The virtual learning environment (VLE) is of great importance in Higher Education as a repository for course content, communication and student support. Students' satisfaction with the VLE may impact greatly on their engagement with the VLE itself, and, consequently, module content and learning more widely. In moving to a new VLE we wished to…

The present educational design research involved analysing Finnish upper secondary school students' participation in the improvement of their psychosocial and technology-enhanced physical learning environment (LE). It examined which LE characteristics students considered important when redesigning their LE, and whether they felt that their ideas…

To date, learning spaces in higher education have been designed with little engagement on the part of their most important users: students and teachers. In this paper, we present the results of research carried out in a UK university. The research aimed to understand how students and teachers conceptualise learning spaces when they are given the…

The case study research reported in this paper followed the iterative design trajectory of youth game designers (ages 11-17) in a week-long summer game design camp, focused on the fundamentals of video game design. Drawing on data from a daily conceptual pitch and feedback activity, the research team traced the iterative design trajectory for one…

The purpose of this study is to discuss instructional design and technology (IDT) model strategies for developing learning and teaching environments, based on philosophical approaches to educational technology theory. The study begins with a discussion of IDT models to define the history of educational technology or instructional technology…

This paper presents research findings and design strategies that illustrate how digital technology can be applied as a tool for "hybrid" placemaking in ways that would not be possible in purely digital or physical spaces. Digital technology has revolutionised the way people learn and gather new information. This trend has challenged the…

Inconsistency in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) has led to dissatisfaction amongst students and is an issue across the Higher Education sector. This paper outlines research undertaken in one faculty within one university to ascertain staff and student views on minimum standards within the VLE; how the VLE could reduce student…

Foreign language teachers are nowadays required to respond to the changes provoked by the advent of web 2.0 and the developments it has introduced in the learning behaviour of users, and to adopt a new teaching approach, integrating users' online social activities in their educational practice. In this new educational approach, users must be able…

On the basis of the Research Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education under the title "Design, production and evaluation of a 2.0 learning environment for faculty training in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)" (EDU2009-08 893), experts have used the external competence coefficient to evaluate the…

Integrating Information Technology Communications in the classroom has been an important part of pre-service teacher education for over a decade. The advent of virtual worlds provides the pre-service teacher with an opportunity to study teaching and learning in a highly immersive 3D computer-based environment. Virtual worlds also provide a place…

The study presents a phenomenologically based research procedure, whose intent is to examine people's school experience and the meaning they ascribe to "school." Participants in this investigative endeavor are instructed to sketch an "ideal school," present their plan in a visual-schematic manner, and provide an oral and written description of…

After speculation in literature about the nature of Personal Learning Environments, research in the design and development of PLEs is now in progress. This paper reports on the first phase of the authors' research on PLE, the identification process of what potential users would consider important components, applications, and tools in a PLE. The…

Animated pedagogical agents (APAs) are known to possess great potential in supporting learning because of their ability to simulate a real classroom learning environment. But research in this area has produced mixed results. The reason for this remains puzzling. This paper is written with two purposes: (1) to examine some recent research and…

This paper reports on a project in which students' interactions with learning environments are investigated from the perspective of the spatial factors. Our research examines a significant dimension generated under the interrelationship between the subject and the virtual space, by establishing that spatial dimensions may determine the level of…

In these troubled economic times, members of college and university communities must provide effective learning environments to support ever-changing curricula while reducing budgets. At the same time, a growing body of literature points to shifting needs of the variously named digital natives, Millennials or the Net Generation. This article…