Software Construction of an Authoring Tool for Adaptive E-learning Platform

In last decade, more and more platforms for elearning content delivery provide adaptability towards learners goals, styles and performance. Usually, such platforms rely on own authoring tool or use external one in order to create learning materials. Usually, these tools follow modern e-learning standards but are rather complicated to be used and miss interoperability features. In this paper, we present software construction of an authoring tool, which is a part of a platform for building edutainment (education plus entertainment) services – ADOPTA (ADaptive technOlogy-enhanced Platform for eduTAinment). This authoring tool is designed by using Java EE 5 platform and provides inheritance mechanisms for learning object metadata descriptions, metadata for semantic ontology graphs, and good integration with instructor tool for creation of adaptive courseware

A Phenomenological Examination of Virtual Game Developers\u27 Experiences Using Jacob\u27s Ladder Pre-Production Design Tactic

Edutainment refers to curriculum and instruction designed with a clear educational purpose, including multi-faceted virtual learning game design. Tools such as the Jacob\u27s Ladder pre-production design tactic have been developed to ensure that voices of both engineers and educators are heard. However, it is unclear how development team members experience and perceive their collaborative work while designing a virtual game using such tactics. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of agile software team members using Jacob\u27s Ladder pre-production design as an interdisciplinary collaboration tool while designing a virtual learning game. Seven design team members (3 educators and 4 engineers) participated in semi-structured interviews and transcripts were analyzed via an inductive coding process that led to the development of key themes. Findings indicated that using Jacob\u27s Ladder design tactic influenced the experience of the team by keeping the team focused on common goals and learner needs, organizing the team work, supporting interdisciplinary collaboration, and promoting shared understandings of the software platform limitations. Individuals played various roles, appreciated diverse views, recognized prior experience and idea sharing, and felt the design tactic supported flexibility for interdisciplinary collaboration. By linking integration strategies to interdisciplinary collaboration, findings from this study may be used by organizational leaders to consider best practices in team building for virtual learning game design, which will further support the development of effective games and growth of the edutainment industry

Heuristic Evaluation for Serious Immersive Games and M-instruction

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. Two fast growing areas for technology-enhanced learning are serious games and mobile instruction (M-instruction or M-Learning). Serious games are ones that are meant to be more than just entertainment. They have a serious use to educate or promote other types of activity. Immersive Games frequently involve many players interacting in a shared rich and complex-perhaps web-based-mixed reality world, where their circumstances will be multi and varied. Their reality may be augmented and often self-composed, as in a user-defined avatar in a virtual world. M-instruction and M-Learning is learning on the move; much of modern computer use is via smart devices, pads, and laptops. People use these devices all over the place and thus it is a natural extension to want to use these devices where they are to learn. This presents a problem if we wish to evaluate the effectiveness of the pedagogic media they are using. We have no way of knowing their situation, circumstance, education background and motivation, or potentially of the customisation of the final software they are using. Getting to the end user itself may also be problematic; these are learning environments that people will dip into at opportune moments. If access to the end user is hard because of location and user self-personalisation, then one solution is to look at the software before it goes out. Heuristic Evaluation allows us to get User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) experts to reflect on the software before it is deployed. The effective use of heuristic evaluation with pedagogical software [1] is extended here, with existing Heuristics Evaluation Methods that make the technique applicable to Serious Immersive Games and mobile instruction (M-instruction). We also consider how existing Heuristic Methods may be adopted. The result represents a new way of making this methodology applicable to this new developing area of learning technology

Integration of Motion Sensing intoMobile Learning Applications

The use of mobile devices in education has greatly increased during the last decade. At the same time, technology advances have opened new spaces and possibilities for the field of mobile-based education in the form of entertainment—where learners can achieve their learning goals whilst having fun. Games on mobile phones have also become an important part of education experienced by young people. With the advancement in technology, utilizing motion-sensors in mobile learning systems have started to evolve. Research indicates that the potential of using motion-sensors in game-based learning could achieve maximum benefits from mobile technology in game-based learning activities, as well as improving this form of e-learning entertainment technology. This paper discusses our ongoing research that aims to improve current learning mobile technologies by integrating a new innovative motion-sensing feature. These advancements are reviewed and evaluated for integration and use in a motion-sensing edutainment mobile application

The role of edutainment in e-learning: An empirical study.

