms of search effectiveness and solution quality the proposed approach significantly is superior to a genetic algorithm and a Random method, but also in terms of search efficiency the proposed approach significantly is superior to a genetic algorithm. That is, the developed system with the proposed approach is able to efficiently scheme the learning map with reliable and high quality. Consequently, the instructors and learners can concentrate on their tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in applying Augmented Reality (AR) to create unique educational settings. So far, however, there is a lack of review studies with focus on investigating factors such as: the uses, advantages, limitations, effectiveness, challenges and features of augmented reality in educational settings. Personalization for promoting an inclusive learning using AR is also a growing area of interest. This paper reports a systematic review of literature on augmented reality in educational settings considering the factors mentioned before. In total, 32 studies published between 2003 and 2013 in 6 indexed journals were analyzed. The main findings from this review provide the current state of the art on research in AR in education. Furthermore, the paper discusses trends and the vision towards the future and opportunities for further research in augmented reality for educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seamless learning has been recognized as an effective learning approach across various dimensions including formal and informal learning contexts, individual and social learning, and physical world and cyberspace. With the emergence of seamless learning, majority of the current research focus on realizing a seamless learning environment at school or university. However, the utilization of the collected learning logs still remains a challenge yet to be explored. In this study, an e-book with ubiquitous learning system called SCROLL is developed to collect and analyze learning logs in the seamless learning environment. Moreover, this paper presents our analytics in contribution to bridging the learning between eBook learning and real-life learning. An experiment was conducted to evaluate (1) whether VASCORLL 2.0 (Visualization and Analysis System for Connecting Relationships of Learning Logs) is effective in connecting the words learned through eBook to those learned from real-life, and (2) which social network centrality is the most effective to enhance learning in the seamless learning environment. Twenty international students participated in the evaluation experiment, and they were able to increase their learning opportunities by using VASCORLL 2.0. Furthermore, the betweenness centrality was found useful in finding central words that bridge eBook and real-life learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodiment is particularly relevant for learning anatomy as the knowledge to be acquired is related to the body itself. Several tools using three-dimensional (3D) anatomical structures and avatars (e.g. augmented reality; virtual reality; immersive anatomy; 3D animations) were developed to enrich students' experience by including gestures and body movements into learning anatomy. We developed a new interactive 3D tool that allows personal body experience and enhances spatial representation of musculoskeletal functional anatomy. Students can analyze and recreate a series of movements in real-time 3D interactive settings. This paper shows our research and development approach. Following the development of our anatomy tool, we conducted a pilot and one experiment. The pilot study aimed at evaluating users' experience (UX) of our first prototype. Experiment I aimed at evaluating the UX of the second version of the tool two times in a pretesttraining- posttest design. Students' spatial and motor imagery abilities as well as anatomy examination results were also collected. Our results provided evidence of UX enhancement. Accordingly students appreciated mainly the tool's hedonic (enjoyment) qualities. Overall, significant interactions were observed between students' UX, anatomy scores and motor imagery abilities. Finally, students' mental rotation ability predicted the increase of anatomy score. Cognitive sub-processes underlying functional human anatomy learning as well as students' identification through the avatar are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounded in problem-based learning and with respect to four mathematics domains (arithmetic, random events and counting, number theory, and geometry), we designed a series of programming-based learning tasks for middle school students to co-develop computational thinking (CT) and corresponding mathematical thinking. Various CT concepts and practices articulating the designated mathematical problems were involved in the tasks. In addition to delineating the design of these learning tasks, this paper presents a qualitative study in which we examined 74 students' learning outcomes and characterized their CT and mathematical thinking co-development as they accomplished the tasks. The research results demonstrate the codevelopment of both mathematics- and CT-related concepts and practices in the four mathematics domains. Two types of interactions are identified: (i) applying mathematical knowledge to construct CT artifacts and (ii) generating new mathematical knowledge with CT practice. The new insights provided by the present work are threefold. First, from a mathematical learning perspective, the nature of the solution processes of the designed problems should not be immediately obvious. Second, from a technology-enhanced learning perspective, the dynamic representations and immediate visual feedback afforded by the programming tool are beneficial to student learning. Third, from a pedagogical perspective, the room for customization offered by both the designed problems and programming tools can provide affordances for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the technical considerations and pedagogical issues that influence the design and classification of hardware-based experiments and their implementation in an internet-based remote laboratory environment for technical education. The necessary architecture to maintain academic integrity and imparting quality laboratory education via remote laboratories involving the instructor, faculty, and the students has been discussed. Online laboratory teaching and learning may be augmented by adding voice/multimedia protocols for teacher-student interaction. Pedagogical issues conducive for online laboratory instructions incorporating effective remote learning facilities that mimic the face-to-face interaction in conventional laboratory have been discussed. An online remote laboratory management system ensuring quality of service, security, automated laboratory report evaluation, and monitoring of student progress has been proposed. