E-learning 2.0

The problem of decomposing non­-manifold object  has already been studied in solid modelling. However, the few proposed solutions are limited to the  problem of decomposing solids described through their boundaries.  In this thesis we study the problem of decomposing an  arbitrary  non-manifold simplicial complex into more regular components. A formal notion  of decomposition is developed using combinatorial topology. The proposed decomposition is unique, for a given complex,  and is computable for complexes of any dimension.  A decomposition algorithm is proposed. This algorithm splits the input complex into a set of connected components in a time proportional to the size of the input.
The algorithm splits non-manifold surfaces into manifold components. In three or higher dimensions a decomposition into manifold parts is not  always possible. Thus, in higher dimensions, we decompose a non-manifold into a decidable super class of  manifolds, that we  call, Initial-Quasi-Manifolds. Initial-quasi-manifolds are then  carefully characterized  and a  definition of this class, in term of local topological properties, is established.  We also defined a two-layered data  structure, the Extended Winged Data Structure.  This data structure is a dimension independent data structure conceived to model non-manifolds through their decomposition into initial quasi-manifold parts. Our two layered data structure describes the structure of  the decomposition and each component.separately. Each decomposition component, in our description, is encoded using an  extended version of
the  Winged Representation (Paoluzzi 93).  In the second layer we encode the connectivity structure of the decomposition. We analyse the space requirements of the extended winged data structure data structure and give algorithms to build and navigate it. Finally, we discuss time requirements for the computation of topological relations and show that for surfaces and tetrahedralization embedded in real 3D space all topological relations can be extracted in optimal  time. This approach offers a compact, dimension independent, representation for non­-manifolds that can be useful whenever the modelled  object has few non­-manifold singularities.

The aim of this research was to develop instructional game design framework for types of cognitive domain subjects in micro level and evaluation of its effectiveness in principles learning. To achieve this goal mixed method research used. To obtain the framework and its evaluation, In the qualitative method inductive analysis and in the quantitative, survey method have been used. Also for extrinsic evaluation of the framework in principles learning, experimental research with control group have been used. From qualitative analysis about computer games mechanic, 31 game mechanics extracted.. To intrinsic evaluation of Proposed framework, this framework with its explaining appendix have been send for 25 instructional and digital game specialists. The results of evaluation showed the proposed framework for cognitive domain subjects have appropriate authenticity. Also to extrinsic or effectiveness evaluation, proposed framework experimented on 40 students in control and experimental groups with pre and posttests. Results of covariance analysis showed there is significant difference between the game has been designed on the basis of the proposed framework and existing game. Introduction 1. We live in a world that constantly the new technologies emerge and create challenges for the field of educational technology, and at the same time, provide appropriate opportunities for improved learning. Present century also witnessed creation and penetration of one of the technologies which is known as "Digital Technology". This digital technology or as Connolly (2009) states, this "digital culture" has affected the ways of activities, social relations, economy, and communication, etc. of today generation. In other words, the digital culture has changed the human lifestyle in 21 st century. Despite this fact that we have witnessed the emerging and development of new technologies and then the changing of today human being, traditional teaching methods have been maintained by educational systems and have not been changed in accordance to characteristics of modern human. In this regard, Prensky (2001) suggests that many researchers of learning and teaching fields state that if an individual of 200 years ago, who comes to the present times, will be surprised from changes which have been occurred from that time up to now except schools. However, he states that our educational system has failed and schools have actually become boring for learners. Even it is more boring than watching TV and working; and we, as educational professionals, are blamed for boringness of schools. Because for today's digital generation (Engage-me generation), our education is not only engaging but also, as Prensky argues, is boring. Human being is living in a world in which s/he has been born, and s/he performs the works and activities that are

Current e-learning environment do not adequately
support collaboration among students and between students and
lecturers. This paper presents the design principles, prototype
design and heuristic evaluation of teach, learn and research
(TELEREC) e-collaboration environment for higher educational
institutions. The objectives are to investigate existing design
principles and didactics for e-collaboration to ascertain a realistic
option for designing and developing an e-collaboration
environments; second, to report on the implementation of the
prototype design using a blended learning approach; and finally, to
conduct formative assessment and experts’ evaluation of the
system. The methodological approach followed a design research
approach which also integrates the values and practices of iterative
development as well as user-centered design activities. The results
of the study suggest that TELEREC e-collaboration environment
support important usability elements such as navigability,
consistency, efficiency, attractiveness, visibility and controllability
as discussed in the findings.

