Do optional activities matter in virtual learning environments?

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) provide students with activi-ties to improve their learning (e.g., reading texts, watching videos or solving exercises). But VLEs usually also provide optional activities (e.g., changing an avatar profile or setting goals). Some of these have a connection with the learn-ing process, but are not directly devoted to learning concepts (e.g., setting goals). Few works have dealt with the use of optional activities and the relation-ships between these activities and other metrics in VLEs. This paper analyzes the use of optional activities at different levels in a specific case study with 291 students from three courses (physics, chemistry and mathematics) using the Khan Academy platform. The level of use of the different types of optional ac-tivities is analyzed and compared to that of learning activities. In addition, the relationship between the usage of optional activities and different student be-haviors and learning metrics is presented

Visual Analytics in Environmental Research: A Survey on Challenges, Methods and Available Tools

Part 8: Information Systems and ApplicationsInternational audienceVisual analytics approaches bring an innovative and effective way how to deliver the knowledge from a particular domain to an individual user. With the use of visual analytics methods we can easily discover the unexpected relations and interesting patterns, which are hidden in the huge data warehouses. It builds on the human mind’s ability to understand the complex visualization of information. In this paper we introduce the potential usefulness of visual analytics for researchers working in the field of environmental informatics. Current challenges beyond the survey are described here, including the summary of particular well-proven tools and scenarios, which can be applied in many various fields of environmental research

Do optional activities matter in virtual learning environments?

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) provide studentts with activities to improve their learning (e.g., reading texts, watching videos or solving exercises). But VLEs usually also provide optional activities (e.g., changing an avatar profile or setting goals). Some of these have a connection with the learning process, but are not directly devoted to learning concepts (e.g., setting goals). Few works have dealt with the use of optional activities and the relationships between these activities and other metrics in VLEs. This paper analyzes the use of optional activities at different levels in a specific case study with 291 students from three courses (physics, chemistry and mathematics) using the Khan Academy platform. The level of use of the different types of optional activities is analyzed and compared to that of learning activities. In addition, the relationship between the usage of optional activities and different student behaviors and learning metrics is presented