The present study employed virtual reality technology to develop online learning environments that facilitated student cultural and self-directed learning. Junior high school participants engaged in creating virtual tours, sharing them with peers online, and implementing self-directed learning strategies. A one-group posttest-only design was…

We report on a study evaluating the educational opportunities that highly multimodal and interactive Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) provide for collaborative learning in the context of interpreter education. The study was prompted by previous research into the use of VLEs in interpreter education, which showed positive results but which…

This chapter presents the "Better French Living Project" (BFLP), which was started in 2014 in the French section of the Newcastle University School of Modern Languages (SML) with a view to respond to second-year students' feedback, promote independent learning amongst them, and assist in their year-abroad preparation by developing their…

Teaching and learning a foreign language at a distance implies many challenges, namely regarding oral skills. At Universidade Aberta (the Portuguese Open University), and taking into account its virtual pedagogical model (Pereira, 2007) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Alves, 2001), we suggest curricular paths which…

Self-regulated learning (SRL) environments provide students with activities to improve their learning (e.g., by solving exercises), but they might also provide optional activities (e.g., changing an avatar image or setting goals) where students can decide whether they would like to use or do them and how. Few works have dealt with the use of…

This paper explores the application of canonical gradient analysis to evaluate and visualize student performance and acceptance of a learning system platform. The subject of evaluation is a first year BSc module for computer programming. This uses "Ceebot," an animated and immersive game-like development environment. Multivariate…

A Virtual Resource Center (VRC) has been brought into use since 2008 as an integral part of a task-based language teaching and learning program for Business English courses at Nantes University, France. The objective of the center is to enable students to work autonomously and individually on their language problems so as to improve their language…

The aim of the studies reported in this paper is to gain classroom based empirical evidence on the learning effectiveness of learning objects used in two types of study settings: Collaborative and individual. A total of 127 seventh and ninth grade students participated in the experiments. They were assigned into one of the study modes and worked…

This study presents an investigation about the use of multimedia procedures applied to architectural construction teaching. We have applied current technological resources, aiming to rationalize and optimize the active learning process. The experience presented to students is very simple and yet very effective. It has consisted in a simulation of…