The use of virtual environments for special needs is as diverse as the field of Special Education itself and the individuals it serves. Individuals with special needs often face challenges with attention, language, spatial abilities, memory, higher reasoning and knowledge acquisition. Research in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)…

Purpose: Applications of online Second Life (SL) prevail over the world. The purpose of this paper is to make a review and synthesis of recent research studies on SL. Design/methodology/approach: Documental analysis is employed. Totally, 135 research publications, published in 2006-2008, are reviewed and synthesized. Findings: Findings are as…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of inquiry-based computer simulation with heterogeneous-ability cooperative learning (HACL) and inquiry-based computer simulation with friendship cooperative learning (FCL) on (a) scientific reasoning (SR) and (b) conceptual understanding (CU) among Form Four students in Malaysian Smart…

Societal changes demand educators to apply new pedagogical approaches. Many educational stakeholders feel that serious games could play a key role in fulfilling this demand, and they lick their chops when looking at the booming industry of leisure games. However, current toolkits for developing leisure games show severe shortcomings when applied…

Educational software games aim at increasing the students' motivation and engagement while they learn. However, if software games are targeted to school classrooms they have to be usable and likeable by all students. Usability of virtual reality games may be a problem because these games tend to have complex user interfaces so that they are more…

This article is a review of the pedagogical experience obtained with systems for algorithmic animation. Algorithms consist of a sequence of operations whose effect on data structures can be visualized using a computer. Students learn algorithms by stepping the animation through the different individual operations, possibly reversing their effect.…

There is a growing use of immersive virtual environments for educational purposes. However, much of this activity is not yet documented in the public domain, or is descriptive rather than analytical. This paper presents a case study in which university students were tasked with building an interactive learning experience using Second Life as a…

This article aims at discussing how Dynamic Decision Network (DDN) can be employed to tackle the challenges in modeling temporally variable scientific inquiry skills and provision of adaptive pedagogical interventions in INQPRO, a scientific inquiry exploratory learning environment for learning O'level Physics. We begin with an overview of INQPRO…

As part of the project titled "Hands-On Heads-On: The Effective Use of Manipulatives Both Virtual and Physical" being undertaken at Edith Cowan University, there was an investigation into the use of virtual manipulatives and the interactive whiteboard (IWB). Virtual manipulatives may be defined as a virtual representation of a physical…

A meta-analysis was performed to synthesize existing research comparing the effects of computer applications (i.e., computer-assisted instruction, computer simulations, and Web-based learning) versus traditional instruction on elementary school students' achievement in Taiwan. Forty-eight studies were located from four sources, and their…

Efforts to teach basic helping skills to counselors in training using computer assisted simulation continue to evolve. Recent commercial releases include integration of compressed video and text to allow students to view client/counselor interactions and make choices regarding response categories. (Contains 28 references.) (Author)

The motion of a magnet through a coil is analysed through a model of magnetic monopoles. The magnetic flux of a monopole passing through a loop is explained and also its rate of change. By a superposition of voltages produced by the monopoles on the coils the shape of the voltage versus time graph is explained. Also examined is the interaction of…

Drawing on game-design principles and an underlying situated theoretical perspective, we developed and researched a 3D game-based curriculum designed to teach water quality concepts. We compared undergraduate student dyads assigned randomly to four different instructional design conditions where the content had increasingly level of…

Six teenagers with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) experienced a Virtual Environment (VE) of a cafe. They also watched three sets of videos of real cafe and buses and judged where they would sit and explained why. Half of the participants received their VE experience between the first and second sets of videos, and half experienced it between…

The process of developing concepts of time continues from age 5 to 11 years (Zakay, 1998). This study sought the representation mode in which children could best express time concepts, especially the proper arrangement of events in a logical and temporal order. Usually, temporal order is examined and taught by 2D (2-dimensional) pictorial scripts.…