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The impact of second life on team learning outcomes from the perspective of IT capabilities
Abstract
3Dvirtual world has been widely applied in e-learning project, as its several advantages like3Davatar, rich communication channels. This study focuses on a case of famous virtual world (i.e., Second Life, SL) application in on-line engineering education project. Based on the theory of IT capabilities, we investigated how SL provides value for on-line team as improving their knowledge work outcome. The findings suggested that SL may influence team leaning from two levels. First, at individual level, SL generally positive related to the individual knowledge work, including coding language skills, and personal creativity. Second, at team level, SL positively influence the team learning, by providing rich social resources, social networks, and efficient team dynamics. However, SL also has some disadvantages which may disturb the team learning, like advertising information's, gambling, and sex. We suggest the project must provide some rules to limit students to access information's unrelated to class objectives.
... It is vital to share emerging views and insights about the nurture and deployment of human capital, relational capital, and structural capital, about how companies can retain talent and about how to build strategic scientific collaboration networks. Additionally, it is crucial to explore the role of green IC for companies, governments, and nations too (European Commission, 2024;Khan et al., 2023Khan et al., , 2024Nisar et al., 2021;Ordóñez de Pablos, 2004a, 2004b, 2004cZhang et al., 2012Zhang et al., , 2019Zhao et al., 2014). ...
... H4: Law enforcement and behavioral intention This hypothesis posits that Law Enforcement has a significant effect on the behavioral intention to use mobile Government Services in Jordan. By exploring the intricate connections between legal frameworks, law enforcement practices, and citizen behavior, this hypothesis aims to shed light on the specific dynamics influencing the adoption and success of m-Government services within the Jordanian context (Zhang et al., 2014;Zhang et al., 2012). ...
In an era characterized by technological advancement and innovation, the emergence of Electronic Government (e-Government) and Mobile Government (m-Government) represents significant developments. Previous studies have explored acceptance models in this domain. This research presents a novel acceptance model tailored to the context of m-Government adoption in Jordan, integrating the Information System (IS) Success Factor Model, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory, and considerations for law enforcement factors. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the strategies for promoting and enhancing the adoption of m-Government applications within Jordanian society. Data collection involved the distribution of 203 electronic questionnaires, with subsequent analysis conducted using SPSS. The findings reveal the acceptance and significance of three hypotheses: Information Quality, Service Quality, and Power Distance. Additionally, the study incorporates the influence of Law Enforcement factors, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted determinants shaping the adoption of m-Government services in Jordan.
... Many approaches including instructor led methods, scripted methods or autonomous creative environment for the students can help build collaborate e-learning framework (Fischer et al., 2013, Goodyear P. andJones C., 2014). In addition, virtual communities like wikis, forums and virtual worlds can provide successful learning experiences (Zhang et al., 2012, Zhang et al., 2014. ...
One of the biggest challenges in education is teaching mathematics, especially to children. It has been proven that difficulties students face when learning basic mathematics are often the result of previously acquired misconceptions. These misconceptions prevent the student from understanding new concepts and will eventually create a psychological barrier that prevents the student from learning more advanced mathematics. The conventional classroom environment does not provide the teacher with the most efficient means to detect and correct such misconceptions. The goal of our research is to develop an e-learning system for basic mathematics that is capable of providing each student with personalized content to overcome these misconceptions. The system uses a multi-agent architecture to monitor the activity of the student while simultaneously observing and modeling the student’s knowledge and misconceptions. Lessons and exam questions are chosen dynamically by the multi-agent system to cover the prerequisites of new lessons depending on the profile of the user.
... Integrarea tehnologiei informaţiei şi comunicaţiilor (TIC) şi folosirea Internet-ului din ce în ce mai mult în mediile educaţionale, au adus contribuţii importante proceselor de învăţare, respectiv în dezvoltarea şi personalizarea mediilor de e-learning [27]. Există o tendinţă din ce în ce mai accentuată de folosire a modului de învăţare centrat pe student şi pe transferul de cunoştinţe prin intermediul comunităţilor virtuale. ...
Apariţia Web-ului semantic şi a tehnologiilor sale au deschis calea, în ultimul deceniu, pentru dezvoltarea ontologiilor și a sistemelor care utilizează ontologii în diverse domenii, inclusiv domeniul e-learning. În acest articol sunt prezentate elemente ce fundamentează realizarea unui sistem de e-learning în domeniul Managementului de Resurse Umane în domeniul sănătăţii bazat pe ontologii, respectiv noţiuni de bază despre Web-ul semantic, ontologii, personalizarea în e-learning. Articolul prezintă un mediu de e-learning personalizat, care utilizează tehnologii noi, Web semantic şi ontologii pentru îmbunătăţirea procesului de instruire în domeniul managementului de resurse umane, adresat managerilor dintr-un spital. Necesitatea acestei abordări este dată de cerinţele de formare în domeniul managementului de resurse umane pentru specialiştii din sistemul medical din România, precum şi de nevoia soluţionării unor limitări actuale ale sistemelor de e-learning. Implementarea conceptului de personalizare a învăţării în sistemul propus se realizează pornind de la modelul student construit în vederea determinării nivelului de cunoştinţe şi a obiectivelor instruirii. Modelarea profilului student cu ajutorul ontologiilor a demonstrat posibilitatea reutilizării modelelor, reprezentarea detaliată şi completă a cunoştinţelor studentului, precum şi procesul de raţionament al acestuia. Prin acest program de învăţare se urmăreşte creşterea performanţelor, competenţelor şi capacităţii de evaluare a managerilor din sănătate, prin aprofundarea cunoaşterii în domeniul sănătăţii publice, al managementului serviciilor de sănătate, precum şi al managementului resurselor umane
... Scholars explored important research problems related to it. For example, Zhang et al. (2012) investigated how second life influences team learning outcomes. The third-largest cluster is "business model." ...