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a reference model which may help the educators and hardware-based laboratory module developers for electrical engineering disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the design of several social agents that are intended to collect the self-reflections of learners while learners are immersed in simulation activities for knowledge building. The design of the agents follows 5W principles and seeks to encourage learners to expend mental effort upon multi-faceted learning and self-reflection. Using semantic networks, we developed dialogue lines for reflection-prompting agents. We analyzed the participants' answers using natural language processing technology to classify the sentences into positive and negative rankings. A preliminary field study with 117 high school students was conducted over three weeks to test the effects of agent-prompted self-reflection. The results demonstrated that 96% and 62% of participants separately completed the first and the second simulation activities (including the agent-prompted self-reflections respectively). Those who did not finish the activities were generally limited by time restrictions rather than a lack of motivation, as the participants typically considered the interactions with the agents to be interesting. The self-reflections elicited through the agent interviews were consistent with the reflections obtained from paper-pencil questionnaires and appeared to be stable over time. Future study, including investigations using a randomized experimental design with a control group, is needed to fully assess the effects of agent-prompted self-reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a learner's learning ecology, the informal, out-of-school settings offer virtually boundless opportunities to advance one's learning. This paper reports on "Move, Idioms!", a design for Mobile-Assisted Language Learning experience that accentuates learners' habit of mind and skills in making meaning with their daily encounters, and associating those with the language knowledge learned in formal learning settings. The students used smartphones on a 1:1, 24x7 basis to capture photos in real-life contexts as artifacts related to Chinese idioms, made sentences with the idioms, and then posted them onto a wiki space for peer reviews. In this paper, we focus on investigating students' cognitive processes and patterns in artifact creations in informal settings. Our analysis and interpretation of such student activities is framed by the notion of Learner-Generated Context (LGC) (Luckin, 2008), a reconceptualization of 'learning contexts' that implies greater learner autonomy. Through two case studies, we gained better understanding in the impact of LGC and how it is crystallized in seamless learning processes with the interplay of physical settings, parental involvements and the mediation of mobile technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a previous analysis of game design patterns and related effects in an educational scenario, the following paper presents an experimental study. In the study a course for Basic Life Support training has been evaluated and two game design patterns have been applied to the course. The hypotheses evaluated in this paper relate to game design patterns that have been used for learning functions, expected to enhance the learning outcome and user experience. An experimental design has been carried out in order to get insight about effects of individual and combined game patterns in a Basic Life Support course. Based on the according educational objectives, the effects of two different game design patterns relevant for learning (a timer pattern and a score pattern) have been evaluated. This game was prototypically developed targeting the application on the healthcare domain (basic life support). The results show a significant interaction effect of the two patterns on the learning gain, as well as a strong covariate influence of the learners' age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper employs two case studies to develop an approach for using podcasts to enhance student learning. The case studies involve two cohorts of postgraduate students enrolled on a blended course, over two years. In both cases, the institutional learning management system was used as a server to host the podcasts, giving students discretion on how and when to listen to podcasts. The podcasts were integrated in learning design hence tightly coupled in pedagogy in Case One, and optionally used i.e., loosely integrated in Case Two. Semi-structured indepth interviews were employed to solicit student experiences of using podcasts. Access logs from the podcast server provided insight into frequency of use of podcasts, thereby helping to establish the relation between podcast use and facilitation of learning. The findings suggest that students were confident in using podcasts for academic purposes. This is despite having had to overcome some challenges not limited to institutional policies on limited Internet quota for students. The findings also suggest that use of podcasts within a constructivist learning environment afforded learners control and flexibility, reflection and self-paced learning. The paper concludes that podcasts facilitate learning when tightly coupled to a