Background: Zambia is faced with a severe shortage of health workers and challenges in national health financing. This burdens the medical licentiate practitioner (MLP) program for training nonphysician clinical students in Zambia because of the shortage of qualified medical lecturers and learning resources at training sites. To address this shortage and strengthen the MLP program, a self-directed electronic health (eHealth) platform was introduced, comprising technology-supported learning (e-learning) for medical education and support for health care practice. MLP students were provided with tablets that were preloaded with content for offline access.
Objective: This study aimed to explore MLP students’ and medical lecturers’ perceptions of the self-directed eHealth platform with an offline-based tablet as a training and health care practice support tool during the first year of full implementation.
Methods: We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 8 MLP students and 5 lecturers and 2 focus group discussions with 16 students to gain insights on perceptions of the usefulness, ease of use, and adequacy of self-directed e-learning and health care practice support accessible through the offline-based tablet. Participants were purposively sampled. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed following hypothesis coding.
Results: TheeHealthplatform(e-platform),comprisinge-learningformedicaleducationandhealthcarepracticesupport,was positively received by students and medical lecturers and was seen as a step toward modernizing the MLP program. Tablets enabled equal access to offline learning contents, thus bridging the gap of slow or no internet connections. The study results indicated that the e-platform appears adequate to strengthen medical education within this low-resource setting. However, student self-reported usage was low, and medical lecturer usage was even lower. One stated reason was the lack of training in tablet usage and another was the quality of the tablets. The mediocre quality and quantity of most e-learning contents were perceived as a primary concern as materials were reported to be outdated, missing multimedia features, and addressing only part of the curriculum. Medical lecturers were noted to have little commitment to updating or creating new learning materials. Suggestions for improving the e-platform were given.
Conclusions: To address identified major challenges, we plan to (1) introduce half-day training sessions at the beginning of each study year to better prepare users for tablet usage, (2) further update and expand e-learning content by fostering collaborations with MLP program stakeholders and nominating an e-platform coordinator, (3) set up an e-platform steering committee including medical lecturers, (4) incorporate e-learning and e-based health care practice support across the curriculum, as well as (5) implement processes to promote user-generated content. With these measures, we aim to sustainably strengthen the MLP program by implementing the tablet-based e-platform as a serious learning technology for medical education and health care practice support.

This research article investigates the use of different video production styles (media design) of advertised intro videos and the actual lecture video in educational online courses. A total of 448 intro videos and 448 corresponding lecture videos [N= 896] have been sampled from different universities all over the world. These videos were distributed as part of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the platforms edX, Coursera, Futurelearn and Iversity. The results show that there is a highly significant difference in media design parameters between the course intro videos used to advertise the course compared to the lecture videos. For example, intro videos make more frequent use of e.g. different framing sizes, animations, time-lapse, additional footage, moving photography or sound design. The actual lecture videos only marginally use these media specific affordances. It is argued that this highly significant difference in the media design of the intro and lecture video could be a contributor to the frequently lamented high dropout rates of online courses, as it sets high expectations in the participants, but in the end delivers a video of a traditional lecture.

Modern age is digital and highly technological. Thus, education as an industry is not exempted from the impact of technology and digital connection. Therefore, each one of us is trying to be compatible with the electronic revolution which has become quite essential for other related changes. Educational technology too has been in active use for a long time especially in most modern educational institutions in India and across the globe. Electronic media can play a critical role in preparing modern teachers equipped with sophisticated learning tools. It has been noticed that effective implementation of e-learning is not possible without teachers' attitude, readiness and appropriate training. The present paper discusses the importance of training in electronic learning scenario for teacher educators' professional development in general and language educators'professional development in particular. The main purpose of this paper is to raise and tackle some of the training issues and components of pre and in-service teacher-training for effective utilization of e-resources and achievement of educational objectives conceived at teachers' colleges for different disciplines.

Web 3.0 is an evolving extension of the current web environme bnt. Information in web 3.0 can be collaborated and communicated when queried. Web 3.0 architecture provides an excellent learning experience to the students. Web 3.0 is 3D, media centric and semantic. Web based learning has been on high in recent days. Web 3.0 has intelligent agents as tutors to collect and disseminate the answers to the queries by the students. Completely Interactive learner's query determine the customization of the intelligent tutor. This paper analyses the Web 3.0 learning environment attributes. A Maximum spanning tree model for the personalized web based collaborative learning is designed.

Teacher educators are under growing pressure to perform. But most teacher educators are not adequately prepared to meet the needs of their profession and adapt to new standards. Teacher educators are also faced with the challenges of preparing a new generation of teachers to effectively use the new learning tool in their teaching practices. Teacher educators' professional development is a vital tool for improving this situation. ICT is an ocean which has tremendous possibilities. Asynchronous learning tools can be very useful for making professional development of teacher effective. This paper explains the practical use of asynchronous learning tools like E-mail, Threaded conferencing system, blog, social networking sites like Facebook, linked in, twitter, instant messaging, discussion forums, list serves in the professional development of teacher educators.

