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A novel course concept to enable master's degree students to acquire research skills is described as an experience report. A hybrid, inquiry-based format was developed to simulate each phase of writing and presenting a research paper at a scientific conference. Students self-organized into groups to conduct each phase of the research process to conduct a research project for a scientific topic, bionic computation. Weekly group meetings with the instructor were conducted via video conference. Students learned to formulate research questions, write abstracts, acquire experimental data and evaluate open-source libraries and tools to build their own experimental models. An in-house, mini-conference was held in person, in which each group held a presentation of their work. At the end of the semester, a retrospective was held to reflect on students' experiences and summarize the lessons they have learned. After the course, slight majority of the students stated that they could imagine writing a paper about their master's theses and taking part in a real conference. [For the full proceedings, see ED636095.]

For the forty-third time, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented online during the annual AECT Convention. Volume 1 contains 37 papers dealing primarily with research and development topics. Papers dealing with the practice of instructional technology including instruction and training issues are contained in Volume 2. [For Volume 2, see ED617422.]

The papers in these proceedings include a number of themes such as enduring and progressive social change, good practice and positive outcomes, and strategies of survival, resistance and subversion. They are: "Achievement, Personal Development, and Positive Outcomes" (Viv Anderson); "Raising Standards" (Paul Armstrong); "Multicultural Education for Adults" (Burjor Avari); " Four Congratulations and a Caveat" (Roseanne Benn); "Issues in the Supervision of Dissertation Research Conducted by Continuing Education and Training Professionals in South East Asia towards a Masters Degree of the University of Sheffield" (Geoff Chivers); "Continuing Education and the Public Understanding of Science" (Martin Counihan); "Silver Lining" (Eileen Daggett); "Conversing Internationally" (Chris Duke); "A Study of the Competence Levels of the Heads of Adult Education in Turkey" (Ahmet Duman); "Vision, Provision, and Television" (Darrel Dymock); "Women's Studies and Adult Education" (Jane Elliott); "Living with Competence" (Paul Garland); "Where Has Schon Led Us?" (Mary Gobbi); "Using a Self-Selected Support Group as a Strategy for Survival" (Christine Hibbert, Antoinette Middling, Frances Scourfield); "Journey through the Looking Glass" (Cheryl Hunt); "Multiplying Visions and Using Similitudes'" (Christine Jarvis); "Experimental Archaeology in Education" (David Johnston); "We're Still Here" (Rennie Johnston); "Holding Up the Mirror" (William Jones); "Participative Environmental Research and the Role of Continuing Education" (David Knight); "Making a Mark" (Carol Lee-Mak, Janice Malcolm); "The Creative Management of Biography" (Danny Mashengele); "From Distance Learning to Computer Supported Cooperative Learning" (David McConnell); "Autobiography in an Academic Context" (Margaret Millar et al.); "Exchanging Places, Trading Learning" (Nod Miller, Miriam Zukas); "Fiftysomething" (Penny Muter, Peter Watson); "Happiness Is a Thing Called Subversion" (Kirit Patel); "Vision, Policy, or Accident?" (Keith Percy); "Discourse and Culture" (Julia Preece); "Democracy and Personal Empowerment" (Ian Roffe, Carolyn Inglis); "German Adult Education in East Germany after Unification" (Marion Sporing); "Starting with Self" (Alistair Thomson); "Telling the Story of the Self/Deconstructing the Self of the Story" (Robin Usher); "Two Cheers for Special Needs Provision in Adult Education" (Peter Watson); "Re-Visioning the Self" (Linden West); "Using Vocational Competences To Develop an Alternative Framework for Modern Language Teaching" (John Wilson, A. Ibarz); "NVQs [National Vocational Qualifications] and Individuals" (Jonathan Winterton, Ruth Winterton); and "Coming of Age" (Alexandra Withnall). (YLB)

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2016, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, 1-3 July, 2016. This conference is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2016, 1-4 July. The e-Learning (EL) 2016 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within e-Learning. This conference covers both technical as well as the non-technical aspects of e-Learning. These proceedings contain keynote lecture, "Twenty-First Century Skills, Technology and Open Learning: Re-Designing Teaching for the Digital Age" (Tony Bates) [abstract only] and workshop, "Making Sustainable Online Learning a Reality Informed by the Community of Inquiry Framework" (Susi Peacock and Lindesay Irvine). Full papers in these proceedings include: (1) Determining Factors of Students' Perceived Usefulness of e-Learning in Higher Education (Aleksander Aristovnik, Damijana Keržic, Nina Tomaževic and Lan Umek); (2) EvalCOMIX®: A Web-Based Programme to Support Collaboration in Assessment (María Soledad Ibarra-Sáiz and Gregorio Rodríguez-Gómez); (3) A Holistic Approach to Scoring in Complex Mobile Learning Scenarios (Marcel Gebbe, Matthias Teine and Marc Beutner); (4) Content Development for 72,000 Learners: An Online Learning Environment for General Practitioners. A Case Study (Dirk Pilat); (5) First Stages of Adult Students' Relationship to Scientific Knowing and Research in the Open University's Web-Based Methodology Course (Leena Isosomppi and Minna Maunula); (6) A Quantitative Analysis of the Role of Social Networks in Educational Contexts (Azam Shokri and Georgios Dafoulas); (7) Care Management: On Line-Based Approaches to Nurse Education in Ultrasound Imaging (Elena Taina Avramescu, Mitrache Marius and Adrian Camen); (8) Can e-Learning Change Work Practices? (Signe Schack Noesgaard); (9) A Practice of Mobile Learning Bases on Cloud Computing (Heng Wu and Zhong Dong); (10) Guidelines for Conducting a Post-Graduate Module within a Blended Synchonous Learning Environment, Facilitator and Student Perspectives (Christopher Upfold); (11) IT Tools in Initial Teacher Training (Dorin Herlo); (12) Application of a Reference Framework for Integration of Web Resources in DOLTRN--Case Study of Physics--Topic: Waves (Fabinton Sotelo Gomez and Armando Ordóñez); (13) Creating Micro-Videos to Demonstrate Technology Learning (Mark Frydenberg and Diana Andone); (14) An Analysis of Students Enrolled to an Undergraduate University Course Offered Also Online (Nello Scarabottolo); (15) How Do We Know What is Happening Online: A Triangulated Approach to Data Analysis (Marina Charalampidi and Michael Hammond); (16) Analysis of 3D Modeling Software Usage Patterns for K-12 Students (Yi-Chieh Wu, Wen-Hung Liao, Ming-Te Chi and Tsai-Yen Li); and (17) A Distributed Intelligent e-Learning System (Terje Kristensen). Short papers in these proceedings include: (1) Using Cognitive Maps to Promote Self-Managed Learning in Online Communities of Inquiry (Susi Peacock and John Cowan); (2) Automation in Distance Learning: An Empirical Study of Unlearning and Academic Identity Change Linked to Automation of Student Messaging within Distance Learning (Hilary Collins, Hayley Glover, Fran Myers and Mor Watson); (3) Developing the 1st MOOC of University of Porto: Challenges and Strategies (Isabel Martins, Nuno Regadas and Margarida Amaral); (4) Informal Language Learning in Authentic Setting, Using Mobile Devices and SNS (Ruthi Aladjem and Bibiana Jou); (5) Enhancing Third-Year Medical Clerkships: Using Mobile Technology for Teaching and Learning (Janette R. Hill, Michelle A. Nuss, Ronald M. Cervero, Julie K. Gaines and Bruce Middendorf); (6) Statistical Measures of Integrity in Online Testing: Empirical Study (Tom Wielicki); (7) The Complexities of Digital Storytelling: Factors Affecting Performance, Production, and Project Completion (Peter Gobel and Makimi Kano); (8) Collegewide Promotion on e-Learning/Active Learning and Faculty Development (Nobuyuki Ogawa and Akira Shimizu); (9) Training Portuguese Teachers Using Blended Learning--A Different Approach (Bertil P. Marques and Paula Escudeiro); (10) Gamify and Recognize Prior Learning: How to Succeed in Educators' Further Professional Training with Open Badges (Esko Lius); (11) How Do K-12 Students' Manage Applications on Their Mobile Devices? (Ruthi Aladjem and Sharon Hardof); (12) Digital Storytelling for Inclusive Education: An Experience in Initial Teacher Training (Marco Lazzari); and (13) Learning Factory--Assembling Learning Content with a Framework (Peter Steininger). Reflection papers in these proceedings include: (1) Equalizing Educational Opportunities by ICT (Ana María Delgado García and Blanca Torrubia Chalmeta); (2) The Acceptability of MOOC Certificates in the Workplace (Christina Banks and Edward Meinert); (3) Orchestration of Social Modes in e-Learning (Armin Weinberger and Pantelis M. Papadopoulos); (4) Information Competencies and Their Implementation in the Educational Process of Polish Universities. Exploratory Studies (Anna Tonakiewicz-Kolosowska, Iwona Socik and Monika Gajewska); (5) Virtual & Real Face to Face Teaching (Romeo Teneqexhi and Loreta Kuneshka); and (6) Virtual Scaffolding--Constructivism in Online Learning (Lachlan MacKinnon and Liz Bacon). The following poster is included: Active Learning Methods in Programming for Non-IT Students (Olga Mironova, Irina Amitan, Jüri Vilipõld and Merike Saar). An author index is included. Individual papers contain references.