curriculum and used within constructivist learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conferences play an important role in scientific community building, and in cooperation and dissemination related to Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). In this article we analyze the communities of five major conferences in TEL, including ICALT, ECTEL, ICWL, ITS, and AIED, with the aim of understanding the development patterns of these TEL communities. This is achieved through social network analysis and time series analysis applied to the co-authorship and citation networks of these conferences. In addition, we compare the development pattern of TEL conference communities to benchmarks drawn from long-established and highly successful conferences on database research. The analyses of the social network parameters of the conference communities generated several insights. We found that TEL conferences exhibit a mixed development pattern of young, emerging conferences that are still in the process of developing their communities. We also found that the more interdisciplinary conferences in our data set exhibited a slower rate of community development compared to those conferences with more focused topics. Regarding the practical implications of these findings, we have offered some recommendations to different stakeholders including conference chairs and key authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextual learning starts from the premise that learning cannot take place in a vacuum, but should somehow be connected with real world attributes to make sense to learners. Today, digital media tend to bring about new dimensions of context: internet connections and mobile devices enable learners to overcome restrictions of time and location, and neglect the physical boundaries and limitations of the learning environment. This calls for reconsidering contextual learning. This paper takes a theoretical stand by conceptualising the notion of learning context in the light of its virtualised extensions. It explains the historical and pedagogical backgrounds of contextual learning and reviews existing models that deal with context parameters. The paper identifies and discusses the constituting components of context for learning and it demonstrates how attributes of virtual representations affect the nature of context. The overall purpose of the paper is re-establishing the notion of contextual learning in the light of emerging digital media and making explicit the various dimensions involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research work in e-learning and more specifically in the field of CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) deals with design of collaborative activities, according to computer-interpretable specifications, such as IMS Learning Design, and their posterior enactment using LMSs (Learning Management Systems). A script that describes such collaborative activities is typically designed beforehand in order to structure collaboration, and defines the features that determine the behavior of the LMS, for instance, the sequence of activities or the groups/role distribution. In CSCL settings, group management and composition are especially relevant and affect the chances of achieving the expected learning outcomes. This paper presents a software tool, named Instance Collage, which aims at facilitating the configuration and population of groups for IMS-LD scripts created with the authoring tool Collage, and discusses the implications of the IMS-LD specification with respect to this task. InstanceCollage is designed to process collaboration scripts based on CLFPs (Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns). Using this type of patterns, InstanceCollage focuses on the importance of understanding the function of groups within the learning strategy of the script. This paper describes the approach taken in InstanceCollage to facilitate this understanding for non-expert users. Additionally, two case studies are presented, which represent complex authentic collaborative learning scenarios, as a proof of concept of the functionality of this tool. The case studies are also used to illustrate the requirements of group configuration tools and to show that InstanceCollage complies to such requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent progress in wireless and sensor technologies has lead to a new development of learning environments, called context-aware ubiquitous learning environment, which is able to sense the situation of learners and provide adaptive supports. Many researchers have been investigating the development of such new learning environments; nevertheless, the criteria of establishing a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment have not yet been clearly defined, not to mention the strategies of conducting effective learning activities. To resolve these problems, this paper presents the basic criteria, strategies, and research issues of context-aware ubiquitous learning, and identifies the necessary check items as well for the development of such learning environment. Illustrative examples of conducting context-aware ubiquitous learning activities and the requirements of setting up such learning environment are also presented at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse how contextualised media can be used to support learning. Additionally, the advantages of contextualised learning and the types of learning that are fit to be supported are discussed. Our focus throughout the paper will be on lifelong learning, and the integration of formal and informal learning therein. However, we think, to this date, most of the research concerning contextualised and mobile learning has been focusing on technological issues. Therefore, as an attempt to shift the discussion to a more educational perspective, a generic technical framework is presented. The technical framework is based on a reference model that came about as the result of a literature analysis in a previous paper. The reference model should provide a foundation that leads to a flexible and generic technical