Technologies For E Learning And Digital Entertainment

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2007, held in Hong Kong, China, in June 2007. It covers virtual and augmented reality in game and education, virtual characters in games and education, e-learning platforms and tools, geometry in games and virtual reality, vision, imaging and video technology, as well as collaborative and distributed environments.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2008, held in Nanjing, China, in June 2008. The 83 revised full papers presented together with the abstract of 5 keynote speeches were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 219 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on e-learning platforms and tools, e-learning system for education, application of e-learning systems, e-learning resource management, interaction in game and education, integration of game and education, game design and development, virtual characters, animation and navigation, graphics rendering and digital media, as well as geometric modeling in games and virtual reality.

With the widespread interest in digital entertainment and the advances in the tech- logies of computer graphics, multimedia and virtual reality technologies, a new area–– “Edutainment”––has been accepted as a union of education and computer entertainment. Edutainment is recognized as an effective way of learning through a medium, such as a computer, software, games or VR applications, that both educates and entertains. The Edutainment conference series was established and followed as a special event for the new interests in e-learning and digital entertainment. The main purpose of Edutainment conferences is the discussion, presentation, and information exchange of scientific and technological developments in the new community. The Edutainment conference series is a very interesting opportunity for researchers, engineers and graduate students who wish to communicate at these international annual events. The conference series includes plenary invited talks, workshops, tutorials, paper presen- tion tracks and panel discussions. The Edutainment conference series was initiated in Hangzhou, China in 2006. Following the success of the first event (Edutainment 2006 in Hangzhou, China) and the second one (Edutainment 2007 in Hong Kong, China), Edutainment 2008 was held June 25–27, 2007 in Nanjing, China. This year, we received 219 submissions from 26 different countries and regions, including United Arab Emirates, Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Austria, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Cuba, Australia, Hong Kong (China), Pakistan, M- ico, Czech Republic, USA, Malaysia, Italy, Spain, France, UK, The Netherlands, Taiwan (China), Japan, South Korea, and China.

Over the past century, educational psychologists and researchers have posited many theories to explain how individuals learn, i.e. how they acquire, organize and deploy knowledge and skills. The 20th century can be considered the century of psychology on learning and related fields of interest (such as motivation, cognition, metacognition etc.) and it is fascinating to see the various mainstreams of learning, remembered and forgotten over the 20th century and note that basic assumptions of early theories survived several paradigm shifts of psychology and epistemology. Beyond folk psychology and its naïve theories of learning, psychological learning theories can be grouped into some basic categories, such as behaviorist learning theories, connectionist learning theories, cognitive learning theories, constructivist learning theories, and social learning theories. Learning theories are not limited to psychology and related fields of interest but rather we can find the topic of learning in various disciplines, such as philosophy and epistemology, education, information science, biology, and – as a result of the emergence of computer technologies – especially also in the field of computer sciences and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, machine learning struck a chord in the 1980s and became an important field of the learning sciences in general. As the learning sciences became more specialized and complex, the various fields of interest were widely spread and separated from each other; as a consequence, even presently, there is no comprehensive overview of the sciences of learning or the central theoretical concepts and vocabulary on which researchers rely. The Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning provides an up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the specific terms mostly used in the sciences of learning and its related fields, including relevant areas of instruction, pedagogy, cognitive sciences, and especially machine learning and knowledge engineering. This modern compendium will be an indispensable source of information for scientists, educators, engineers, and technical staff active in all fields of learning. More specifically, the Encyclopedia provides fast access to the most relevant theoretical terms provides up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the most important theories within the various fields of the learning sciences and adjacent sciences and communication technologies; supplies clear and precise explanations of the theoretical terms, cross-references to related entries and up-to-date references to important research and publications. The Encyclopedia also contains biographical entries of individuals who have substantially contributed to the sciences of learning; the entries are written by a distinguished panel of researchers in the various fields of the learning sciences.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2006, held in Hangzhou, China in April 2006. The 121 revised full papers and 52 short papers presented together with the abstracts of 3 invited papers and those of the keynote speeches cover a wide range of topics, including e-learning platforms and tools, learning resource management, practice and experience sharing, e-learning standards, and more.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2006, held in Hangzhou, China in April 2006. The 121 revised full papers and 52 short papers presented together with the abstracts of 3 invited papers and those of the keynote speeches cover a wide range of topics, including e-learning platforms and tools, learning resource management, practice and experience sharing, e-learning standards, and more.

This book is an essential text for researchers and academics seeking the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of all aspects of e-learning and ICT in education. It provides expanded peer-reviewed content from research presented at the 9th Panhellenic Conference on ICT in Education. It focuses on providing original research on the most cutting edge e-Learning technologies, including CSCL, ICT based learning, ICT and instructional design, serious games and game design, virtual learning environments, robotics in education, ubiquitous learning, distance learning, digital literacies, learning analytics, social media in education and e-assessment.

This book provides a comprehensive overview on the theories, processes, and solutions relevant to effectively creating, using, and managing digital media in a variety of instructional settings. In the first section of the book, the authors provide an overview of the theories, development models, and principles of learning with digital media. In the second section, the authors detail various digital media solutions, including: Instructional Videos, Instructional Simulations and Games, Online Learning, Mobile Learning, and Emerging Learning Technologies. Overall, this book emphasizes the theoretical principles for learning with digital media and processes to design digital media solutions in various instructional settings. The readers are also provided with multiple case studies from real world projects in various instructional settings.