In Engineering Design education, huge numbers of students are a challenge in university teaching, especially since the students have an initially heterogeneous level of technical knowledge, which influences their acquisition of competences. In frontal classroom lectures, individual deficits can hardly be addressed and in self-study phases, students find it difficult to remedy these independently. Therefore, students with prior technical experience achieve better final module grades. This paper examines the extent to which heterogeneity in prior experience can be compensated by using an adaptive e-learning environment for the self-study time. For this purpose, students are provided with a prototypical implementation of an adaptive e-learning environment for the self-learning phase. The feedback of the users and their examination results are statistically evaluated with respect to the gain of knowledge. [For the full proceedings, see ED636095.]

Many language learners lack the motivation to read complex texts. Because high-immersion Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly reported to be highly motivating, the goal of our study was to compare English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' (N=79) motivation while reading a story with subtitles in VR (experimental group) versus reading the same story screencast in two-dimensions (2D -- control group). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that learners' motivation in VR was significantly higher compared with the control group. Our finding confirmed that VR is highly motivational in the context of reading foreign texts and can be useful for Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) researchers, practitioners, and instructional designers. This analysis is a part of a larger study (Kaplan-Rakowski & Gruber, 2023) on VR facilitating reading tasks. [For the complete volume, "Intelligent CALL, Granular Systems and Learner Data: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2022 (30th, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 17-19, 2022)," see ED624779.]

Within the parameters of the new Erasmus programme, this Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) combines virtual exchange with physical mobility. There were three institutions involved in this project: Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland, Hochschule Bremerhaven, Germany, and Malaga Healthcare College, Spain. The virtual exchange ran for five weeks from November to December 2021 and the physical mobility took place in Bremerhaven in the first week of April 2022. Twenty-seven participating students from diverse academic backgrounds engaged in shared tasks during the virtual exchange on a Blackboard platform, hosted by Letterkenny Institute of Technology and were awarded two ECTS credits, which was embedded into their local curricula. Content was delivered using both synchronous and asynchronous tools. The topic was global citizenship and students collaborated in multicultural teams to create presentations on their chosen topics. In addition to this team work, they also shared their individual insights into the course content by posting to a discussion forum in Weeks 1, 3, and 4. [For the complete volume, "Intelligent CALL, Granular Systems and Learner Data: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2022 (30th, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 17-19, 2022)," see ED624779.]