framework that can be used in a range of different learning scenarios. Moreover, a generic technical approach should aim at an easier integration of contextualised learning appliances into current learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional non-computerized learning environments are typically founded on an understanding of learning as acquiring silence for an effective individual learning process. Recently, it has also been reported that the high expectations for the impact of computer-based technology on educational practice have not been realized. This paper sets out to challenge both the assumptions made about the requirements for effective learning environments by pointing in the direction of social creative learning processes, as well as the technologies for effective and creative learning processes by redirecting the focus from what has been labeled "traditional computer-based learning environments" towards user-driven learning networks. Thus, this paper proposes the concept of netlearning as a general label for the traditional use of computer-based learning environments as education tools and then, it suggests the concept of learning through networks as a challenging concept for addressing user-driven technologies that support social, collaborative and creative learning processes in, via, or outside typical educational settings. The paper is inspired by recent research into the interaction society and the Scandinavian tradition in system development that always have highlighted the importance of user-driven processes, users as creative social individuals, and a perspective on users as creative contributors to both the form, and content of new interaction technologies. The paper ends with a presentation of a participatory design project in which children developed their own computer-based tools for editing film and I present this technology followed by a discussion on user-driven design of learning technologies in which the technology is not just a container for something else, but instead, novel technologies as a tool that directly enable the children to do new things, i.e. to collectively learn through their computer-supported social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is no agreement as to what instructional interactivity and interaction mean in educational literature, researchers agree that both terms are vital for teaching and learning one way or another. This paper presents the item-development stages and validity and reliability analyses of the Interactivity Survey (IS), which attempts to uncover the perceptions of professors working at departments of education from universities around the world. To provide evidence of reliability of the instrument, a pilot study was carried out with a sample size of 262 universities. All of the statistical test results and the final version of the instrument were provided. Thus, this paper is both a theoretical paper that conceptually synthesizes the literature on instructional interactivity and a technical paper that considers the information from an instrument-development point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have had high expectations for the impact of computer-based technology on educational practice. By and large, these expectations have not been realised. It has become evident that innovative technology alone does not necessarily guarantee progress - nor perhaps even significant change - in educational practice. This has led educational researchers to place greater emphasis on cultural issues that could account for the unexpectedly limited influence of technology-enhanced learning. This perception of the relationship between technology and learning is elaborated in the first section of the paper. It is complemented by a review of an alternative conception of computing, rooted in a methodology for modelling with dependency directed at the development of construals rather than programs, that is far better aligned to the demands of developing environments for learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential implications of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African Universities are tasked with increasing student throughput by offering additional academic support. A second task is to teach students to challenge and question. One way of attempting to achieve these tasks is by using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The focus of this paper is to examine the effect of using an ICT tool to both increase academic support to students, and to teach critical thinking skills. A field study comparing a Project Management course at the University of Cape Town over two successive years was conducted. In the second year an ICT mediated constructivist approach (DFAQ web site) in which students acquired project management skills was used to increase support and teach critical thinking skills. Structuration theory, in particular the notion of practical and discursive consciousness, was used to inform our understanding of the role of questioning on teaching project management. The conclusion is that a constructive approach, mediated by an anonymous web-based consultative environment, the Dynamic Frequently Asked Questions (DFAQ) improved support to students and had an effect on student learning of project management and students acquired some questioning skills as evidenced in the examination performance. The efficacy of the approach was evaluated both through an interpretive study of DFAQ artifacts and the performance in the examination. The paper examines relevant literature, details the research objectives, describes a field survey, and the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a pilot project with the purpose of evaluating the usefulness of tablet PCs for university professors. The focus is on the value of tablets primarily with respect to teaching and learning (and not for research or administrative work). Sixty-four professors, distributed across the various schools of a university, were provided with tablet PCs and were trained in their use. A survey was distributed to the participants at the end of the