USALSIM: learning, professional practices and employability in a 3D virtual world

Games are often used as incentive based approaches in learning a foreign language. A common part of DVD based toolkits; for example, include vocabulary, sound clips of the target language, exercises for learners to record their own voice, and games. The games can be matching exercises involving sound, text and images. What is missing from such standalone tools are other active speakers. Chat rooms can somewhat address this, but students often meet other students at the same level. In contrast, the 3D multi user virtual environment (MUVE) of Second Life, also referred to as a virtual world, offers social context that can allow for voice and text communication for language learning, often with native speakers of the target language. Reward models in such social contexts can have greater effect on the engagement and motivation of language learners. This article first presents a literature review of reward models used in learning and teaching in virtual worlds. We secondly identify the elements that need to be included in a reward model for active language learning in Second Life. We describe the stakeholders' perspectives (educators and students) and suggest how the model should be integrated into the design of the virtual island or sim and into a course design.

La enseñanza de la reumatología en la universidad. La travesía desde el aprendizaje basado en el profesor al centrado en el alumno

In 1999 the ministers of education from 29 European countries met at the University of Bologna, Italy, and decided to create a common European space of higher education. By 2015, 48 countries were included in this process. In 2001 the European Commission, advocating the advancement of European integration, joined this bold project. Bologna stands for the medieval tradition of scholars and students wandering about and exchanging ideas across Europe. This small elite, communicating in Latin as its common language, pioneered in creating a first European space of higher education. The universities affiliated to each other across Europe were the centers of the emerging European culture, which was based on the rediscovery of Hellenistic philosophy and Roman law.

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Journal of Legal Education (2007), Vol. 4, n. 2, pp. 149-169 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16841360802338811]."

This work tackles the main challenges for the construction of the Latin-American Space of Higher education - that it includes to the set of the continent - before the situation of untidy diversification and fragmentation that registers the Latin-American higher education and to avoid a potential situation of sharpening of the same one opposite to supranational politics that affect it negatively, how it might be the case of the imposition – of character neo colonial - on the part of the European Space of Higher Education (Process of Bologna) and of other origins. For it, the situation of the higher education is described in Latin America as the main processes and programs of convergence and its contribution to a common higher education space, in the frame of the processes of regional integration, particularly the MERCOSUR. Finally, some proposals appear to attend on the challenge of consolidating the Latin-American Space of Higher Education and its possible joint, both with the European Space and with other supranational spaces.Key words: Higher Education, convergence, Latin-American, European Space of Higher Education, LatinAmerican Space of Higher Education. RESUMENEste trabajo aborda los principales desafíos para la construcción del Espacio Latinoamericano de Educación Superior -que abarque al conjunto del continente-, ante la situación de desordenada diversificación y fragmentación que registra la educación superior latinoamericana y para evitar una potencial situación de agudización de la misma frente a políticas supranacionales que la afecten negativamente, como podría ser el caso de la imposición –de carácter neo colonial- por parte del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (Proceso de Bolonia) y de otros orígenes. Para ello, se describen tanto la situación de la educación superior en América Latina como los principales procesos y programas de convergencia y su contribución a un espacio común de educación superior, en el marco de los procesos de integración regional, particularmente el MERCOSUR. Finalmente, se plantean algunas propuestas para atender al desafío de consolidar el Espacio Latinoamericano de Educación Superior y su posible articulación, tanto con el Espacio Europeo como con otros espacios supranacionales.Palabras clave: Educación Superior; Convergencia; América Latina; Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior; Espacio Latinoamericano de Educación Superior.

El presente trabajo tuvo como finalidad mejorar la calidad de la docencia universitaria en el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES), mediante el uso y el fomento de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) como recurso docente en las asignaturas de Enseñanza del Balonmano, Especialización en Balonmano y Fundamentos del Balonmano. Para tal fin, se elaboró un material audiovisual que posteriormente sirvió de apoyo tanto en las clases de estas asignaturas, correspondientes al primer y tercer curso de la Licenciatura en Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte y al primer curso de Grado en Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte respectivamente. Del mismo modo, estas herramientas también sirvieron de apoyo en las clases de Educación Física a la hora de impartir los contenidos relativos a esta especialidad en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato. El resultado final de este trabajo fue una WebQuest y un seminario virtual destinado a la introducción de los fundamentos del Balonmano. A partir de los resultados positivos que hemos alcanzado, se puede afirmar que este tipo de herramientas incentiva el aprendizaje del alumno y la aplicación de las TIC en las aulas universitarias.
 Palabras clave: WebQuest, universidad, competencias, EEES, TIC

Purpose– This paper examines the three-dimensional (3D)virtual world users’ perceptions of authenticity and trustworthiness in the virtual prototypes and users’ potential purchase behavior in the real-world settings. The 3D virtual worlds provide a new platform that exhibits virtual prototypes as a promotion channel for new products of real-world and online service, where users can communicate “face to face” via their representative avatars.Design/methodology/approach– The authors conducted an experiment in Second Life and collected data in a post-study questionnaire to test our proposed conceptual model. Structural equation modeling was the main methodology.Findings– The research results showed that 3D virtual world users obtained a high sense of telepresence and social presence. The sense of telepresence positively leads to users’ perceptions of online trust in the virtual prototypes and thus increases their intention to purchase real-world objects; the users’ sense of social presence positively associates to their perceptions of authenticity and online trust and, therefore, their purchase intention.Research limitations/implications– In survey research, the common method variance is a problem. A more robust way is to use objective measures.Practical implications– A new channel was proposed for businesses to enhance their online strategies that will increase their business value.Social implications– 3D virtual world is also a cutting-edge platform for remote education, public information service, etc.Originality/value– This paper initially contributes to the literature that interprets underlying factors in 3D virtual worlds associated to purchase intention in real-world objects. We demonstrated the advantages, i.e. the communication efficacy and vivid virtual design in the 3D user-generated environment.

