Google Glass in Face-to-face Lectures - Prototype and First Experiences

Graz University of Technology has a long tradition in doing technology-enhanced courses. Following the latest trends, as mentioned in the NMC Horizon Report [32], we reviewed the possibility to use a wearable technology, in our case the Google GlassTM, in courses to improve the interaction between the lecturer and the audience with a special focus on huge classes. The lack of interaction in traditional face-to-face lectures is a well-known problem with a long research history [4], [12]. New technologies in Audience Response Systems (ARS) offer new ways to improve the interaction between teacher and student by enabling to ask questions to the audience [5] to get instant feedback during a lecture. Currently many types of web-based ARSs are available on the market [15]. Our research focused on finding an ARS suitable for the visualization in the Google Glass display. Further we developed a prototype and described first practical experiences

Near Field Communication - Which Potentials Does NFC Bring for Teaching and Learning Materials?

Near Field Communication (NFC) is deemed to be a future technology with a lot of potential in many areas. One of those areas, learning and teaching, will be covered in this article, showing possible usages of NFC with teaching and learning materials. With a lot of new NFC capable devices presented recently, this technology can be utilized in many areas, including the arbitrarily growing field of mobile learning. Mobile devices, especially smartphones, can help to close the gap between printed media and online media. Several methods, e.g. two-dimensional barcodes, have already been used to connect the digital world with printed media but almost all of them caused inconveniences or difficulties. NFC presents an easy to use way to share and communicate directly between capable devices or tags that can be applied almost anywhere. In this publication a first insight to the potential of NFC for teaching and learning content is given. A prototype is programmed to allow data transformation between the print media and the smartphone. It can be summarized that NFC will be the logical successor of QR-Codes

E-Books in der Schule: Eine Evaluierung von E-Book-Formaten und E-Book-Readern hinsichtlich ihrer Eignung für Schulbücher

Das Schulbuch ist als Lehrmittel unserer Zeit kaum mehr wegzudenken, obwohl es noch gar nicht so lange her war, dass man auch ohne auskam. Seit der Jahrtausendwende halten die digitalen Technologien im Sog des World Wide Web immer mehr Einzug im Klassenzimmer und spätestens seit der Einführung des iPads der Firma Apple bzw. des Kindle von Amazon.com nimmt die Diskussion rund um E-Books immer mehr zu. In diesem Beitrag soll versucht werden die derzeitigen Möglichkeiten zu beleuchten und der Frage nach zu gehen, ob aus technischer Sicht Schulbücher als E-Book denkbar sind. Neben der Frage "Was denn ein gutes Schulbuch ist", werden E-Book-Formate und E-Book-Endgeräte dargestellt und anhand von praktischen Tests gezeigt, wo die Grenzen der Technik sind. Es kann zusammengefasst werden, dass es aus Sicht der Autoren völlig klar ist, dass die Digitalisierung von Büchern weiter voranschreitet, aber dass es bis zum Einsatz in der Praxis noch ein großer Schritt ist. (DIPF/Orig.

Glass shell manufacturing in space

Residual gases always found in glass shells are CO2, O2 and N2. In those cases where high water vapor pressure is maintained in the furnace, water is also found in the shells. Other evidence for the existence of water in shells is the presence of water-induced surface weathering of the interior shell surface. Water and CO2 are the predominant volatiles generated by the pyrolysis of both inorganic and hydrolyzed metal-organic gels. The pyrolysates of unhydrolyzed metal-organic gels also contain, in addition to water and CO2, significant levels of organic volatiles, such as ethanol and some hydrocarbons; on complete oxidation, these produce CO2 and water as well. Water is most likely the initial blowing agent, it is produced copiously during the initial stages of heating. In the later stages, CO2 becomes the dominant gas as H2O is lost at increasing rates. Water in the shell arises mainly from gel dehydration, CO2 by sodium bicarbonate/carbonate decomposition and carbon oxidation, and O2 and N2 by permeation of the ambient furnace air through the molten shell wall

Editorial zum Schwerpunktthema „Wandel von Lern- und Lehrmaterialien"

In diesem Beitrag wird eine kurze Einleitung als auch ein kurzer Überblick über die Artikel [dieses Heftes] zum Themenschwerpunkt "Wandel von Lern- und Lehrmaterialien" gegeben sowie ein Dank an die Gutachterinnen und Gutachter ausgesprochen. (DIPF/Orig.