Education is a necessary human virtue and essential for society because it reflects the personality of the human being in our society. The effective way of teaching gives the quality of education and advance learning such as e-learning to the learners and also a high quality of teaching to the tutors. Information Technology (IT) plays a significant role in field of education. Now days, E-learning and M-learning have become very popular trends of the education technology riot. E-Learning is the new tool related to the virtualized distance learning by means of electronic communication mechanisms, specifically the Internet to enhance the traditional learning system. An E-learning system generally needs a lot of software and hardware resources. Today, many educational institutions cannot afford such investments and environments therefore cloud computing is the finest solution. The Cloud Computing environment rises swiftly as a natural platform to provide support to e-Learning systems. Hence, this paper presents the impact on using cloud computing for e-learning which contains an innovative environment resulting from both virtual and personal learning environments. This paper introduces concepts of e-learning and cloud computing infrastructure with their key benefits.

Nell'articolo, dopo una presentazione dell'insegnamento on line dell'italiano come LS presso l'università statale svedese del Dalarna, si pone l'accento sulle problematiche connesse con le esercitazioni di traduzione eseguite on line. Di particolare importanza è l'uso acritico da parte dei discenti di programmi di traduzione automatica presenti in Rete, come Google Translate. Si propone un nuovo tipo di esercitazione, sperimentata con successo dalla nostra sez. di italiano, e che, ribaltando la prospettiva di traduzione,  "disarma" l'uso di tali programmi.

In the recent years, service-based approaches for sharing of data among repositories and online learning are rising to prominence because of their potential to meet the requirements in the area of high performance computing. Developing education based grid services and assuring high availability, reliability and scalability are demanding in web service architectures. On the other hand, grid computing provides flexibility towards aggregating distributed CPU, memory, storage, data and supports large number of distributed resource sharing to provide the full potential for education like applications to share the knowledge that can be attainable on any single system. However, the literature shows that the potential of grid resources for educational purposes is not being utilized yet. In this paper, an education based grid framework architecture that provides promising platform to support sharing of geographically dispersed learning content among universities is developed. It allows students, faculty and researchers to share and gain knowledge in their area of interest by using e-learning, searching and distributed repository services among universities from anywhere, anytime. Globus toolkit 5.2.5 (GTK) software is used as grid middleware that provides resource access, discovery and management, data movement, security, and so forth. Furthermore, this work uses the OGSA-DAI that provides database access and operations. The resulting infrastructure enables users to discover education services and interact with them using the grid portal.

Lecturers, teachers, researchers and experts in the field of science education as well as coordinators of science education and training projects from all over the world came together in the fifth edition of the International Conference “New Perspectives in Science Education” which took place in Florence, Italy, on 17 - 18 March 2016 to share findings, expertise and experience about innovative teaching and learning methodologies. This volume is a collection of the papers presented at the Conference, whose aim is to promote transnational cooperation and share good practice in the field of innovation for science education.

The objective of the ICT for Language Learning conference is to promote the sharing of good practice and transnational cooperation in the field of the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to Language Learning and Teaching. The ICT for Language Learning conference will also be an excellent opportunity for the presentation of previous and current language learning projects and innovative initiatives.

Given a Petri Net with a marking and its graph of markings, it may be difficult for the reader to ascertain which node in the graph of markings the current marking belongs. It may also be difficult for the reader to simulate in his or her mind or on paper the evolution of markings in the Petri Net diagram when an enabled transition fires.
One way to mitigate these difficulties would be to provide a dynamic and interactive Petri Net and graph of markings where the corresponding node in the graph of markings is highlighted for the current marking and the marks in the Petri Net diagram change in response to the firing of transitions. The figure in this case study is a prototypical example with these features.

За последние пять лет компьютерные и интернет-сервисы шагнули далеко вперед. В образовании появились такие новые тренды, как использование карманных персональных компьюте- ров, мобильных приложений, социальных сетей и других видов E-learning (англ. «электронное обучение»). Эффективность применения подобных инновационных практик обсуждается в интернете, в сообществах педагогов-новаторов, в появляющихся на эту тему научных статьях. В данной статье представлен обзор современных трендов информатизации в образовании, а также показана реальная ситуация применения новых информацион- ных технологий в современной российской школе.

Developing our previous research in the field, the present paper approaches the evolution of LL virtual platforms. It explores the concepts of computer assisted learning (CALL), LL virtual platforms, and its influence in a language classroom in a multicultural and multilingual context. The goal of our paper is to provide information about the advantages of using Clipflair virtual platform. Clipflair is an innovative open platform which allows the users to learn different languages trough subtitling and dubbing of movie fragments. The platform offers support and learning materials in 15 languages. The main focus of our presentation is illustrating the advantages of using Clipflair in romance language learning (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguése, and Catalan).