These proceedings contain the papers of the 12th International Conference on Mobile Learning 2016, which was organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, in Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, April 9-11, 2016. The Mobile Learning 2016 Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of mobile learning research which illustrate developments in the field. Full papers presented in these proceedings include: (1) Mobile Devices and Spatial Enactments of Learning: iPads in Lower Secondary Schools (Bente Meyer); (2) NetEnquiry--A Competitive Mobile Learning Approach for the Banking Sector (Marc Beutner, Matthias Teine, Marcel Gebbe and Lara Melissa Fortmann); (3) M-Learning Challenges in Teaching Crosscutting Themes in the Education of Young People and Adults (Marcos Andrei Ota and Carlos Fernando de Araujo Jr); (4) Mobile Learning: Pedagogical Strategies for Using Applications in the Classroom (Anna Helena Silveira Sonego, Leticia Rocha Machado, Cristina Alba Wildt Torrezzan and Patricia Alejandra Behar); (5) Experiencing a Mobile Game and its Impact on Teachers' Attitudes towards Mobile Learning (Hagit Meishar-Tal and Miky Ronen); (6) Exploring Mobile Affordances in the Digital Classroom (David Parsons, Herbert Thomas and Jocelyn Wishart); (7) Design, Development and Evaluation of a Field Learning Video Blog (Otto Petrovic); (8) Development and Evaluation of a Classroom Interaction System (Bingyi Cao, Margarita Esponda-Argüero and Raúl Rojas); (9) Visual Environment for Designing Interactive Learning Scenarios with Augmented Reality (José Miguel Mota, Iván Ruiz-Rube, Juan Manuel Dodero and Mauro Figueiredo); and (10) The Development of an Interactive Mathematics App for Mobile Learning (Mauro Figueiredo, Beata Godejord and José Rodrigues). Short papers presented include: (1) Conceptualizing an M-Learning System for Seniors (Matthias Teine and Marc Beutner); (2) Sensimotor Distractions when Learning with Mobile Phones on-the Move (Soledad Castellano and Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez); (3) Personal Biometric Information from Wearable Technology Tracked and Followed Using an Eportfolio: A Case Study of eHealth literacy Development with Emerging Technology in Hong King Higher Education (Michele Notari, Tanja Sobko and Daniel Churchill); (4) An Initial Evaluation of Tablet Devices & What Are the Next Steps? (Tracey McKillen); (5) Information Literacy on the Go! Adding Mobile to an Age Old Challenge (Alice Schmidt Hanbidge, Nicole Sanderson and Tony Tin); (6) The Use of Digital Tools by Independent Music Teachers (Rena Upitis, Philip C. Abrami and Karen Boese); (7) Development of a Math Input Interface with Flick Operation for Mobile Devices (Yasuyuki Nakamura and Takahiro Nakahara); (8) Smartwatches as a Learning Tool: A Survey of Student Attitudes (Neil Davie and Tobias Hilber); and (9) The Adoption of Mobile Learning in a Traditional Training Environment: The C95-Challenge Project Experience (Nadia Catenazzi, Lorenzo Sommaruga, Kylene De Angelis and Giulio Gabbianelli). Reflection papers include the following; (1) Leadership for Nursing Work-Based Mobile Learning (Dorothy Fahlman); (2) Reflections on Ways forward for Addressing Ethical Concerns in Mobile Learning Research (Jocelyn Wishart); and (3) Mobile Learning: Extreme Outcomes of Everywhere, Anytime (Giuseppe Cosimo De Simone). Posters include: (1) Student Response Behavior to Six Types of Caller/Sender When Smartphones Receive a Call or Text Message during University Lectures (Kunihiro Chida, Yuuki Kato and Shogo Kato); and (2) Understanding the Use of Mobile Resources to Enhance Paralympic Boccia Teaching and Learning for Students with Cerebral Palsy (Fabiana Zioti, Giordano Clemente, Raphael de Paiva Gonçalves, Matheus Souza, Aracele Fassbinder and Ieda Mayumi Kawashita). Doctoral Consortium papers include: (1) Forms of the Materials Shared between a Teacher and a Pupil (Libor Klubal and Katerina Kostolányová); and (2) Mobile Touch Screen Devices as Compensation for the Teaching Materials at a Special Primary School (Vojtech Gybas and Katerina Kostolányová). Individual papers provide references, and an Author Index is provided.

