Teachers and students alike would benefit from self-access materials to free up lesson time for activities requiring live face-to-face interaction, but such materials must first undergo thorough testing and evaluation of their pedagogical effectiveness. The present study is part of an ongoing project to develop a series of self-paced, interactive…

LOGO and turtle graphics were an influential movement in primary school mathematics education in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, technology has moved forward, both in terms of its sophistication and pedagogical potential; and learner experiences, preferences and ways of thinking have changed dramatically. Based on the authors' previous work and a…

This paper draws from research conducted as part of an Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project "Teaching effective 3D authoring in the middle years: multimedia grammatical design and multimedia authoring pedagogy", which is a collaboration between the University of New England, the University of Tasmania and the Australian…

Modern education technologies are destined to reflect the realities of a modern digital age. The juxtaposition of real and synthetic (computer-generated) worlds as well as a greater emphasis on visual dimension are especially important characteristics that have to be taken into account in learning and teaching. We describe the ways in which an…

The reported study follows the footsteps of Heider, and Simmel (1944) [Heider, F., & Simmel, M. (1944). An experimental study of apparent behavior. "American Journal of Psychology," 57, 243-249] and Michotte (1946/1963) [Michotte, A. (1963). "The perception of causality" (T.R. Miles & E. Miles, Trans.). London: Methuen (Original work published…

Today's students grow up in a technological milieu of hand-held computers with high storage capacities, internet access, and the ability to shoot high definition photographs and video. As such, they are empowered to construct representations of the past virtually "on the run." In this article, the authors investigated the historical "and"…

This paper presents a game of industrialisation, based on a paper airplane, that mimics real world production ramp-up and blends classical engineering courses together. It is based on a low cost product so that it can be mass produced. The game targets graduate students and practitioners in engineering fields. For students, it offers an experiment…

Information Scaffolding is a user-centered approach to information design; a method devised to aid "everyday" authors in information composition. Information Scaffolding places a premium on audience-centered documents by emphasizing the information needs and motivations of a multimedia document's intended audience. The aim of this…

The aim of this research was to study the effectiveness of teacher controlled segmented-animation presentation on learning achievement of students with lower level of prior knowledge. Segmented-animation and continuous-animation courseware showing cellular signal transmission process were developed for the research purpose. Pre-test and post-test…

This article describes "Build a Band" hands-on activity from "Design Squad Nation," which allows kids to use simple materials to build a four-stringed instrument, then tune it and play a song. Kids explore frequency, pitch, and sound energy while following the steps of the engineering design process. By weaving "Design Squad Nation" episodes,…

This article describes a model for teaching Java Programming Language through Dynamic Learning Objects. The design of the learning objects was based on effective learning design principles to help students learn the complex topic of Java Programming. Visualization was also used to facilitate the learning of the concepts. (Contains 1 figure and 2…

Animated agents are electronic agents that interact with learners through voice, visuals or text and that carry human-like characteristics such as gestures and facial expressions with the purpose of creating a social learning environment, and provide information and guidance and when required feedback and motivation to students during their…

Game technology has been widely used for educational applications, however, despite the common use of background music in games, its effect on learning has been largely unexplored. This paper discusses how music played in the background of a computer-animated history lesson affected participants' memory for facts. A virtual history lesson was…

This paper reports findings from a project implementing the VL (virtual labs) site featuring flash-based animations developed at Stanford University. The main conclusion in this paper stresses the need to design for flexibility and adaptability of interactive media to better suit the specific situation teachers encounter in their everyday work, in…

Adobe[R] Presenter software provides educators with a tool to create narrated distance learning presentations. This article describes Adobe[R] Presenter's many features and explains which most strongly affect learning. Six Adobe[R] Presenter trainings were presented to 62 volunteers preparing to provide information at a public outreach event. One…