Digital technologies are ubiquitous in our everyday lives. They have been widely embedded into the core processes of services and products, as well as into the operations of many organizations. These digital technologies bring many changes to our work and lifestyles, to the organization of companies, and even to the structures of whole industries. Thus, digital innovation is a research hotspot. This study investigates the development of digital innovation research using a bibliometric method with visual mapping. The status of digital innovation research is analyzed through citation analysis. Influential references, authors, and top-tier journals are identified. The literature’s intellectual structure is mapped through co-word analysis. In addition, co-citation network analysis is used to describe the evolution of digital innovation research, and cluster analysis of the main research stream is conducted. Several research topics addressed by recent papers are also discussed. Finally, cross-country comparisons reveal that the US is currently taking the leading role and that China is a newcomer with potential contributions to make in this research area. Keywords: Digital innovation, Citation analysis, Cross-country comparison, Evolutionary footprint, Research trend
... In our country such on-line personalised training programmes in health management are relatively new, they can be found in post-graduate training programmes and in ongoing professional training courses organised by software developers as well as in operational programmes for human resource development. Integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in educational environments has brought important contributions to learning processes, respectively in the development of e-learning environments and their personalization [1]. This technology widely used in schools and not only helps gaining experience in learning and improving skills in the field of knowledge. ...
This paper presents a modality to use learning styles as the main parameter in determining individual differences in an ontology-based personalised e-learning system. The learning style is one of the ways to identify the student’s preferences which, along with other criteria, such as: student’s level of knowledge, learning style, and level of education, skills, requirements and feedback, lead to the adaptive system’s choice of personalised learning materials. This work is meant to emphasize how a personalised e-learning system for the managers of a hospital in Romania, presented in previous research, uses the learning styles in modelling the student’s profile. For this aim ontological components implemented with Protégé environment are used. This approach leads to automate the e-learning environment and to develop the student’s own knowledge, the personalised learning, the educational content adapted to the learning styles, respectively to the student’s profile
... Because Alice hides from the user the syntactical complexity of Java, and because it is integrated within a 3D environment, it provides young students with an ideal environment to learn the fundamental programming concepts in the motivating context of creating movies and video games (Zhang, Liu, Ord onez de Pablos, & She, 2014). These movies and games create a perfect platform where students express their interest and creative ideas (Denner, Werner, & Ortiz, 2012;Zhang, Ord onez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). They also offer a rich object oriented world where human cognitive primitives (objects with properties, behaviors, and interfaces with other objects) can express core concepts of CT and object oriented programming. ...
This article describes the implementation of various core elements of Computational Thinking (CT) in the classrooms of schools of Latin America and USA in two specific courses: PC-01 and ECE130. These courses were designed for students of primary and secondary education, as well as for students of high school as part of a dual enrollment program with a local university. Both courses introduce the core concepts and processes of CT aided by the visual programming environments Scratch and Alice. The courses are facilitated by the classroom teacher with the support of a learning platform. This platform is configured to provide innovative pedagogical strategies based on emerging educational technologies. This article describes the concepts integrated under the term CT, and discusses the benefits of learning environments used to incorporate CT in the classroom. It describes as well the syllabi and assessments of both courses, and analyzes their impact of these courses on the educational institutions, the teachers and the students.
... 2015; Yanuschik, Pakhomova, & Batbold, 2015). The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) and educational environments has made valuable contributions to the process of learning and the availability thereof (Drigas, Ioannidou, Kokkalia, & Lytras, 2014;Özyurt & Özyurt, 2015;Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). The inception and development of ICT stresses a focus on a user-oriented system because ICT seeks to solve human-related problems (Jeong & Park, 2013;Jiang, Klein, Roan, & Lin, 2001). ...
Together, the fields of education and information technology have identified the need for an online solution to training. The introduction of e-learning has optimised the learning process, allowing organisations to realise the many advantages that e-learning offers. The importance of user involvement in the success of e-learning makes it imperative that the forces driving intention to use e-learning and satisfaction thereof be determined. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between the metrics influencing intention to use and the satisfaction of using e-learning in companies.
The results of a survey distributed amongst a South African software development company’s customer base revealed that the 94 respondents have positive enjoyment and self-efficacy levels, and low computer anxiety levels. Correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between enjoyment and self-efficacy and between enjoyment and satisfaction. Companies should therefore ensure that users enjoy using e-learning as it can directly influence satisfaction and self-efficacy.
... As social media is about interaction, there is also knowledge management process where social-learning concept analysed by Zhang et al. (2015). Learning via virtual world also had been analysed by Zhang, Zhu, and de Pablos (2012). Krasnova, Hildebrand, Guenther, Kovrigin, and Nowobilska (2008) stated that the use of social networks can satisfy esteem as users can present themselves to friends who think similarly and have common interests. ...