semester. There were 59 respondents, and of these 45 used the tablet in at least one of their classes. This paper describes the pilot project and the survey results. We observed that a) only a fraction of faculty are motivated to use tablet technology: roughly a third of faculty expressed an interest in replacing their notebook computer with a tablet computer and b) generally, participating faculty did indeed use tablet functionality in their classes and were convinced that this use resulted in a meaningful impact on teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educating inpatients and their family members regarding patient safety and protection is an important and challenging task for nursing staff. However, the effects of the conventional patient instruction with printed materials are usually not as good as expected owing to the learners' low learning engagement. In this study, a learning engagement-promoting model is proposed for developing interactive e-book systems for patient education. To evaluate the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted to explore the effects of the system on the learning outcomes and perceptions of inpatients' family members. The results show that the proposed approach significantly improved their learning performance as well as their learning attitudes, motivation, and satisfaction when compared to the conventional paper-based instruction. On the other hand, it was found that their state anxiety was not significantly affected by the approach. It is concluded that the interactive e-book-based learning approach can facilitate the inpatients' family members to well prepare for taking care of the patients without affecting their state anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade many studies have stated that learning based on digital games emerges as an effective way to combine teaching and learning processes with the attractiveness of digital technologies, because they are dynamic and playful. However, the vast majority of these digital resources -- such as educational games -- are still essentially visual, which prevents access to people with visual impairments. It is the duty of designers and developers not only to develop visually appealing games, but to take advantage of today's sound technologies to adapt and create inclusive solutions for non-sighted players. This paper, therefore, describes the design and evaluation processes of three new inclusive levels for Em Busca do Santo Grau, an educational, modular and customisable PC game. In addition to stating the related works, the literature review and the process of adapting a visual game to be played only by sound feedback, the design and evaluation procedures based on the EduGameAccess set of recommendations will also be described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the most relevant results from a national study about the availability and use of ICT in 46 Initial Teacher Education institutions in Chile, implemented during 2009 as part of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) international project "ICT in Initial Teacher Training." Main findings show an overall favorable context for the pedagogical use of ICT in such institutions, in terms of ICT infrastructure, support, policies and teachers' self-reported ICT related skills. In addition, teachers report a quite frequent use of some ICT resources, giving a high importance to students' learning of ICT. However, ICT integration is limited to a few specific resources (mainly computers and projectors), mostly applied to perform "traditional" pedagogical activities. Therefore, the expectations about the improvement of teaching and learning in Teacher Education in Chile through the integration of ICT, are not been fulfilled yet. This paper can constitute a significant contribution for developing more innovative and better quality pedagogical practices in this education level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer-graders have been in regular use in the context of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). The automatic grading of programs presents an opportunity to assess and provide tailored feedback to large classes, while featuring at the same time a number of benefits like: immediate feedback, unlimited submissions, as well as low cost of feedback. The present paper compares Algo+, an automatic assessment tool for computer programs, to an automatic grader used in a MOOC course at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland). This empirical study explores the practicability and behavior of Algo+ and analyzes whether it can be used to evaluate a large scale of programs. Algo+ is a prototype based on a static analysis approach for automated assessment of algorithms where programs are not executed but analyzed by looking at their instructions. The second tool, EPFL grader, is used to grade programs submitted by students in MOOCs of Introductory programming with C++ at EPFL and is based on a compiler approach (Dynamic Analysis approach). In this technique submissions are assessed via a battery of unit tests where the student programs are run with standard input and assessed on whether they produced the correct output. In this study results showed the advantages and limits of each approach and pointed out how the two tools can be used to get a benefit assessment of students' learning in MOOCs of computer programming. This study led to the proposition of a model for the relationship between the number of submissions and the appearance of the most frequent submitted programs. This technique is used by Algo+ for giving feedback and it is based only on the n most redundant submissions that have been annotated by the instructor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effects of integrated concept maps and classroom polling systems on students' learning performance, attentional behavior, and brainwaves associated with attention. Twenty-nine students from an Educational Research Methodology course were recruited as participants. For data collection, inclass quizzes, attentional behavior analysis, and a 20-minute structured interview