Authoring Support for Mobile Interaction with the Real World.

Mobile phones have been established as devices for the interaction with objects from the everyday world, such as posters, advertisements or points of interest. However, the usage of physical mobile applications is often still restricted by fixed content and behavior, whose authoring usually requires a considerable coding effort. This paper presents an approach to an authoring tool that separates the creative process of authoring content and behavior for mobile applications from its technical deployment. The tool supports non-technical users in the creation of content and behavior for the mobile guiding application MOPS that associates its content with points of interest in the real world through Physical Mobile Interaction

Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

A Multi-channel Application Framework for Customer Care Service Using Best-First Search Technique

It has become imperative to find a solution to the dissatisfaction in response by mobile service providers when interacting with their customer care centres. Problems faced with Human to Human Interaction (H2H) between customer care centres and their customers include delayed response time, inconsistent solutions to questions or enquires and lack of dedicated access channels for interaction with customer care centres in some cases. This paper presents a framework and development techniques for a multi-channel application providing Human to System (H2S) interaction for customer care centre of a mobile telecommunication provider. The proposed solution is called Interactive Customer Service Agent (ICSA). Based on single-authoring, it will provide three media of interaction with the customer care centre of a mobile telecommunication operator: voice, phone and web browsing. A mathematical search technique called Best-First Search to generate accurate results in a search environmen

Enabling decentral collaborative innovation processes - a web based real time collaboration platform

The main goal of this paper is to define a collaborative innovation process as well as a supporting tool. It is motivated through the increasing competition on global markets and the resultant propagation of decentralized projects with a high demand of innovative collaboration in global contexts. It bases on a project accomplished by the author group. A detailed literature review and the action design research methodology of the project led to an enhanced process model for decentral collaborative innovation processes and a basic realization of a browser based real time tool to enable these processes. The initial evaluation in a practical distributed setting has shown that the created tool is a useful way to support collaborative innovation processes.Comment: multikonferenz wirtschaftsinformati

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis essay begins by speculating about the learning environment of the class of 2020. It takes place entirely in a virtual world, populated by simulated avatars, managed through the pedagogy of gaming. Based on this projected version of a future-now-in-formation, the authors consider the implications of the current paradigm shift that is happening at the edges of institutions of higher education. From the development of programs in multimedia literacy to the focus on the creation of hybrid learning spaces (that combine the use of virtual worlds, social networking applications, and classroom activities), the scene of learning as well as the subjects of education are changing. The figure of the Original Synner is a projection of the student-of-the-future whose foundational literacy is grounded in their ability to synthesize information from multiple information streams

mLearning, development and delivery : creating opportunity and enterprise within the HE in FE context

This research project was funded by ESCalate in 2006-7 to support Somerset College in developing the curriculum, as well as widening participation via the use of mobile communications technologies such as mp3 players and mobile phones. The Project represents a highly topical and timely engagement with the opportunities for learning provided by the burgeoning use of mobile computing/ communications devices. Activities bring together colleagues from Teacher Education and Multimedia Computing in an innovative approach to designing for and delivering the curriculum. The Project addresses pedagogic issues and also vitally involves current and future learners, providing them with a new context for skills development and entrepreneurship. Anticipated outcomes include informed development of new HE modules and professional CPD activities which address the skills and context of this emerging approach to delivering the curriculum. The Project also intends to trial and evaluate the use of mobile technologies to support a blended learning approach to programme delivery and the development of a FD module which could be delivered via a mobile computing device. An interim report and a final project report are available as Word and PDF file

From Personalization to Adaptivity: Creating Immersive Visits through Interactive Digital Storytelling at the Acropolis Museum

Storytelling has recently become a popular way to guide museum visitors, replacing traditional exhibit-centric descriptions by story-centric cohesive narrations with references to the exhibits and multimedia content. This work presents the fundamental elements of the CHESS project approach, the goal of which is to provide adaptive, personalized, interactive storytelling for museum visits. We shortly present the CHESS project and its background, we detail the proposed storytelling and user models, we describe the provided functionality and we outline the main tools and mechanisms employed. Finally, we present the preliminary results of a recent evaluation study that are informing several directions for future work

Facilitating the creation of interactive multi-device Learning Objects using an online authoring tool

Learning Objects facilitate reuse leading to cost and time savings as well as to the enhancement of the quality of educational resources. However, teachers find it difficult to create or to find high quality Learning Objects, and the ones they find need to be customized. Teachers can overcome this problem using suitable authoring systems that enable them to create high quality Learning Objects with little effort. This paper presents an open source online e-Learning authoring tool called ViSH Editor together with four novel interactive Learning Objects that can be created with it: Flashcards, Virtual Tours, Enriched Videos and Interactive Presentations. All these Learning Objects are created as web applications, which can be accessed via mobile devices. Besides, they can be exported to SCORM including their metadata in IEEE LOM format. All of them are described in the paper including an example of each. This approach for creating Learning Objects was validated through two evaluations: a survey among authors and a formal quality evaluation of 209 Learning Objects created with the tool. The results show that ViSH Editor facilitates educators the creation of high quality Learning Objects