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2014, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (Lisbon, Portugal July 15-19, 2014). The e-Learning 2014 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within e-Learning. This conference covered technical as well as the non-technical aspects of e-Learning under seven main areas: Organisational Strategy and Management Issues; Technological Issues; e-Learning Curriculum Development Issues; Instructional Design Issues; e-Learning Delivery Issues; e-Learning Research Methods and Approaches; e-Skills and Information Literacy for Learning. The conference included the Keynote Lecture: "Moving Higher Education Forward in the Digital Age: Realising a Digital Strategy," by Neil Morris, Professor of Educational Technology, Innovation and Change and Director of Digital Learning, University of Leeds, UK. Papers in these proceedings include: (1) Culture, Gender and Technology-Enhanced Learning: Female and Male Students' Perceptions Across Three Continents, Thomas Richter and Asta Zelenkauskaite; (2) IPads In Learning: The Web of Change Bente Meyer; (3) A Blended Approach to Canadian First Nations Education, Martin Sacher, Mavis Sacher and Norman Vaughan; (4) A Storytelling Learning Model For Legal Education, Nicola Capuano, Carmen De Maio, Angelo Gaeta, Giuseppina Rita Mangione, Saverio Salerno and Eleonora Fratesi; (5) Acceptance and Success Factors for M-Learning of ERP Systems Curricula, Brenda Scholtz and Mando Kapeso; (6) Self-Regulation Competence in Music Education, Luca Andrea Ludovico and Giuseppina Rita Mangione; (7) Time-Decayed User Profile for Second Language Vocabulary Learning System, Li Li and Xiao Wei; (8) E-Learning Trends and Hypes in Academic Teaching: Methodology and Findings of a Trend Study, Helge Fischer, Linda Heise, Matthias Heinz, Kathrin Moebius and Thomas Koehler; (9) Proof of Economic Viability of Blended Learning Business Models, Carsten Druhmann and Gregor Hohenberg; (10) Does Satellite Television Program Satisfy Ethiopian Secondary School Students? Sung-Wan Kim and Gebeyehu Bogale; (11) Organisation and Management of a Complete Bachelor Degree Offered Online at the University of Milan for Ten Years, Manuela Milani, Sabrina Papini, Daniela Scaccia and Nello Scarabottolo; (12) Structural Relationships between Variables of Elementary School Students' Intention of Accepting Digital Textbooks, Young Ju Joo, Sunyoung Joung, Se-Bin Choi, Eugene Lim and Kyung Yi Go; (13) Dynamic Fuzzy Logic-Based Quality of Interaction within Blended-Learning: The Rare and Contemporary Dance Cases, Sofia B. Dias, José A. Diniz and Leontios J. Hadjileontiadis; (14) Do English Listening Outcome and Cognitive Load Change for Different Media Delivery Modes in U-Learning?, Chi-Cheng Chang, Hao Lei and Ju-Shih Tseng; (15) The Use of ELGG Social Networking Tool for Students' Project Peer-Review Activity, Ana Coric Samardzija and Goran Bubas; (16) Educational Multimedia Profiling Recommendations for Device-Aware Adaptive Mobile Learning, Arghir-Nicolae Moldovan, Ioana Ghergulescu and Cristina Hava Muntean; (17) Inside, Outside, Upside Down: New Directions in Online Teaching and Learning, Lena Paulo Kushnir and Kenneth C. Berry; (18) A Study on the Methods of Assessment and Strategy of Knowledge Sharing in Computer Course, Pat P. W. Chan; (19) Using Agent-Based Technologies to Enhance Learning in Educational Games, Ogar Ofut Tumenayu, Olga Shabalina, Valeriy Kamaev and Alexander Davtyan; (20) Designing a Culturally Sensitive Wiki Space for Developing Chinese Students' Media Literacy, Daria Mezentceva; (21) Shared Cognition Facilitated by Teacher Use of Interactive Whiteboard Technologies, Christine Redman and John Vincent; (22) Modeling Pedagogy for Teachers Transitioning to the Virtual Classroom, Michael J. Canuel and Beverley J. White; (23) The Effectiveness of SDMS in the Development of E-Learning Systems in South Africa, Kobus van Aswegen, Magda Huisman and Estelle Taylor; (24) Online Learning Behaviors for Radiology Interns Based on Association Rules and Clustering Technique, Hsing-Shun Chen and Chuen-He Liou; (25) The Use of SDMS in Developing E-Learning Systems in South Africa, Estelle Taylor, Kobus van Aswegen and Magda Huisman; (26) Assessment of the Use of Online Comunities to Integrate Educational Processes Development Teams: An Experience in Popular Health Education in Brazil, Elomar Castilho Barilli, Stenio de Freitas Barretto, Carla Moura Lima and Marco Antonio Menezes; (27) Stereo Orthogonal Axonometric Perspective for the Teaching of Descriptive Geometry, José Geraldo Franco Méxas, Karla Bastos Guedes and Ronaldo da Silva Tavares; (28) Delivery of E-Learning through Social Learning Networks, Georgios A. Dafoulas and Azam Shokri; (29) The Implementation of Web 2.0 Technology for Information Literacy Instruction in Thai University Libraries, Oranuch Sawetrattanasatian; (30) Designing Educational Social Machines for Effective Feedback, Matthew Yee-King, Maria Krivenski, Harry Brenton, Andreu Grimalt-Reynes and Mark d'Inverno; (31) A Support System for Error Correction Questions in Programming Education, Yoshinari Hachisu and Atsushi Yoshida; (32) A Platform for Learning Internet of Things, Zorica Bogdanovic, Konstantin Simic, Miloš Milutinovic, Božidar Radenkovic and Marijana Despotovic-Zrakic, (33) Dealing with Malfunction: Locus of Control in Web-Conferencing, Michael Klebl; (34) Copyright and Creative Commons License: Can Educators Gain Benefits in the Digital Age? (Wariya Lamlert); (35) The Curriculum Design and Development in MOOCs Environment (Fei Li, Jing Du and Bin Li); (36) Stakeholders Influence in Maltese Tourism Higher Education Curriculum Development (Simon Caruana and Lydia Lau); (37) Online Social Networks and Computer Skills of University Students (Maria Potes Barbas, Gabriel Valerio, María Del Carmen Rodríguez-Martínez, Dagoberto José Herrera-Murillo and Ana María Belmonte-Jiménez); (38) Implementation of Artificial Intelligence Assessment in Engineering Laboratory Education (Maria Samarakou, Emmanouil D. Fylladitakis, Pantelis Prentakis and Spyros Athineos); (39) An Exploration of the Attitude and Learning Effectiveness of Business College Students towards Game Based Learning (Chiung-Sui Chang, Ya-Ping Huang and Fei-Ling Chien); (40) Application of E-Learning Technologies to Study a School Subject (Nadia Herbst and Elias Oupa Mashile); (41) Possibilities of Implementation of Small Business Check-Up Methodology in Comparative Analysis of Secondary Schools and Universities in Slovakia (Katarína Štofková, Ivan Strícek and Jana Štofková); (42) Digging the Virtual Past (Panagiota Polymeropoulou); (43) Technology Acceptance of E-Learning within a Blended Vocational Course in West Africa (Ashwin Mehta); (44) Development of an E-Learning Platform for Vocational Education Systems in Germany (Andreas Schober, Frederik Müller, Sabine Linden, Martha Klois and Bernd Künne); (45) Facebook Mediated Interaction and learning in Distance Learning at Makerere University (Godfrey Mayende, Paul Birevu Muyinda, Ghislain Maurice Norbert Isabwe, Michael Walimbwa and Samuel Ndeda Siminyu); (46) Assessing the Purpose and Importance University Students Attribute to Current ICT Applications (Maurice Digiuseppe and Elita Partosoedarso); (47) E-Learning System for Design and Construction of Amplifier Using Transistors (Atsushi Takemura); (48) Technology, Gender Attitude, and Software, among Middle School Math Instructors (Godwin N. Okeke); (49) Structuring Long-Term Faculty Training According to Needs Exhibited by Students' Written Comments in Course Evaluations (Robert Fulkerth); (50) Integration of PBL Methodologies into Online Learning Courses and Programs (Roland Van Oostveen, Elizabeth Childs, Kathleen Flynn and Jessica Clarkson); (51) Improving Teacher-Student Contact in a Campus Through a Location-Based Mobile Application (Vítor Manuel Ferreira and Fernando Ramos); (52) Incorporating Collaborative, Interactive Experiences into a Technology-Facilitated Professional Learning Network for Pre-Service Science Teachers (Seamus Delaney and Christine Redman); (53) The Efficiency of E-Learning Activities in Training Mentor Teachers (Laura Serbanescu and Sorina Chircu); (54) Development of an IOS App Using Situated Learning, Communities of Practice, and Augmented Reality for Autism Spectrum Disorder (Jessica Clarkson); (55) Using Case-Based Reasoning to Improve the Quality of Feedback Provided by Automated Grading Systems (Angelo Kyrilov and David C. Noelle); (56) International Multidisciplinary Learning: An Account of a Collaborative Effort among Three Higher Education Institutions (Paul S. H. Poh, Robby Soetanto, Stephen Austin and Zulkifar A. Adamu); (57) Interactive Learning to Stimulate the Brain's Visual Center and to Enhance Memory Retention (Yang H. Yun, Philip A. Allen, Kritsakorn Chaumpanich and Yingcai Xiao); (58) How Digital Technologies, Blended Learning and MOOCs Will Impact the Future of Higher Education (Neil P. Morris); (59) Factors Influencing the Acceptance of E-Learning Adoption in Libya's Higher Education Institutions (Mahfoud Benghet and Markus Helfert); (60) Motivation as a Method of Controlling the Social Subject Self-Learning (Andrey V. Isaev, Alla G. Kravets and Ludmila A. Isaeva); (61) Designing Environment for Teaching Internet of Things (Konstantin Simic, Vladimir Vujin, Aleksandra Labus, Ðorde Stepanic and Mladen Stevanovic); (62) Fostering Critical Thinking Skills in Students with Learning Disabilities through Online Problem-Based Learning (Kathleen Flynn); and (63) A System for the Automatic Assembly of Test Questions Using a NO-SQL Database (Sanggyu Shin and Hiroshi Hashimoto). Luís Rodrigues is an associate editor of the proceedings. Individual papers contain references. An author index is included.