Impersonal, non-face-to-face contact and text-based interfaces, in the e-Learning segment, present major problems that are encountered by learners, since they are out on vital personal interactions and useful feedback messages, as well as on real-time information about their learning performance. This research programme suggests a multimodal, combined with an edutainment approach, which is expected to improve the communications between users and e-Learning systems. This thesis empirically investigates users’ effectiveness; efficiency and satisfaction, in order to determine the influence of edutainment, (e.g. amusing speech and facial expressions), combined with multimodal metaphors, (e.g. speech, earcon, avatar, etc.), within e-Learning environments. Besides text, speech, visual, and earcon modalities, avatars are incorporated to offer a visual and listening realm, in online learning. The methodology used for this research project comprises a literature review, as well as three experimental platforms. The initial experiment serves as a first step towards investigating the feasibility of completing all the tasks and objectives in the research project, outlined above. The remaining two experiments explore, further, the role of edutainment in enhancing e-Learning user interfaces. The overall challenge is to enhance user-interface usability; to improve the presentation of learning, in e-Learning systems; to improve user enjoyment; to enhance interactivity and learning performance; and, also, to contribute in developing guidelines for multimodal involvement, in the context of edutainment. The results of the experiments presented in this thesis show an improvement in user enjoyment, through satisfaction measurements. In the first experiment, the enjoyment level increased by 11%, in the Edutainment (E) platform, compared to the Non-edutainment (NE) interface. In the second experiment, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) interface obtained 14% greater enhancement than the Virtual Class (VC) interface and 20.85% more than the Storytelling interface; whereas, the percentage obtained by the game incorporated with avatars increased by an extra 3%, compared with the other platforms, in the third experiment. In addition, improvement in both user performance and learning retention were detected through effective and efficiency measurements. In the first experiment, there was no significant difference between mean values of time, for both conditions (E) & (NE) which were not found to be significant, when tested using T-test. In the second experiment, the time spent in condition (GBL) was higher by 7-10 seconds, than in the other conditions. In the third experiment, the mean values of the time taken by the users, in all conditions, were comparable, with an average of 22.8%. With regards to effectiveness, the findings of the first experiment showed, generally, that the mean correct answer for condition (E) was higher by 20%, than the mean for condition (NE). Users in condition (GBL) performed better than the users in the other conditions, in the second experiment. The percentage of correct answers, in the second experiment, was higher by 20% and by 34.7%, in condition (GBL), than in the (VC) and (ST), respectively. Finally, a set of empirically derived guidelines was produced for the design of usable multimodal e-Learning and edutainment interfaces.Libyan Embass

MODALITIES OF VALORISATION AND PROMOTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE THROUGH ICT: ADDING NEW MILESTONES TO THE "STANDARD" PRACTICE

Abstract. Nowadays, in the academic field, it is growing the demand for digital competencies bounded to advanced communication strategies. More and more national and international project required to the scientific community to be increasingly open to new targets of public, even not expert one. The focus point is that the research must be accessed not only by professionals, but it has to engage a broader public, starting from local communities to the public of the web. This statement is testified by the European funds calls that ask for communication activities and strategies, along with dissemination and exploitation. Why these three activities are so important? Because they are strictly related to the impact that a project can have, not only for the academic world, but also for the outside. This trend is growing fast in each scientific field: also in Cultural Heritage conservation, where it is more and more common the uses of 3D digital models not only for maintenance purposes, but also as a bridge between the heritage and non-expert publics. The question is how advanced digital techniques can help the process of valorisation of Cultural Heritage at different stages? The article wants to look for a standard practice to promote and enhance Cultural Heritage using digital technologies. Through the analysis of a series of case studies, it wants to show how to build a valorisation strategy, considering all the components of CH, and how it can be implemented adding new disciplines and skills (communication and promotion), enhancing users' access and interaction

A SHARED INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR TOURISM ENTERPRISES IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

In a developing economy's business environment, introduction of new technology creates a large potential for more effective and streamlined production of tourism services. This study shows guidelines of design of an inter-organizational information system for small tourism enterprises. The entrepreneurial goal is to support strategic alliances in order to obtain better market-fit and sustainable competitive advance. This requires that the enterprises are capable of evaluating their existing processes, identify and outline improvements, and implement them. More than that, enterprises have to execute profound strategic changes in their business processes. For this change, study shows that adaption of supportive information system can be a key factor to satisfy these demands. Firstly, using systematic literature review the study identifies global trends of e-tourism. Secondly the trends are compared with the reality of small tourism enterprises in Nicaraguan Caribbean coast. With interview and brain storming sessions with hotel managers and local tourism specialists, desired state of e-tourism enhanced business processes is defined. Performance gaps and solutions are identified and outlined in order to reach new customer segments and better customer satisfaction with use of inter-organizational information system. With help of shared information system, enterprises search for sustainable economic growth and more stable business environment for their activities. The scientific domain of research is Information systems science. The method used for data collection and interpretation is systematic literature review and human and institutional capacity development -method. As result, the research identifies critical business processes when implementing e-Tourism services into tourism enterprises in developing economies. Strategic solutions for sustainable improvements in business processes supported by use of shared information system are outlined. As a practical result, the study lists required steps in order to reach desired changes in tourism enterprises with e-tourism initiative. Specification of requirements for information system is made. The implementation process and construction of information system is left out from this research and it requires later its own case study.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Serious gama for integration in higher education

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms

Adaptive courseware design based on learner character

During last decade, a great advance has been done in both theoretical research and software construction of Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS). The article discusses the practical approach taken for authoring and instructional design of adaptive courseware based on learner character, namely learner goals and preferences, learner style, and learner performance and satisfaction level. This approach is adopted at pilot test of ADOPTA - adaptive technology-enhanced platform for edutainment. The authoring process relies strongly on an enhanced learning object metadata support, where learning styles are used for adaptive navigation within the narrative storyboard graph. On other side, both learner knowledge and satisfaction level determine adaptive content selection