... The effects different incentive factors and mechanisms -such as culture, information technologies, department characteristics, and individual roles -on sharing information in online environments are among the most commonly studied topics in relation to workplace and social learning (Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhou, 2013;Zhang, de Pablos, & Xu, 2014;Zhang, Vogel, & Zhou, 2012). Adoption of virtual worlds offered through technologies such as Second Life and their effects on team learning outcomes have also been studied (Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, et al., 2014). Social media has particularly attracted researchers to look into the ways for empowering e-learning opportunities in informal learning setting and across different disciplines (Zhang, Gao, et al., 2015;Zhang, Wang, et al., 2015). ...
This paper reports on the findings of an exploratory study in which the effects of technological scaffolding interventions on micro-level processes of self-regulated learning in the workplace were investigated. Empirical research in the workplace has been much less represented than in formal education. Even less research is available that aimed to identify which technological scaffolding interventions, out of those available in a learning environment, had the highest influence on specific micro-level process of self-regulated learning. This paper reports on the findings of a case study conducted in the naturalistic settings of two organizations in Europe (N = 53) for the period of two months. Trace data about the events of engagement with the technological scaffolding interventions and micro-level processes of self-regulated learning were collected. Both a transition graph based analysis of the temporal dependencies of the collected events and multiple linear regression analyses showed that an intervention that promoted social awareness had consistently the highest effect on all the micro-level processes used in the study. This intervention was followed by the intervention that offered system-generated recommendations about learning paths, learning activities and knowledge assets to stimulate engagement into the micro-level processes within the forethought or preparatory phase of self-regulated learning. These findings suggest that both the social and organizational contexts should be taken into account when developing interventions aimed at supporting the forethought and engagement phases. Further discussion about research, methodological, and learning technology design implications is provided.
... AR provides both virtual and real world simultaneously to users. Although virtual worlds have several advantages like 3D avatar, rich communication channels and rich interaction (Zhang, Ord oñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Yilmaz, Baydas, Karakus, & Goktas, 2015), real world experiences give valuable opportunities. Especially, appearing of 3D objects in real world creates a magical feeling causing a high degree of surprise and curiosity (Bujak et al., 2013). ...
... Moreover, although the present study as well as many previous studies in the field focused on emotional impacts regarding the spatial distribution of visual attention on rather static images, future research should also consider attention-related effects of mood and stimulus valence in more dynamic and interactive virtual environments such as, for example, virtual worlds (Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Zhou, Fang, Vogel, Jin, & Zhang, 2012), IT-based knowledge management systems (Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhou, 2013), or in the context of virtual-reality-based therapeutic treatments (Carlin, Hoffman, & Weghorst, 1997). In fact, the continuous tracking of eye movements in dynamic virtual scenarios makes attentional processes observable (cf. ...
Abstract Emotional impacts on attention arises in the form of externally and internally loaded forms. The former relates to the emotional valence of the sensory stimulus. The latter refers to the emotional state of the subject. We investigated their influence and interaction. Seventy-two subjects had been emotionally primed by a sequence of positive or negative images before they observed webpages of an online news portal. Each webpage contained positive and negative emotion-laden stimuli to be recalled in a memory test. We captured effects on overt attention, saccadic parameters, and explorative behavior. Furthermore, we related memory performance to characteristic gaze behavior. We found an attentional preference and a better memory performance for negative stimuli that was more pronounced after a positive mood induction. Importantly, increased attention correlated positively with recall performance on an individual level, but only after a positive mood induction. Moreover, the evaluation of the news-portal's hedonic quality and overall appeal, but not of usability, was affected by subjects' emotional states. We concluded that in contrast to previously reported mood-congruent preferences in young adults' attention, there are complementary effects of internally and externally loaded emotions with the tendency that positive priming increases attention and memory for negative stimuli.
... The presence of significant levels of computer and internet anxiety for the participants who had used the computer before studying it at school shows that the source of these attitudes may be represented by learning how to use the computer. We suppose that the participants, when they learned by themselves or occasionally helped by friends how to use a computer, before studying it at school, used strategies based on trial and error, in contrast to learning in the group-class which are characterized by scaffolding (Yan & Fischer, 2004) and sharing team tacit knowledge (Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). The two acquisition ways may have different consequences over the emotions, beliefs and attitudes towards the computer and the internet. ...
The access of the general public and of the Romanian students to the use of the computer and the internet has been possible only since the middle of the 90's, research on the topic having no object up to that date. The variety of results obtained by studies conducted on different samples or at different time spans support the usefulness of the research in other cultural contexts than the ones in the Western countries. The current study examines the relationships between computer and internet anxiety, computer self-efficacy and other personal characteristics in a Romanian context. A full mediated model was tested. According to our findings, low computer self-efficacy predicts anxiety, the previous education in the field of computer science has direct negative effects on computer anxiety and on the negative attitudes towards the internet. The results show that there are no significant differences between the male and the female participants concerning computer anxiety, self-efficacy and the negative attitudes towards the internet. Significant differences between participants enrolled at different education levels and study programs, Science and Humanities, are obtained.