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2013, taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 1 to 3 of June. Education, in a global sense, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and acts. One of the most important contributions resides in what and how we learn through the improvement of educational processes, both in formal and informal settings. Our International Conference seeks to provide some answers and explore the processes, actions, challenges and outcomes of learning, teaching and human development. Our goal is to offer a worldwide connection between teachers, students, researchers and lecturers, from a wide range of academic fields, interested in exploring and giving their contribution in educational issues We take pride in having been able to connect and bring together academics, scholars, practitioners and others interested in a field that is fertile in new perspectives, ideas and knowledge. We counted on an extensive variety of contributors and presenters, which can supplement our view of the human essence and behavior, showing the impact of their different personal, academic and cultural experiences. This is, certainly, one of the reasons we have many nationalities and cultures represented, inspiring multi-disciplinary collaborative links, fomenting intellectual encounter and development. END 2013 received over more 267 submissions, from 35 different countries, reviewed by a double-blind process. Submissions were prepared to take form of Oral Presentations, Posters, Virtual Presentations, Workshops and Round Table. The conference also includes a keynote presentation from an internationally distinguished researcher Professor Peter Jarvis Emeritus Professor at the University of Surrey, UK, to whom we express our most gratitude. This volume is composed by the proceedings of the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2013), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.) and co-sponsored by the respected partners we reference in the dedicated page. This conference addressed different categories inside the Education area and papers are expected to fit broadly into one of the named themes and sub-themes. To develop the conference program we have chosen four main broad-ranging categories, which also covers different interest areas: (1) In TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: Teachers and Staff training and education; Educational quality and standards; Curriculum and Pedagogy; Vocational education and Counseling; Ubiquitous and lifelong learning; Training programs and professional guidance; Teaching and learning relationship; Student affairs (learning, experiences and diversity; Extra-curricular activities; Assessment and measurements in Education. (2) In PROJECTS AND TRENDS: Pedagogic innovations; Challenges and transformations in Education; Technology in teaching and learning; Distance Education and eLearning; Global and sustainable developments for Education; New learning and teaching models; Multicultural and (inter)cultural communications; Inclusive and Special Education; Rural and indigenous Education; Educational projects. (3) In TEACHING AND LEARNING: Educational foundations; Research and development methodologies; Early childhood and Primary Education; Secondary Education; Higher Education; Science and technology Education; Literacy, languages and Linguistics (TESL/TEFL); Health Education; Religious Education; Sports Education. (4) In ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES: Educational policy and leadership; Human Resources development; Educational environment; Business, Administration, and Management in Education; Economics in Education; Institutional accreditations and rankings; International Education and Exchange programs; Equity, social justice and social change; Ethics and values; Organizational learning and change. The proceedings contain the results of the research and developments conducted by authors who focused on what they are passionate about: to promote growth in research methods intimately related to teaching, learning and applications in Education nowadays. It includes an extensive variety of contributors and presenters, who will extend our view in exploring and giving their contribution in educational issues, by sharing with us their different personal, academic and cultural experiences. (Individual papers contain references.)

This paper recounts the legal, political, and educational changes in former East Germany as the nation has become reunified, and considers the implications of reunification for institutional research at East German universities. After a brief sketch of legal, geographic, and demographic highlights, the decrepit conditions of East German university buildings are noted. The paper then offers observations of East Germans streaming across the border when it was first opened in November 1989. The educational experience of a typical East German student is reviewed, noting that a file was kept documenting the student's political attitudes to ensure the power of the Communist Party bureaucracy in determining the student's access to higher education. Problems that institutions of higher education now face are noted, including identifying whom to fire, what to do with educators trained to teach Marxism-Leninism and the Communist infused humanities, social sciences, and especially, economics and jurisprudence. Efforts by the West to help East German universities are mentioned. (DB)

Digital Study Assistants (DSA) are an emerging type of software that combines web-based software architectures, various data sources, and algorithms from artificial intelligence (AI) to assist learners in improving their learning-related behaviors. In this paper, we summarize the implementation and results of a field study with a DSA for hierarchical goal-setting (HGS) at the Bremen, Hannover, and Osnabrück universities from November 2021 to April 2022. The results show that 70% of students in the sample chose to get digital assistance for educational goal-setting, which is the highest interest rate among the nine assistance functions available. Of the 290 students who chose to use the assistant, only 10 completed the full assistive intervention, which equals only 3.4%. We conclude that we should improve the usability and user experience and reduce the interaction costs of the intervention.

Digital resources offer a vast assortment of educational opportunities for students in higher education. From 2018 to 2022, a digital study assistant (DSA), named SIDDATA, was developed at three German universities and consequently field-tested. One of the DSA's features is an AI-driven natural language interface for educational resource recommendation. This paper performs an analysis of the effectiveness of recommendations, by analyzing data generated over the course of two years of DSA usage. We find that although initial user interest is high, only a small percentage of users engage with the recommendation feature. Furthermore, we find that quality of recommendations was perceived as mixed to negative.

In this paper, we present didactical, technical, and interaction design aspects of a learning environment for training academic text reading skills in higher education that is currently being developed. The concept is built on experience gained from a gamified learning environment for academic abilities in the domain of German orthography standards. It uses spaced repetition for skill training instead of just memorizing facts and maintains user models that allow for adaptive task selection using expert-designed skill lists and task-skill allocations. Gamification components such as levels and ranks have been incorporated to boost motivation. Only 19% of users (n=121) ceased using the application when they reached the minimum obligatory goal in homework assignments, indicating that the motivational effects work for the target group. The foundation for transferring these experiences to a new domain is laid by analyzing academic reading skills and competencies to be trained. In the design phase, task categories, interface mockups, and gamification mechanisms for the envisioned web application have been sketched, and it will now be implemented as an open-source application.

Due to the precautionary measures during the COVID-19 pandemic many universities offered unproctored take-home exams. We propose methods to detect potential collusion between students and apply our approach on event log data from take-home exams during the pandemic. We find groups of students with suspiciously similar exams. In addition, we compare our findings to a proctored comparison group. By this, we establish a rule of thumb for evaluating which cases are "outstandingly similar", i.e., suspicious cases. [For the complete proceedings, see ED630829.]

Social Virtual Reality (VR) applications enable real-time interpersonal conversation and allow users to perform activities together. They have the potential of changing the ways learners practise speaking a foreign language. Following a previous study (Jauregi Ondarra, Gruber, & Canto, 2020), we designed the present study to explore how presence, immersion, and interactivity affect overall social experience. Students from Germany and the Netherlands engaged in High-immersion VR (HiVR) virtual exchange sessions, using Spanish as a lingua franca at A2 level. International dyads carried out four interaction tasks in AltspaceVR, using head-mounted devices. To examine students' HiVR virtual exchange experiences, different sources of data were gathered: questionnaires, reflection diaries, recordings, and focus group interviews. The preliminary results, based on the surveys and reflection journals, show that students liked to use a social VR app to communicate in the target language with peers from other countries, as they felt completely immersed and co-present in the social interactive VR space. This might enhance engagement and lower anxiety levels. [For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]

Virtual exchange projects have become an effective pedagogical method to support students' development of intercultural language competence. High-immersion experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) may offer an environment which is conducive to developing such competence. This paper reports on a pilot study carried out with two groups of university students (N=30) in the Netherlands and Germany. The students, involved in a virtual exchange using VR headsets, completed three tasks collaboratively. The aim of the study was to investigate participants' perception regarding (1) their collaboration with foreign peers within the VR setting and (2) the perceived usefulness of the tool. The researchers employed questionnaires and conducted interviews and focus groups. The audio recording transcripts from the VR encounters and students' reflective journals provide further data to triangulate the results. This pilot study provides first results with regard to virtual exchanges carried out in high-immersion VR. [For the complete volume, "CALL for Widening Participation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2020 (28th, Online, August 20-21, 2020)," see ED610330.]

