This paper examines the extent to which mathematical knowledge, and its related pedagogy, is inextricably linked to the tools--physical, virtual, cultural--in which it is expressed. Our goal is to focus on a few exemplars of computational tools, and to describe with some illustrative examples, how mathematical meanings are shaped by their use. We…

This paper explores the potential of Semantic Web technologies to support teaching and learning in a variety of higher education settings in which some form of case-based learning is the pedagogy of choice. It draws on the empirical work of a major three year research and development project in the United Kingdom: "Ensemble: Semantic…

This paper draws upon the experience of an interdisciplinary research group in engaging undergraduate university students in the design and development of semantic web technologies. A flexible approach to participatory design challenged conventional distinctions between "designer" and "user" and allowed students to play a role…

The ability to visualize student engagement and experience data provides valuable opportunities for learning support and curriculum design. With the rise of the use of learning analytics to provide "actionable intelligence" on students' learning, the challenge is to create visualizations of the data, which are clear and useful to the…

In this article, a prototype Greek text to Greek Sign Language (GSL) conversion system is presented. The system is integrated into an educational platform that addresses the needs of teaching GSL grammar and was developed within the SYNENNOESE project (Efthimiou "et al." 2004a. Developing an e-learning platform for the Greek sign…

Within the field of Mobile Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (mCSCL), we are interested in exploring the space of collaborative activities that enable students to practice communication, negotiation and decision-making skills. Collaboration is via learning activities that circumvent the constraints of fixed seating or locations of…

The concept of today's cloud computing may date back to 1961, when John McCarthy, retired Stanford professor and Turing Award winner, delivered a speech at MIT's Centennial. In that speech, he predicted that in the future, computing would become a "public utility." Yet for colleges and universities, the recent growth of pervasive, very high speed…

Evaluation of methods and techniques for conversational and multimodal spoken dialogue systems is complex, as is gathering data for the modeling and tuning of such techniques. This article describes MushyPeek, an experiment framework that allows us to manipulate the audiovisual behavior of interlocutors in a setting similar to face-to-face…

This article presents an argument for the use of networked interactive whiteboards (NIWBs) in regional Australian higher education and identifies new pedagogies for this context. Most Australian universities operate multiple campuses, and many use video conference facilities to deliver courses across these sites. For students at remote video…

Fundamental concepts and definitions of electronic learning (eLearning) continue to emerge, and theories of eLearning that have been advanced thus far cover an array of academic perspectives including training and education, learning and knowledge, and technology and applications to specific market segments. Any study of the effectiveness and…

This paper presents a quantitative approach to multimodal discourse analysis for analyzing online collaborative learning. The coding framework draws together the fields of systemic functional linguistics and Activity Theory to analyze interactions between collaborative-, content- and technology-related discourse. The approach is used to examine…

This deliverable reports the technical and research development performed until M36 (January 2009) within tasks T5.2 and T5.4 of WP5 in the KP-Lab project, per the latest Description of Work (DoW) 3.2 [DoW3.2]. The described components are included in the KP-Lab Semantic Web Knowledge Middleware (SWKM) Prototype Release 3.0 software that takes…

How do you dynamically customize the programming language available in a context within an existing system, without changing the underlying system? This dissertation introduces a language design approach that addresses this problem. The basic idea is to structure programs as systems of multiple interacting levels of abstraction, where all of the…

Prior research has highlighted the value of using wikis to support learning. This paper makes the case that the wiki has several properties that are particularly amenable for constructing applications that support the "collaborative" part of a variety and range of different time/different place student collaborations. In support of the argument,…

This article reports on the outcomes from the "e-scape Primary Scientific and Technological Understanding Assessment Project" (2009-2010), which aimed to support primary teachers in developing valid portfolio-based tasks to assess pupils' scientific and technological enquiry skills at age 11. This was part of the wider…