... Further research should be carried out to collect time-specific data on digital media use in order to provide a broader base from which to draw recommendations about when to use digital media to minimize effects on sleep outcomes. Although it is beyond the scope of the current study, more detail could be collected on the specific digital media activities undertaken by students in the evening to investigate, for example, the sleep effects of filling out a nightly online sleep diary, being involved in collaborative online learning environments, or interacting in 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life (as described in (Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Zhang et al., 2014)). Further research that assesses specific psychological constructs such as motivation, fatigue, and goal-directed behavior in addition to sleep and digital media variables would also aid in explaining the differences by activity that we observed. ...
Digital media use is widespread in University students, and use of digital media near bedtime has a broadly negative effect on sleep outcomes. Adequate and good quality sleep is important for physical and mental health, but few studies have rigorously measured both sleep and digital media use. In this study, we investigated whether self-reported sleep patterns were associated with digital media use in a first-year University student (N ¼ 254, 48% male) population. Students tracked their sleep through daily online diaries and provided digital media use data in 15-min blocks for 2 h prior to bedtime on nine occasions. A longer duration of digital media use was associated with reduced total sleep time and later bedtime, while greater diversity of digital media use was associated with increased total sleep time and earlier bedtime. Analysis of activities in the last hour before bedtime indicated that activity type plays a role in digital media's effect on sleep, with computer work, surfing the Internet, and listening to music showing the strongest relationship to multiple sleep variables. These findings have implications for physical and mental health of University students and can inform design of devices to minimize negative effects of digital media on sleep.
... The environments where learning differences and learning needs are taken into consideration provide students with what they need (Brusilovsky, 2001). Integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into educational environments has made important contributions to learning processes (Drigas, Ioannidou, Kokkalia, & Lytras, 2014; Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012 ). This technology has accelerated developments in e-learning environments and their individualization. ...
The studies on creating learning environments based on differences in learning styles have gained importance in recent years. Learning styles are one of the most important parameters in determining individual differences. Accordingly, traditional web-based learning environments have been replaced by individualized adaptive e-learning environments on the basis of learning styles which are more innovative. This study deals with the content analysis of the recent studies on Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEH) based on learning styles. 69 articles published from 2005 to 2014 were obtained through a comprehensive and detailed review. Afterwards, these studies were subjected to document analysis. The studies were categorized under the titles of purpose, nature, method, characteristics of examinees, level, data collection tool, learner modelling, learning styles, subject, and findings. Some of the studies offered a framework or proposed a model for AEH while others focused on the influence of AEH on academic achievement and learning outputs as well as learning satisfaction. This study examines the existing tendencies and gaps in the literature and discusses the potential research topics.
... The results of the study by Denner et al. (2012), provided that game construction, including both design and programming activities, can support the learning of computer science concepts. Regarding the design activities, Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, and Zhu (2012) found that 3D virtual world may influence team leaning at the individual level including coding language skills, and personal creativity and at team level providing rich social resources, social networks, and efficient team dynamics. ...
... E-learning is commonly explained as the intentional use of electronic instruments such as computer, television and including the delivery of content via internet, intranet, audio (or video tape), and so on for learning (Ozkan & Koseler, 2009;Shee & Wang, 2008). Among of this e-learning environments, web based technologies offer several interactive applications like virtual communities of practice, wiki, forums or 3D virtual world (Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Zhang, Ma, Wu, de Pablos, & Wang, 2014;. Learning Management System (LMS) is one of the important web based innovations to strengthen e-learning programs that blend in-class teaching and online teaching within the learning process. ...
The trend of using e-learning systems is now rapidly expanding into all educational domains. Although they are popular, research studies have been focused on the e-learners and undergraduate levels. Instructors play an important role in specifying the effectivity, success or inefficacy, and adoption of the e-learning systems so predicting instructors’ behavioral intention to use learning management system is essential prior to its adoption. The purpose of this study is to explore instructors’ behavioral intention to use Learning Management System (LMS) at a postsecondary military vocational college level. We used a conceptual framework proposed by Findik Coskuncay and Ozkan for understanding vocational college instructors’ behavioral intention to use LMS. Framework includes the core constructs in technology acceptance model: namely, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, behavioral intention and application self-efficacy, technological complexity, subjective norm. Additional external variables were also adopted—namely, instructors’ age, prior teaching experience, and course relevance. Accordingly, 115 instructors are asked to answer the questionnaire for investigating behavioral intention. After statistical analysis, the results demonstrate that all mentioned variables either directly or indirectly affect the overall behavioral intention to use LMS. Instructors’ perceived usefulness was found as the most significant factor for predicting instructors’ behavioral intention to use LMS. Instructors’ age did not correlate significantly with the factors in technology acceptance model and there was negative significant correlation between instructors’ teaching experience and technological complexity, subjective norm and behavioral intention.
... Tao et al., 2012;Zhang, Liu, de Pablos, & She, 2014), and IT resource-based theory (see e.g. Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012) who examines the relation between IT capabilities and digital options in an educational e-learning context. Such kind of studies may further validate the study's model or alternatively propose a more comprehensive explanation of ICTusage. ...
This study examines the motivations underlying teachers’ intention to continue using information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education. In an extended model based on Information Systems Continuance Theory (ISCT) and agency theory (PAT), teachers’ continuance intention is theorized as a function of their perceived usefulness of ICT and confidence in the effect of incentive structures. The research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL, and seven out of eight hypotheses were supported. By combining the two theories, the paper fills a gap in the literature by addressing both personal and managerial perspectives. Thus, the study contributes to Information Systems continuance research by theorizing and validating an extended model that integrates two complementary perspectives and by explaining the interrelationships between these perspectives. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications are presented and discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.
