Search

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2011, held in Taipeh, Taiwan, in September 2011. The 42 full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 130 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on: augemented and mixed reality in education; effectiveness of virtual reality for education; ubiquituous games and ubiquitous technology & learning; future classroom; e-reader and multi-touch; learning performance and achievement; learning by playing; game design and development; game-based learning/training; interactions in games; digital museum and technology, and behavior in games; educational robots and toys; e-learning platforms and tools; game engine/rendering/animations; game-assisted language learning; learning with robots and robotics education; e-portfolio and ICT-enhanced learning; game-based testing and assessment; trend, development and learning process of educational mini games; VR and edutainment.

E-learning and digital entertainment techniques, tools and systems are becoming popular and can be found in many real-world educational applications in many co- tries. The driving force behind these technologies is the rapidly growing requirements of edutainment, especially from the perspective of the users. This has led to the increasing interest of researchers in this area. The articles in this issue give a rich overview of how edutainment technologies can be creatively used for training and education purposes. The first 12 articles of this issue represent a selection of outstanding contributions from Edutainment 2010, the 5th International Conference on E-learning and Games, held in Changchun, China, in August 2010. The main purpose of this event is to faci- tate the discussion, presentation, and information exchange on the scientific and te- nological developments in the emerging field of digital entertainment techniques and systems for education. These 12 papers concentrated on three aspects: e-learning s- tem and applications, game techniques for learning, and virtual reality techniques for entertainment. They are closely related to the topics of this journal.

With the technical advancement of digital media and the medium of communication in recent years, there is a widespread interest in digital entertainment. An emerging te- nical research area edutainment, or educational entertainment, has been accepted as education using digital entertainment. Edutainment has been recognized as an eff- tive way of learning using modern digital media tools, like computers, games, mobile phones, televisions, or other virtual reality applications, which emphasizes the use of entertainment with application to the education domain. The Edutainment conference series was established in 2006 and subsequently - ganized as a special event for researchers working in this new interest area of e-learning and digital entertainment. The main purpose of Edutainment conferences is to facilitate the discussion, presentation, and information exchange of the scientific and technological development in the new community. The Edutainment conference series becomes a valuable opportunity for researchers, engineers, and graduate s- dents to communicate at these international annual events. The conference series - cludes plenary invited talks, workshops, tutorials, paper presentation tracks, and panel discussions. The Edutainment conference series was initiated in Hangzhou, China in 2006. Following the success of the first event, the second (Edutainment 2007 in Hong Kong, China), third (Edutainment 2008 in Nanjing, China), and fourth editions (Edutainment 2009 in Banff, Canada) were organized. Edutainment 2010 was held during August 16–18, 2010 in Changchun, China. Two workshops were jointly org- ized together with Edutainment 2010.

With the widespread interest in digital entertainment and the advances in the technologies of computer graphics, multimedia and virtual reality technologies, the new area of “Edutainment” has been accepted as a union of education and computer entertainment. Edutainment is recognized as an effective way of learning through a medium, such as a computer, software, games or AR/VR applications, that both educates and entertains. The Edutainment conference series was established and followed as a special event for the new interests in e-learning and digital entertainment. The main purpose of Edutainment conferences is the discussion, presentation, and information exchange of scientific and technological developments in the new community. The Edutainment conference series is a very interesting opportunity for researchers, engineers, and graduate students who wish to communicate at these international annual events. The conference series includes plenary invited talks, workshops, tutorials, paper presen- tion tracks, and panel discussions. The Edutainment conference series was initiated in Hangzhou, China in 2006. Following the success of the first (Edutainment 2006 in Hangzhou, China), the second (Edutainment 2007 in Hong Kong, China), and the third events (Edutainment 2008 in Nanjing, China), Edutainment 2009 was held August 9–11, 2009 in Banff, Canada. This year, we received 116 submissions from 25 different countries and regions - cluding Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, and USA.

To learn while being entertained is always an effective means in education. With the advance in technologies, in particular graphics, multimedia, and virtual reality te- nologies, this has evolved into the specific area of “Edutainment”. The second int- national conference on edutainment, Edutainment 2007, aimed to provide a forum for practitioners and researchers in the field to share their experiences and findings in this fast growing area. Following the success of Edutainment 2006, which was held in Hangzhou, China, Edutainment 2007 was held during June 11–13, 2007 in Hong Kong. This year, we received 393 submissions from 29 different countries and areas, - cluding China (including Taiwan), USA, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Australia, C- ada, Switzerland, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. A total of 90 papers were selected, after peer review, for this volume. Topics of these papers fall into six diff- ent areas ranging from fundamental issues in geometry and imaging to virtual reality systems and their applications in entertainment and education. These topics include Virtual Reality in Games and Education, Virtual Characters in Games and Education, E-learning Platforms and Tools, Geometry in Games and Virtual Reality, Vision, Imaging and Video Technology, and Collaborative and Distributed Environments. We are grateful to the International Program Committee and the reviewers for their effort to get all the papers reviewed in a short period of time. We would also like to thank everyone who contributed to organizing the conference.