These conference papers report on interim outcomes of investigations conducted at the German Institute for International Educational Research. An opening address, "Education, Democracy and Development in a Period of Revolutionary Change" (Wolfgang Mitter), is followed by four sets of papers. The first set, "European Community," includes "European Dimension, Multiculturalism, and Teacher Training--Experience in a Network of Training Institutions" (Christoph Kodron) and "Democratic Legitimation and the Educational Policy of the European Community" (Ulrich Schaffer). Next, "Post-Communist Societies" presents "School Development in the East German Federal States and the European Context" (Hans Dobert); "Upheavals in Hungarian Education" (Martas Gutsche); "First Projects of Functional Literacy in the New Federal States of Germany" (Gerhard Huck); "Comparative Education between Ideology and Science on the Self-Concept and the Evolution of the Discipline in the GDR" (Bernd John); and "Global Changes and the Context of Education, Democracy and Development in Eastern Europe" (Botho von Kopp). The third section, "Asia and Africa," offers "Inspiring Achievements and Hard Tasks Ahead: A Study on the Recent Development of Literacy Education in the People's Republic of China" (Fu Li); "UNESCO's Environmental Education Efforts in the Tanzanian Context" (Gerhard Huck); and "The Japanese University in a Changing Context: More Market or More Regulation?" (Botho von Kopp). Finally, "Research Projects in Progress" contains the papers: "School as a Place of Socialization and Learning--an International Comparison on School Reality: Description of the Project" (Peter Dobrich); "Intra-national Comparson of Instructional Time, Time in School, and School-related Time in Bavaria, Hamburg and Hesse" (Wolfgang Huck); "Time for School--Initial Results from an International Comparison" (Wolfgang Huck); "Immigrant Children and Special Education: The Situation in Germany" (Andrea Mertens, Dirk Randoll); "Effects of Mainstreaming in Schools: Results from Empirical Studies in Two European Countries" (Dirk Randoll); and "Recent Trends in All-day Schooling and Child Care in Some European Countries" (Gerlind Schmidt). (LL)

The paper presents the aims and the design of the international e-learning course for teacher training "International Project" / Internet and Competence to work on the Project"/IPC/, organized with students from the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" (Bulgaria) and universities from Germany, USA, Spain, Japan, Sweden and Poland (http://www.internationalproject-ipc.com/en/). The project has a long tradition and is developed in co-operation from university teachers by using different methods and approaches. The project is based on an inquiry-based learning. The topics of the student's investigations are connected with the school education and with the children's perspective on school, teaching and learning. Coached by university teachers and tutors the students work in many international groups using different research methods and web tools as wikis, chat forums or blogs. By working on topics selected from the teacher training curriculum the students improve their expertise related to the curriculum and develop awareness of cultural differences. At the end of the course the students from the different universities present the results of the comparative international research and do conclusions about the differences and similarities in the curriculum and the education in different countries and continents. The IPC project fosters the development of many competences for teacher students because of working and doing educational research in international team. [For the full proceedings, see ED622227.]

Digital Study Assistants (DSA) aim to support individual learning processes by designing them appropriately and efficiently based on recommendations. In this paper we present a prototype of a DSA for students in higher education of three German universities. The digital data driven DSA is integrated into the local learning management system and consists of recommender modules with a certain kind of recommendation for a specific purpose, e.g., recommending Academic Contacts that fit an expressed academic interest. The modules implemented so far use a wide range of methods: Classic rule-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Neural Networks, that can detect complex features and patterns in large data sets. To evaluate the current prototype of the DSA we used a mixed methods design approach with concurrently collected user data and qualitative data. A first insight in the user data suggests that recommender modules providing personalized recommendations are more likely to be used by students. A focus group discussion with students confirmed these findings with the suggestion to make the DSA more personal, individual, interactive, supportive, and user-friendly. In conclusion we present ideas for the further development of the prototype based on these findings. [For the full proceedings, see ED621108.]

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and English as a medium of instruction (EMI) are emerging as the preferred contexts of language learning. CLIL and EMI classes continue to proliferate in schools around the globe. The aim of this paper is to investigate the current research trends in studies of motivation to learn within EMI and CLIL settings. We sought to identify the current countries of research, educational levels, and themes that prevail in EMI and CLIL motivation research. We performed a topic search of the keywords "CLIL" or "EMI" and the keyword "motivation" in the "Web of Science" database for Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) articles published in 2020. We analyzed 17 articles related to motivation within EMI or CLIL contexts. The results showed that European countries produced the most research, with Spain being the most prolific. A majority of the studies took place at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Comparative studies of CLIL or EMI contexts with that of traditional classrooms emerged as the prevailing theme. Future research could include more studies regarding the impact of CLIL on students at the primary level of education, in addition to studies of students from varied socio-economic backgrounds. [For the complete Volume 19 proceedings, see ED613922.]

Many modern anatomy curricula teach histology using virtual microscopes, where students inspect tissue slices in a computer program (e.g. a web browser). However, the educational data mining (EDM) potential of these virtual microscopes remains under-utilized. In this paper, we use EDM techniques to investigate three research questions on a virtual microscope dataset of N = 1, 460 students. First, which factors predict the success of students locating structures in a virtual microscope? We answer this question with a generalized item response theory model (with 77% test accuracy and 0.82 test AUC in 10-fold cross-validation) and find that task difficulty is the most predictive parameter, whereas student ability is less predictive, prior success on the same task and exposure to an explanatory slide are moderately predictive, and task duration as well as prior mistakes are not predictive. Second, what are typical locations of student mistakes? And third, what are possible misconceptions explaining these locations? A clustering analysis revealed that student mistakes for a difficult task are mostly located in plausible positions ('near misses') whereas mistakes in an easy task are more indicative of deeper misconceptions. [For the full proceedings, see ED615472.]