were applied, and the attention-associated brainwaves of the participants were measured. In the first week, a group-polling method was introduced in class; in the second week, participants were asked to draw concept maps using pen and paper (PnP concept mapping); and in the third week, the polling system and concept maps were integrated (votable concept mapping) and applied. The results showed that the PnP concept mapping approach improved the quiz results of students with lower learning motivation prior to the course, while the votable concept mapping method was effective in stimulating students' attention during class. It was therefore suggested that instructors adopt methods integrating concept maps and polling tools to stimulate students' attention and thereby promote a positive cycle of attentional behavior in the classroom. For example, students' attentional behavior during an activity facilitated their attentional behavior after the activity, and this behavior continued until the next activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational agents (including animal companions) are a kind of interface agent, which is a significant component in educational systems, and has great impacts on student learning. However, with the development of emerging technologies (e.g., tangible technology), few studies have yet investigated how tangible technology can be used to combine with animal companions to foster student learning and interaction. In addition, different representation styles of animal companions on student learning are also seldom investigated. To address these research questions, this paper develops a My-Dragon system which blends tangible and animal companions for maximizing young student interaction. The system is further evaluated by an empirical study by eighteen pupils compared with a static and an animated version. The results reveal that such a tangible system is of benefit to the student learning perception in terms of attention, emotion, and interaction aspects. Some implications on findings and future system development are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a context-aware and personalization method in Mobile Learning system based on ubiquitous learning logs. Ubiquitous learning log stands for the log of knowledge or learning experience acquired ubiquitously. We construct a ubiquitous learning log system called SCROLL (System for Capturing and Reminding of Learning Log). Our research focuses on helping learners recall what they have learned making use of the learning contexts and learners' learning habits. Our measures consist of three main actions, which are to recommend learning objects in accordance with both learners' needs and contexts, to detect their learning habits using the context history and to prompt them to review what they have learned regarding their learning habits. What's more, by monitoring learners' reaction on the recommendation or prompting, the system can improve its prediction. An experiment was conducted to evaluate SCROLL and our method. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the learners benefited from the system and the context based recommendation and learning habit based prompting also motivated them to study more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the popularity of the Internet, online searching is becoming an important part of learning. In this paper, based on the "Learning by Searching" theory, a learning environment is developed, which includes a search engine to assist students in recognizing the progression of trends and keyword transitions for specific domains. To efficiently support research trend surveys, an automatic data accumulation and classification approach is proposed to construct the database excerpts instead of manual keyword registration or any other heuristic preprocesses. With an associative search module, the search engine dynamically searches for relevant words that are frequently used in the targeted academic field, and provides learners with effective visualizations to understand the trend transitions. An experiment has been conducted on a college information management course to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experiment results show that the students who learned with the new approach had significantly better learning performance in terms of recognizing the trend transitions of the targeted issues than those who learned with conventional search engines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By reviewing papers published in five important SSCI journals from 2005 to 2010, this study aimed to provide insights into intervention studies on technology-assisted instruction. It was found that still relatively little research on educational technology which addresses the effects of specific instructional interventions on student learning was conducted during this period. Moreover, most reviewed studies were conducted in higher education, rather than in high school, elementary school, or adult education contexts. The two subject domains, science and engineering (including computer studies), were most frequently involved in these studies, the majority of which addressed achievement as research (learning outcome) foci, while relatively fewer studies investigated students' learning process or affective outcomes. Regarding technology adoption, this study revealed that, in both the 2005-2007 and 2008-2010 periods, technologies for specific instructional purposes(e.g., a specially designed system for online collaborative writing) were more frequently adopted than those for general purposes (such as PowerPoint). This study also reveals that technology-mediated interpersonal interactions are commonly utilized in these intervention studies, with the focus mainly on student-student interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a snapshot of an evolving vision of what the future may hold for learning technology. It offers three personal visions of the future and raises many questions that need to be explored if learning technology is to realise its full potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]