... For example, a Hong Kong/Netherlands learning project (www.hknet.com) used an established 3D "Alpine Executive Center" in SL to support its teammates in cross-cultural interactions (Saunders, Rutkowski, van Genuchten, Vogel, & Orrego, 2011;Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). In the future, global IT researchers may focus 135 on several research issues: (1) learning motivations and behaviors in VWs; ...
... (2) Game Model (GM): The GM strategy is how to support users to play in these three virtual worlds. There are at least two choices for virtual worlds to design a game model: free creating or finishing tasks (Franceschi et al., 2009;Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). ...
... The growing prevalence of virtual teams in current organizations is due to the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) and the advantages of using this type of teams (Hertel et al., 2005). ICTs offer numerous interactive applications (e.g., virtual communities of practice, wiki, forums or 3D virtual world) designed to create virtual learning environments (Tolosa, Labra, Martínez, Méndez, & Ordóñez de Pablos, 2010;Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012;Zhang et al., 2014), which can provide team members with an opportunity of virtual learning experiences. However, despite the advantages of virtual teams, they are often less effective in making group decisions, need more time to reach decisions, and their members are less satisfied in comparison to face-to-face teams (Baltes, Dickson, Sherman, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.01.034 0747-5632/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. ...
This study examines a moderated mediation model in which team trust moderates the indirect effect of team feedback on team learning through group information elaboration in virtual teams. An experimental study in a laboratory was conducted with 54 teams randomly assigned to a team feedback condition or a control condition. Results provided empirical support to the moderated mediation model. We found that the indirect effect of team feedback on team learning via group information elaboration occurred in virtual teams with a high level of team trust. However, this indirect effect was not statistically significant in virtual teams with lower levels of team trust. Additionally, we also found that group information elaboration and team learning were positively related in virtual teams. Therefore, our findings suggest that team feedback is effective to improve group information elaboration and learning in virtual teams when team trust is high.
... In addition, the use of technology has been found to positively impact team dynamics and knowledge acquisition. For example, the use of 3D virtual world in a large Asia online engineering education project was shown to increase the frequency and efficiency of team dynamics and facilitate tacit knowledge contribution (Zhang, Ordóñez Zhang, Ordóñez de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). We looked for technologies that might enhance the key elements of cooperative learning, mainly accountability and immediate feedback as part of interactive discussions during the RAP of TBL. ...
This qualitative study aimed at comparing and contrasting the feasibility, efficiency, and students’ attitudes toward the use of paper, automated response system (ARS) and computer based testing (CBT) in the readiness assurance process (RAP) of team based learning (TBL). It also aimed at assessing whether the use of technology enhances cooperative learning when compared to paper. The first module of the clinical pharmacology course was conducted in the traditional way using paper. In the second and third modules, the paper-based TBL RAP component was replaced by ARS and CBT respectively. Forty-five third year medical students attended each of the three sessions. Both ARS and CBT based RAP were feasible and efficient, though with some technical constraints. The class during ARS was very interactive, but the test features had some disadvantages. The main problem with CBT was the suboptimal physical set up. When asked to rank their preferences for each method, most students (73%) ranked ARS as first, while paper and CBT almost equally ranked 2. Each method is characterized by peculiar strengths and weaknesses. Technology should be used in parallel to educational theories that support learning.
... Technology boost has enabled new education paradigms, such as: student-centered learning, situated cognition, communities of practice, distributed cognition, everyday cognition, and constructivism in general (Brown, 2005). Education does no longer mean only knowledge transfer, from teachers/tutors to students, but means community, working in groups, doing projects, sharing ideas with peers, being challenged, learning to support personal goals (Prensky, 2007;Zhang, de Pablos, & Xu, 2014;Zhang, de Pablos, & Zhu, 2012). As a consequence of the emergence of the new learning paradigms and in order to cater the ''neomillennial learning styles'' of students (Liu, Cheok, Mei-Ling, & Theng, 2007), new forms of learning and education have appeared: the continuous education, the competences-oriented education, education at work, the online education, the collaborative education. ...
Almost unlimited access to educational information plethora came with a drawback: finding meaningful material is not a straightforward task anymore. Based on a survey related to how students find additional bibliographical resources for university courses, we concluded there is a strong need for recommended learning materials, for specialized online search and for personalized learning tools. As a result, we developed an educational collaborative filtering recommender agent, with an integrated learning style finder. The agent produces two types of recommendations: suggestions and shortcuts for learning materials and learning tools, helping the learner to better navigate through educational resources. Shortcuts are created taking into account only the user’s profile, while suggestions are created using the choices made by the learners with similar learning styles. The learning style finder assigns to each user a profile model, taking into account an index of learning styles, as well as patterns discovered in the virtual behavior of the user. The current study presents the agent itself, as well as its integration to a virtual collaborative learning environment and its success and limitations, based on users’ feedback.