Empathy is widely perceived and understood as an unquestioned component of Intercultural Competence (IC). The authors see the ability to empathise with others and to see their point of view as an important condition for developing an ethnorelative viewpoint, and therefore consider it important to incorporate activities into the intercultural communication curriculum that addresses the affective side of IC (Calloway-Thomas, Arasaratnam-Smith, & Deardorff, 2017; Guntersdorfer & Golubeva, 2018). In their paper, the authors discuss the importance of meta-cognitive tasks by creating opportunities for students where they can describe, share, and evaluate emotions. Based on the recommendations made by O'Dowd (2016), Byram, Golubeva, Hui, and Wagner (2017) about designing and implementing virtual exchanges (VEs), the authors present a preliminary framework, i.e. a sequence of self-reflective meta-analysis tasks that they developed for the intercultural VE between students at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Germany and their peers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in the United States. This framework can be adapted to a variety of online teaching contexts. [For the complete volume, see ED609298.]

International comparisons of student achievement in mathematics and their attitudes towards, confidence with and anxiety to mathematics have a long history. Likewise, detailed international comparisons of teacher education programs have also been conducted. However, the relationship between the teacher education programs and teacher anxiety for teaching mathematics have not been investigated. This paper is part of a larger research project investigating the relationship between teacher education programs and mathematical anxiety of its pre-service teachers. It reports on the initial comparison of the teacher education programs for primary teachers from a university in Sweden, Germany, and Australia, specifically the mathematics education addressed in the programs. The paper concludes with an outline of the future research.

Curriculum research is an important tool for understanding complex processes within a degree program. In particular, stochastic graphical models and simulations on related curriculum graphs have been used to make predictions about dropout rates, grades, and degree completion time. There exists, however, little research on changes in the curriculum and the evaluation of their impact. The available evaluation methods of curriculum changes assume pre-existing strict curriculum graphs in the form of directed acyclic graphs. These allow for a straightforward model-oriented probabilistic or graph topological investigation of curricula. But the existence of such graphs cannot generally be assumed. We present a novel generalizing approach in which a curriculum graph is constructed based on data, using measurable student flow. By applying a discrete event simulation, we investigate the impact of policy changes on the curriculum and evaluate our approach on a sample data set from a German university. Our method is able to create a comparably effective and individually verifiable simulation without requiring a curriculum graph. It can thus be extended to prerequisite-free curricula, making it feasible to evaluate changes to flexible curricula. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]

This chapter examines the impact of the Year Abroad (YA) on mental health and wellbeing, arguing that whilst we tend to be systemically and culturally inclined to focus on and mitigate negative impact, we overlook the benefits. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from students surveyed on placement in Germany and Austria, and on mental health research, this chapter highlights the positive impact of the YA, even where students are faced with challenging situations. It suggests a correlation between a range of factors including linguistic competence and otherness, facilitating a sense of wellbeing not attainable in a first language setting. These findings are indicative, suggesting that further, in-depth longitudinal research is warranted. [For the complete volume, "Perspectives on the Year Abroad: A Selection of Papers from YAC2018," see ED603732.]

Juniorstudy is a concept of the University of Rostock, which can be used by school students before starting their time at the University. Thus, it is an instrument of supporting the choice of study direction. Moreover, we have been able to show in our last cohort, that using Juniorstudy courses also helps to significantly enhance the knowledge required to start the university study, thus our courses become an important tool for bridging the gap between school and University. In this paper we will show the results of our study which shows that our approach improves the students' knowledge and thus facilitates being successful in testes and exams in the basic courses in the first term.

Self-set educational goals are central to self-regulated learning and an observable manifestation of students' motivation. In this paper, we develop and trial a tagset for the characteristics of university students' self-set goals. The novelty of this approach consists in using data-driven, non-exclusive tags, rather than theory-derived, exclusive categories, on the basis of freely formulated goals in natural language. A 400-goal sample out of the 2,262 educational goals collected from 732 students at three universities was used to develop a tagset of six metatags and 28 tags. Six coders independently assigned tags to the collected goals. Based on these tag assignments (n = 376,458), Krippendorff's [alpha] was used to approximate intercoder reliability. Surprising intercoder agreement scores are discussed. Further, relative frequencies for each of the tags were calculated. These point to relevant aspects of students' motivations. The tagged dataset may serve as input for AI-powered study assistant systems, whilst the tagset itself may be used in future studies to gain further insights into university students' study motivations.

Aim/Purpose: Academics are often requested to create and teach courses for emerging technologies with perhaps no experience or guidance on how to do so. Background: A Framework to develop IT courses for emerging technologies was created and tested to assist academics; the framework was then tested by developing an IoT course. Methodology: A literature review was conducted to discover theories, models and methods that could be used in the creation of IT courses, followed by interviews with academics who had created many courses. The interviews were analysed using a thematic analysis process, and a Course Development Framework was created. Contribution: The framework was tested by using it to build and deliver an IoT course. The Framework could be used to support academics who have to create and develop courses for emerging technologies. Findings: By combining a learning theory such as constructivism, the ADDIE Instructional design model, ARCS-V Motivational model, and Bloom's Taxonomy, a Course Development Framework was constructed, which could be used to support academics who have to create courses for emerging technologies. Recommendations for Practitioners: The Course Development Framework could be used to develop other IT courses including online courses. Recommendations for Researchers: Future research could be conducted in the effectiveness of using the Course Development Framework to develop other courses including online courses. Impact on Society: Support academics to develop better IT courses for emerging technologies. Future Research: Research in the field of Brain Compatible Learning Principles and combining or using it with the Framework could provide further insights into advancements in course design and development. [This paper was published in: M. Jones (Ed.), "Proceedings of InSITE 2020: Informing Science and Information Technology Education Conference" (pp. 15-45). Informing Science Institute.]

Cross-disciplinary skills are today's key skills for media informatics students to gain employment after graduation. However, such problem-based learning projects almost never take place due to organizational struggles. The authors suggest Scrum, a framework that is increasingly used in software engineering, as a solution for the challenges. Scrum has been implemented in a 3D media design project seminar at Dresden University of Technology during the cross-disciplinary project "SUFUvet" which took place in cooperation with University of Leipzig in 2016. The authors evaluated the use of Scrum qualitatively during the project and after. This paper explains methodology and results of the studies. Results shall be presented in four hypotheses within this paper. [The educational project "SUFUvet--Multimedia, 3D visualized teaching-learning class about ante-mortem and post-mortem meat inspection of domestic swine" was funded by the Saxon Center for Higher Education in 2016 within the Learning in Transfer scheme. For the complete proceedings, see ED579395.]

