Teaching in the Metaverse: Recreating an Italian Level A1 Course in Meta Horizon Woorkrooms

In recent years, the concept of the Metaverse has led to considerable ethical and moral discussions about the digital creation of an alternative world. Despite the extensive investments made by multinationals such as Meta [1] or Roblox [2], the possibilities offered by the Metaverse in Virtual Reality have not yet been able to meet expectations due to issues such as the high cost of Head-Mounted Displays and a low presence of active users. The creation of virtual lessons that can be delivered directly within the Metaverse is an aspect that has not yet been properly explored and could finally lead to effective use of the virtual worlds born in recent years. This paper aims to lay the theoretical and practical basis for transporting a course designed to teach Italian at level A1 within the immersive environment of Meta Horizon Workrooms [3]. The features offered by the virtual office created by Mark Zuckerberg's company can provide a safe environment in which to engage students while keeping their active attention on the educational objective and avoiding the distractions caused by distance learning

Applying gamification techniques to enhance the effectiveness of video-lessons

Gamification techniques are commonly used in e-learning to enhance the effectiveness of educational activities and the learners\u2019 partaking. In fact, owing to the engagement effect, they can improve learning processes in diverse disciplines, empowering the traditional methods of acquisition of competences and skills. This approach is giving results in informal education activities both in traditional Learning Management Systems and in Massive Open Online Course platforms, mostly based on the consumption of video-lessons. In this context, we describe the gamification-oriented design choices made for the realization of a video-course for the training on the use of office automation software programs. Specifically, we planned the revamping of a course produced in 2012, whose lessons are made by short fictional videos, animated tutorials, and screen captures that show how to perform common operations. The design of the gamification process is following the hype for the launch of the new Star Wars\u2122, Episode 7, and, as a consequence, will be delivered as \u201cStar Words\u201d. In the paper we present the gamification methodologies adopted to create the first prototype of Star Words, also analyzing the criticisms that emerged

XR Enhanced Learning: an A1 Level Gamified MOOC for Italian Learning

The past three years have seen increasingly rapid progress in using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), i.e., education delivered online on specific platforms to refine or teach several subjects. The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the planet pushed many people towards finding new tools to experience and learn. This contribution examines how the use of Gamification mechanics and rules can be used to increase motivation and trigger the interest of foreign students enrolling at the University of Genoa to learn A1 Level Italian through an extended MOOC. Topics will be delivered on the EON-XR platform, enabling students to access brief texts and/or audio contributions as well as 3D models related to concepts dealt with by lecturers in class

Privacy-Preserving OLAP-based monitoring of data streams: The PP-OMDS approach

In this paper, we propose PP-OMDS (Privacy-Preserving OLAP-based Monitoring of Data Streams), an innovative framework for supporting the OLAP-based monitoring of data streams, which is relevant for a plethora of application scenarios (e.g., security, emergency management, and so forth), in a privacy-preserving manner. The paper describes motivations, principles and achievements of the PP-OMDS framework, along with technological advancements and innovations. We also incorporate a detailed comparative analysis with competitive frameworks, along with a trade-off analysis

A Tool for the Semantic Analysis and Recommendation of Videos in e-Learning

Video lessons are increasingly adopted in education, especially in universities and lifelong learning projects. Their popularity is due to the people's familiarity with video and to other intrinsic characteristics of this medium, such as the message rapidity and its reproducibility. Accordingly, Massive Open Online Courses are gaining a prominent role in both formal and informal education and many universities provide video courses for their students through suited platforms or even freely accessible to everyone. To improve the effectiveness of video lessons and to make them part of a wider learning environment, we decided to investigate the possibility of making a system that, starting from a video, can suggest further \u201creadings\u201d. Such a system is thought for independent lifelong learners, for regular students, for teachers and instructional designers as well

Enabling touchless interfaces for mobile platform: State of the art and future trends

In this work, we discuss the existing methods to implement and use a touchless gesture-based interaction on mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets, specifically for situations where you cannot have a direct interaction with devices. The purpose of this work is to investigate the actual solutions and establish the most convenient way to enable these interactions on mobile devices with minimally-invasive procedures. The paper is organized in three parts: a survey of the current technological possibilities; a description of trials made to know advantages and limitations of the existing solutions; a final discussion concerning the evolution of the natural user interface on mobile platforms in the next few years

Semantic Wiki: a collaborative tool for instructional content design

The rapid evolving of web technologies has brought to the increasingly diffusion of applications making the Web an interactive social network environment. The World Wide Web Consortium and several research centers are working on the integration of such technologies into the project of a Semantic Web. Consequently, e-learning systems and tools supporting instructional content design could take advantage of these advancements. In this scenario, according to a social-constructivist approach, the authors discuss the adoption of Semantic Wiki as a collaborative environment to design educational contents. The paper will outline the application perspectives and the strategies to adopt, in order to facilitate meaningful learning processes, and the potential advantages that Semantic Wikis would bring from the point of view of knowledge management, as well as for the re-use of learning resources

Gamification in Corporate Training to Enhance Engagement: An Approach

none3Engagement in the companies' training programs is a crucial issue for their success. Every company faces the matter in different manners: some enterprises promote mandatory courses or programs; however, they may result not enough effective, due to a low level of motivation that can compromise learning and retention. Other enterprises prefer to adopt voluntary courses or programs, but in this case enrollment and completion depend on many factors: the time that workers can spend on training without compromising their main tasks; the directives of managers; the individual motivation. Another way to face corporate training may exploit gamification to enhance engagement. The authors present the design and implementation of a gamified course of office automation, developed for the employees of a large media company. Our approach attempts to go beyond the well-known triad point-badges-leaderboards, employing also a narrative, the Bartle's taxonomy of player types and the Selfdetermination theory by Deci and Ryan.openIacono, Saverio; Vallarino, Mario; Vercelli, Gianni ViardoIacono, Saverio; Vallarino, Mario; Vercelli, Gianni Viard

Gamification in Corporate Training to Enhance Engagement: An Approach

Engagement in the companies' training programs is a crucial issue for their success. Every company faces the matter in different manners: some enterprises promote mandatory courses or programs; however, they may result not enough effective, due to a low level of motivation that can compromise learning and retention. Other enterprises prefer to adopt voluntary courses or programs, but in this case enrollment and completion depend on many factors: the time that workers can spend on training without compromising their main tasks; the directives of managers; the individual motivation. Another way to face corporate training may exploit gamification to enhance engagement. The authors present the design and implementation of a gamified course of office automation, developed for the employees of a large media company. Our approach attempts to go beyond the well-known triad point-badges-leaderboards, employing also a narrative, the Bartle's taxonomy of player types and the Self-determination theory by Deci and Ryan