... In this study, the drawbacks mentioned in the first paragraph have been overcome using the power of 3D virtual worlds' technologies. They present new possibilities for supporting formal and informal knowledge acquisition for online learning activities (Zhang, de Pablos & Zhu, 2012;Mathews, Andrews & Luck, 2012;Bredl, Gross, Hunniger & Fleischer, 2011). In these worlds educators can apply student-centered teaching pedagogies that support active, constructivist learning activities (Kluge & Riley, 2008). ...
The aim of this paper is to expose impacts of teaching through SL in the topic of internal structures of power transformers for undergraduate students in department of electricity and energy at Usak University. We begin with introducing the subject taught with traditional methods and through Second Life. We then analyze the findings with Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests using SPSS software. We draw the conclusion by indicating that SL made an effective contribution to the students’ knowledge acquisition while the contribution of traditionally teaching methods in increasing success of the students cannot be ignored.
... This description helps us to understand who the people are and gives some idea on which kind of personality they have, which motivation moves them to use the system and how to design interface and system in order to meet their features. The impact of these aspects has been treated in many context as in , Zhang, de Pablos, and Xu (2014), Zhang, de Pablos, and Zhu (2012). ...
Abstract In every context where the objective is matching needs of the users with fitting answers, the high-level performance becomes a requirement able to allow systems being useful and effective. The personalization may affect different moments of computer–humans interaction routing the users to the best answers to their needs. The most part of this complex elaboration is strictly related with the needs themselves and the residual is independent from it. It is what we may face by getting personality traits of the users. In this paper, we describe an approach that is able to get the personality of the users by inferring it from the social activities they do in order to drive them to the interactive processes they should prefer. This may happens in a wide set of situations, when they are deepened in a collaborative learning experience, in an information retrieval problem, in an e-commerce process or in a general searching activity. We defined a complete model to realize an adaptive system that may interoperate with information systems and that is able to instantiate for all the users the processes and the interfaces able to give them the best feeling and to the system the highest possible performance.
Ubiquitous devices and wearable technologies are becoming smaller and more rich in features to meet user demands and applications. The emergence of ever more sophisticated technologies has created new relationships between real, virtual, and augmented world. This is quite evident, within educational contexts. This chapter will explore new learning approaches based on virtual and augmented reality technologies. Virtual and augmented realities dispense specific knowledge and information. This chapter will discuss augmented reality and education applications based on virtual reality. The chapter will differentiate between ways in which wearable technologies enhance and restructure teaching and learning processes. To circumscribe a well-defined level of analysis, the chapter will examine experiences of using wearable technology within educational contexts.
Ubiquitous devices and wearable technologies are becoming smaller and more rich in features to meet
user demands and applications. The emergence of ever more sophisticated technologies has created
new relationships between real, virtual, and augmented world. This is quite evident, within educational
contexts. This chapter will explore new learning approaches based on virtual and augmented reality
technologies. Virtual and augmented realities dispense specific knowledge and information. This chapter
will discuss augmented reality and education applications based on virtual reality. The chapter will differentiate
between ways in which wearable technologies enhance and restructure teaching and learning
processes. To circumscribe a well-defined level of analysis, the chapter will examine experiences of using
wearable technology within educational contexts.
Today, the use of social network-based virtual learning communities is increasing rapidly in terms of knowledge management. An important dynamic of knowledge management processes is the knowledge sharing behaviors (KSB) in community. The purpose of this study is to examine the KSB of the students in a Facebook-based virtual community created within the scope of a class in terms of their social presence (SP) and transactional distance (TD) perceptions. Both SP and TD are important factors in the creation of a community feeling and in the interaction of the participants, and it is believed that these two factors will effect KSB in virtual communities. Data were gathered from 217 university students by using three scales: the KSB scale, the SP scale (subdimensions: interaction, ownership, and affective statements) and the TD scale (subdimensions: student–student [S–S] interaction, student–teacher [S–T] interaction, student–content [S–C] interaction, student–interface [S–I] interaction, and student–environment [S–E] interaction). The structural equation modeling showed that students’ KSB were related to their SP and TD perceptions in the process of utilizing virtual learning communities. The results of the study indicate that each subdimension of SP and TD scales are significant predictors on KSB. Further researches and implications are explained and discussed.
One major challenge regarding the use of today's language labs relates to teachers' and students' awareness and computer skills. Most teachers and students may not have the requisite computer skills and might soon become overwhelmed by the sophisticated functionality of today's digital lab systems. Thus, they should be provided with the appropriate training and technical support to reduce the apprehension that is usually associated with new technology. Recurrent technical problems are another shortcoming. Failure to operate the lab equipment efficiently due to hardware or software problems will inevitably cause delays and frustration for both students and instructors.
This chapter introduces a model of "Problem refining + Paper presented + Project application + Software development + Patent declaration" on the basis of teaching practice and scientific research for many years. This is a mode of researching and practicing on engineering courses based on cloud computing. The main goal is to help students to understand and grasp the core technology of engineering courses. The employment situation of engineering graduates is very serious, while enterprise is lack of engineering employees that can be used. The reason lies in talent training problems. And this model can help us improve the teaching quality. In order to get the market recognition, meet the demands of the development of future work, and obtain competitive ability of quality control, the mode should be modeled and systematic.