Distance higher education for adults, media selection, and country profiles are considered in conference papers. Titles and authors are as follows: "Distance Education, Trends Worldwide" (Lord Perry of Walton); "Adults in Higher Education: Lowering the Barriers by Teaching and Learning at a Distance" (Hans G. Schutze); "Distance Education for Adults: Old and New Barriers for Participation" (Kjell Rubenson); "Distance Education for Adult Students: From Old to New Barriers for Participation?" (Ger van Enckevort); "Distance Education in OECD Member Countries"; "The Open University of the Netherlands"; "Background and Objectives" (Pierre Morin); "Basic Concepts" (Henk de Wolf); "The First Students" (G. van Enckevort); "The Open University of the United Kingdom" (Keith Harry); "The German Distance University: Its Main Features and Functions" (Jorn Bartels, Otto Peters); "The Instituto Portugues de Ensino a Distancia, Portugal" (Armando Rocha Trindade); "The Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, Spain" (Doina Popa-Lisseanu); "Distance Education in Yugoslavia" (Ana Kranjc); "Towards a Contextual Rationale in Distance Higher Education: The Small Scale Cases of Australia and Sweden" (Urban Dahllof); "Adult Learning and the Consequences for the Selection of Media: The Japanese Approach" (Yoshiya Abe); "Technology-Based Distance Education for Adults in the United States of America" (Marilyn Kressel); "Distance Education, a Critical View from Canada" (Ian Morrison); "The Impact on Higher Education of New Information and Telecommunication Technologies" (Pamela Christoffel); "Selection of Media at the Dutch Open University" (G. van Enckevort, Freek Gastkemper)"; "Development of Computer-Based Learning Materials" (Jef Moonen); and "Computer Communication: A New Tool for Distance Education" (Norman D. Kurland). (SW)

This paper investigates learning related device usage of German and Indian students. For that purpose, an exploratory survey of students at the University of Hildesheim and the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune is executed. The aim of the research is to uncover basic patterns of overall device usage, studying behavior, employment of learning tools and assessment of e-learning. Collected data deliver a broad picture on students' needs with regard to e-learning support. Results show, students from Pune are engaged in e-learning more frequently than students from Hildesheim. For students from India, smartphones are the most important learning devices. For German students, laptops are more important. Although both groups are experienced in e-learning, the Indian students employ a wider range of resources. In addition, Indian students communicate more often with their peers and instructors via computer mediated communication channels than the Germans. Whereas German students talk about content related and organizational aspects of learning, Indians focus on content related topics when communicating with peers and instructors. [For the full proceedings, see ED621557.]

The worldwide Corona pandemic has severely restricted student projects in the higher semesters of engineering courses. In order not to delay the graduation, a new concept had to be developed for projects under lockdown conditions. Therefore, unused rooms at the university should be digitally recorded in order to develop a new usage concept as laboratory rooms. An inventory of the actual state of the rooms was done first by taking photos and listing up all flaws and peculiarities. After that, a digital site measuring was done with a 360° laser scanner and these recorded scans were linked to a coherent point cloud and transferred to a software for planning technical building services and supporting Building Information Modelling (BIM). In order to better illustrate the difference between the actual and target state, two virtual reality models were created for realistic demonstration. During the project, the students had to go through the entire digital planning phases. Technical specifications had to be complied with, as well as documentation, time planning and cost estimate. This project turned out to be an excellent alternative to on-site practical training under lockdown conditions and increased the students' motivation to deal with complex technical questions. [For the full proceedings, see ED623149.]

The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. These "Proceedings" are from the Commission of International Adult Education's (CIAE) 2021 International Pre-Conference. This year's "Proceedings" contain 17 papers from 37 authors, representing CIAE's usual diversity of authors and topics. Researcher and research sites include Belgium, Belize, Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Nigeria, Norway, Serbia, and the United States. Not surprisingly, a major theme explored is the impact of COVID-19 on learners in a variety of settings, including school teachers, communities, parents, and higher education. A second major theme concerns digital resources and addressing the digital divide. Some papers address practices and research methods that enhance adult learning and others explore professional development, workplace learning, and cultural aspects of learning. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

The need for neighbourness and Intercultural competences in Higher Education Institutions is ascending. This is because in recent times, there has been an increase in multicultural classrooms driven by globalization and the growth in global Internet connectivity. Globalization has enabled increased human mobility across physical national and cultural boundaries; while Internet connectivity has enabled virtual contact, interactions, and collaborations between persons from different cultures. Physical mobility, specifically for study abroad, results in physical multicultural classrooms. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview into the relevance of neighbourness in a multicultural classroom and challenges in a classroom that denotes the absence of neighbourness. The challenges are inspired and extracted from one-on-one Interviews with Higher Education Institution (HEI) teachers and foreign students from Finland, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Latvia and Turkey. Twenty people were interviewed. In the multicultural classrooms, six different challenges were identified as a result of analyzing the interview data. Those are language barriers, misunderstanding of cultural dispositions towards others, asymmetric communication, differences in cultural behavioral norms governing interactions, different styles of learning and problem with the familiarization with technology. [For the complete volume, "Proceedings of International Conference on Studies in Education and Social Sciences (Antalya, Turkey, November 11-14, 2021). Volume 1," see ED625228.]

These proceedings contain the papers of the 18th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2021), held virtually, due to an exceptional situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, from October 13-15, 2021, and organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS). The CELDA conference aims to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. The CELDA 2021 Conference received 68 submissions from more than 21 countries. Out of the papers submitted, 34 were accepted as full papers for an acceptance rate of 50%; 16 were accepted as short papers, and 2 were accepted as reflection papers. In addition to the presentation of full, short and reflection papers, the conference also includes one keynote presentation from an internationally distinguished researcher: Dr. David Scaradozzi, Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

The study presented in this paper investigates the potential effects of including non-speech audio such as sound effects into multimedia-based instruction taking into account Sweller's cognitive load theory (Sweller, 2005) and applied frameworks such as the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2005) and the cognitive affective theory of learning with media (Moreno, 2006). Proceeding from the assumption that sound is an incisive means to affect people's emotional state it is argued that sound may also be well suited to stimulate involvement and motivation in learning situations, thereby bringing the learner to invest more mental effort into learning, which finally leads to better learning performance. This paper refers to an experimental case study, which was carried out within the framework of a Master's Thesis at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven (Germany). In order to investigate the cognitive effects of including sound into multimedia learning, two groups of 1st semester Digital Media students were asked to learn about a historic subject using two different experimental designs: One version of a prototypical learning application consists of a photo slideshow with accompanying audio narration and another version consists of the same material supplemented with environmental sounds that illustrate the content of the lesson. Comparing both groups, the results don't reveal significant differences in learning performance. However, the subjective mental effort ratings of the participants are identified as a positive predictor for the performance score and are thus hypothetically discussed as being an indicator for learner motivation. The analysis finally confirms that the learner involvement, which is a measure relating the performance score and the mental effort ratings (Paas et al., 2005), during the subsequent achievement test is significantly higher when sounds were presented during instruction. These results suggest that the inclusion of sound may have positive effects on motivation and learning, which is according to a cognitive-motivational theory. [For the full proceedings, see ED562093.]