This paper reviews a primarily quantitative empirical study involving 109 computing undergraduate students to assess whether the use of a 3D virtual world environment, implemented as part of their curriculum, could support the concept of self-efficacy. Whilst the role of self-efficacy within education in enhancing student motivation and learning has received increasing coverage over the last twenty years, its role within the context of 3D virtual worlds is still to be more fully explored. This study found that the use of a 3D virtual world for communication and collaboration improved students’ self-efficacy beliefs in relation to activities undertaken as part of collaborative team-based projects. The results indicate significant improvements between students’ pre-test and post-test self-efficacy ratings.
With the increasing growth of communication technologies and pervasive devices, a number of collaborative services are being built for ubiquitous learning access to e-learning environment. However, there exist so many devices with similar functionality but with heterogeneous QoS capability. In order to have suitable services according to desired QoS, services need to be selected. This article presents the corresponding solutions to service selection for collaborative e-learning environment. The experimental results not only showed our solution is more efficient than the similar system but also proved that our solution can work well for web services-based collaborative e-learning environment, especially for enhanced engineering education.
Evaluation of users interfaces for engineering education tools such as E-learning is important to have enhanced real learning experiences in this domain. To this end, in order to have this experience, we conducted usability studies to see its impact. E-learning usability studies require the involvement of real end users. Different users with varying backgrounds and levels of human-computer interaction (HCI) knowledge behave differently when using e-learning tools. To study user behavior in the e-learning context, an empirical usability study on a specific e-learning tool was conducted. The study uses usability evaluation questionnaires collected from two different groups of Software Engineering Students: one group with HCI knowledge and the other without. The objective is to collect the technology enhanced learning experience from the real users to see the impact of engineering education. It is found that end users without HCI knowledge are more satisfied than those with HCI knowledge, as the latter have higher expectations concerning the tool.
Quality issues are commonly reported following the development of mobile learning applications. To evaluate and increase the chance of the successful development of new mobile learning products, the adoption of a complete and well-defined set of technical quality aspects for mobile learning development and their adoption in the education environment are proposed. This work describes a model that captures most abstract and generic technical aspects of mobile learning service quality, including availability, fast response times, flexibility, scalability, usability, maintainability, functionality, functionality, reliability, connectivity, performance, user interface and security. A set of technical quality aspects was developed following a literature study focussing on standards and guidelines for learning and mobile application software quality. The presented case studies point to a set of contextual technical quality factors that influence the choice of mobile learning application. The findings also indicate that there are causal relationships between learner satisfaction and the overall proposed model technical quality aspects. The model has a positive impact on overall learning process outcomes by evaluating the technical aspects while maintaining the quality of mobile learning delivered. The model components purportedly affect learning outcomes by assessing and improving the acceptability to stakeholders of the technical aspects of mobile learning.
In this paper, we investigate the impact of flow (operationalized as heightened challenge and skill), engagement, and immersion on learning in game-based learning environments. The data was gathered through a survey from players (N = 173) of two different learning games (Quantum Spectre: N = 134 and Spumone: N = 40). The results show that engagement in the game has a clear positive effect on learning but immersion in the game does not have a significant effect on learning. Challenge of the game affected learning both directly and via the increased engagement. Skill did not affect learning directly but only via the increased engagement. Perceived challenge was an especially strong predictor of learning outcomes. For the design of educational games, the results imply that the challenge of the game should be able to keep up with the learners growing abilities and learning in order to endorse continued learning in game-based learning environments.
Teaching and learning programming are the fun and also pain part for instructors and students in academic institutions, from the famous "Hello World" simple codes to advanced feature application software, thereis along and tough way to go for most of the students. Within limited teaching hours, instructor's presentation and explanation of the computer language are not attractive enough to raise and improve students' interest for learning proactively as students have different learning styles [1]. From the observation and the query, most students are more comfortable with learning by visual presentation-diagrams, video, animation, verbal explanation and trying things from their own interesting story. This paper describes a teaching approach for Java programming by using Alice-an innovative 3D programming environment that make it easy to help students learn fundamental programming concept in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games [2]. Evidence of students performance in learning Object-Oriented programming as a result of this approach are shown in this paper by statistical data that gathered, summarized and observed from fall semester of 2012.
The cloud computing (CC) is an important emerging information technology for the information resource optimizing. In this case study, we applied CC technology in the quality engineering education platform design process, and investigated the effects of CCon saving resources, optimizing process, and education innovations. First, we described the designing and applying process of CC education platform. Then, we designed a measuring software aided method on evaluating quality of CC application. Finally, a standard was applied to evaluate university laboratory's management abilityon CC platform. By applying cloud computing technology in quality engineering courses, and providing evaluating method, this research has both teaching and research implications for engineering education, like teaching students how to management cloud computing platform with "learn by doing" model.
Social media and mobile internet are both hottest topics in internet technologies which bring great challenges and wonderful opportunities for a large number of researchers in recent years. In some research fields, i.e., telemedicine or e-healthcare, Chinese researchers quickly took advantage of the spread of social media and mobile internet. In this study, we conducted a citation analysis with CiteSpace II by comparing the performance between researchers from China and advanced countries (e.g., USA) in Telemedicine field from 2005-2013. Although there remain huge gaps between China and developed countries, we found that social networks and mobile internet helped Chinese researchers to narrow the gap quickly in recent years. We also found that in the sub fields such as "SNS-facilitated telemedicine" or "m-healthcare", Chinese researchers even achieved similar performance as compared with world class researchers. These findings implicate that SNS or mobile internet may help researchers in developing countries to bridge the digital divide and enhance "late-mover advantage".
Because many massive open online courses (MOOCs) have adopted social media tools for large student audiences to co-create knowledge and engage in collective learning processes, this study adopted various social media mining approaches to investigate Twitter messages related to MOOC learning. The first approach adopted in this study was calculating the important descriptive statistics of MOOC-related tweets and examining the daily, weekly, and monthly trends of MOOC that appeared on Twitter. This information can enable MOOC practitioners to observe participants’ temporal activities on social media and ascertain the most effective time to post or analyze tweets. Secondly, we investigated how public sentiment toward MOOC learning can be assessed according to related tweets. Because the availability and popularity of opinion-rich social networking services are increasing for MOOC communities, our findings from the sentiment analysis of Twitter data can afford substantial insights into participant perceptions of MOOC learning. Third, we analyzed the positive and negative retweets related to MOOCs and identified the influencers of these retweets. Social network diagrams were also developed to reveal how sentimental messages about MOOCs on Twitter were disseminated from the top influencers with the highest number of positive/negative retweets about MOOCs. Analyzing the relationships among top retweet users is vital to MOOC practitioners because they can use this information to filter or recommend MOOC-related messages to the influencers. In short, the findings pertaining social media mining in this study afford a holistic understanding of MOOC trends, public sentiment toward MOOC learning, and the influencers of MOOC-related retweets.
The work presented in this paper describes the design for Graduation Project eCoordination System in our department. The proposed eCoordinator provides effective team–team, supervisor–team and coordinator–supervisors–teams collaboration. eCoordinator is an attribute based framework that serves evolving an object oriented software system into agent oriented software system. Nowadays, agent-oriented software development technologies have evolved rapidly; it is emerging as a new paradigm for constructing intelligent more autonomous software systems. Therefore, several methodologies are available and it is difficult to determine the most appropriate methodology for specific project within different domains. This is especially occurs when re-engineering current object oriented software system. The case study is going to be rebuilding a virtual graduation project coordinator in Information Technology Department at King Saud University.
This article addresses the potential of virtual worlds as a platform for creative team collaboration. The proliferation of geographically distributed teams, striving towards innovative results, calls for ICT that support team creativity. Three-dimensional virtual worlds represent such an emergent and rapidly developing collaboration tool. A systematic literature review was conducted to reveal the affordances of virtual worlds contributing towards team creativity. The results of the literature review reveal eight proposed affordances relevant for virtual worlds to foster team level creativity. Avatars (1) allow the team members to express themselves and their insights and point out information to others. Changing the users’ frame of reference (2) embraces the virtual world’s potential as a context for creative action. Perceived feeling of co-presence (3) within the team members, and user’s own experience of immersion (4), contributes towards engaging creative team collaboration. Multimodality (5) and rich visual information (6) facilitate communication between team members. Finally, virtual worlds allow teams to modify the collaboration environment to simulate a new kind of reality (7), and offer a selection of supporting tools (8) that can be utilized in the creative collaboration. Departures for further research efforts and insights for practitioners engaged in virtual world collaboration are presented.
In multi-national and cross-cultural virtual classes, students' cultural values have significant impacts on knowledge sharing process. According to Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we conducted a mixed method to investigate how national cultural values effect on explicit and implicit knowledge sharing within a multi-national virtual class. First, we adopted a qualitative case study with 6 semi-structure interviews to explore the culture effects on knowledge sharing. Second, we conducted a cross-sectional survey to examine the interaction effects of culture and different knowledge sharing motivations. These findings suggest some cultural values (i.e., collectivism) directly impact knowledge sharing, while most cultural values (i.e., power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and Confucian dynamism) have interactive effects with knowledge sharing motivations. Furthermore, we also found some cultural values, like concern for face, have complex effects on knowledge sharing. This research contributes to the knowledge sharing literature, and provides practical implications for the organization work of computer-based education systems.
Virtual Worlds have become a very popular kind of software application that has been used in different fields, from games to simulation or education. They allow individuals to interact with others through their avatars and with objects in the environment. Virtual Worlds provide new educational experiences where collaboration and cooperation among users can be easily achieved. This paper presents the results of an experience in which students from several high schools were offered a course on programming through a VW educational platform in order to make programming concepts more a ppealing. At the same time the proposed platform minimizes the effort required by the teachers to use the VW environment. The paper analyses the didactical issues of the created virtual world and the main problems that have been solved in order to develop the operative educational platform. Finally,an evaluation of the subjective experience of students and teachers when using the WV environment was carried out. The results of this evaluation show that both teachers and students had a very satisfactory educational experience.
Little is known about how individuals come to relate to settings in virtual worlds (VWs), which are defined as digital environments in which individuals, groups, and even organizations interact in virtual (that is to say, nonphysical) spaces. This research develops a theory of virtual space and place (VSP), specifically relating this to the setting of Second Life (SL), a prominent social virtual world. We explore how three-dimensional space, as perceived by users, is able to provide them with an interactive experience with virtual objects, as well as with other VW denizens. To test our theory, we build interactive work tools in SL that are designed to reflect various degrees of motion range and to influence presence. The three information technology tools are evaluated by 150 business professionals who are either familiar or unfamiliar with SL. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.