El presente artículo describe la evolución que ha experimentado la enseñanza-aprendizaje de la competencia oral e las lenguas extranjeras a lo largo de la historia de diversas instituciones involucradas en la educación a distancia. Se comienza haciendo un breve recorrido por diferentes conceptos de enseñanza a distancia, para continuar centrándose especialmente en la enseñanza de lenguas a distancia. Además se analiza cual es la situación actual respecto a la práctica de las actividades de la lengua a distancia y se finaliza con una breves pinceladas de lo que debería ser la enseñanza a distancia de lenguas de nueva generación, basada en el aprendizaje móvil y los mundos virtuales, mucho más acorde con lo que establece el Marco Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas (MCER) y el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES).

3D virtual worlds are networked environments designed using the metaphor of architecture. Recent developments in 3D virtual worlds focus on interactivity, flexibility and adaptability. Rather than creating virtual environments in which the objects have intelligent behaviours, our research takes a different approach to develop an agent model that is associated with an individual person in the 3D virtual world as a personal design agent. This paper presents a Generative Design Agent (GDA), a kind of rational agent capable of representing a person in a virtual world and designing, implementing and demolishing 3D virtual places based on the occupants’ current needs in the virtual world. The core of a GDA’s design component is a generative design grammar that is able to capture a style of 3D virtual worlds. 3D virtual worlds designed using the GDA model is another kind of architecture for the “moment”.

Recent development in policy and learning theory encourages higher education institutions to send their students out of campus and into work placements. In this paper, we report on students’ engagement with various aspects of knowing through practice in work placements. We employed focus group discussions to gather students’ accounts of their knowing in the three higher education programmes: Teacher Education, Aqua Medicine, and Music Performance. The students’ accounts of knowing were analysed as personal epistemologies. Thereby, we aimed to focus on how enacted practices in work develop students’ appraisals of knowing and subjectivities. Three prominent epistemologies were present across all three student groups: professional judgment, professional practice, and professional identity. After the work placements, the students better understand how to enact their knowledge and what knowledge to pursue further. Based on these findings, we hold that there are key educational processes that arise in the interplay between students’ situated enactment of practices, knowing, and personal epistemologies through work placements, and propose a conceptual model to frame students’ learning in work placements.

This paper describes the experience in collaborative learning based educational innovation for the Software Engineering Subject at the Telecommunications Engineering School of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. We describe the context of evolution of the Software Engineering related subjects in the Masterâ??s degree in Telecommunications Engineering (specialization in Telematics) for their adaptation to the educational and organizational postulates of the European Space for Higher Education. In this context, we describe a pilot project for the adaptation of the Software Engineering Lab course, which includes the development and validation of a software engineering tool environment and a web platform for collaborative work.

According to Bologna's Declaration and consequent introduction of the European Space of Higher Education, virtual educational tools implementation is an almost mandatory task for every University around Europe. Since 1999, Spain's University of Oviedo has been developing a virtual education tool called 'Virtual Campus' to help professors to undertake a new and more modern way of teaching and interacting with students. Implanting a subject in University of Oviedo's 'Virtual Campus' entails a continuous monitoring by the professor of the students performance, as well as adding educational materials to be used by students. In this paper, the design and implementation of the subject 'Operations Management' in 'Virtual Campus' is addressed. This subject belongs to the fourth year of the Industrial Engineering studies in the University of Oviedo at Gijon. Besides presenting the design and implementation of this subject in 'Virtual Campus', the design, results and conclusions of a survey in which the students had the chance to share their experiences with the use of this virtual educational tool are presented in this work.

Currently, European countries are in the process of rethinking their higher education systems due to harmonization efforts initiated by the so-called Bologna’s declaration. This process of reforms implies not only a re-evaluation of our way of teaching and learning but also a new curricular design in order to achieve the expected goals. In this context, the present paper focuses on the problem of teaching computer graphics, a discipline that is getting increasing importance in the realm of Computational Science. The paper discusses some issues regarding an introductory course on computer graphics taking into account its goals, contents, students’ profile and other factors derived from the new scenario given by the European Space of Higher Education.KeywordsComputer GraphicHigh Education SystemComputer GraphicHaptic DeviceVirtual HumanThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Lab practices are an essential part of teaching in Engineering. However, traditional laboratory lessons developed in classroom labs (CL) must be adapted to teaching and learning strategies that go far beyond the common concept of e-learning, in the sense that completely virtualized distance education disconnects teachers and students from the real world, which can generate specific problems in laboratory classes. Current proposals of virtual labs (VL) and remote labs (RL) do not either cover new needs properly or contribute remarkable improvement to traditional labs—except that they favor distance training. Therefore, online teaching and learning in lab practices demand a further step beyond current VL and RL. This paper poses a new reality and new teaching/learning concepts in the field of lab practices in engineering. The developed augmented reality-based lab system (augmented remote lab, ARL) enables teachers and students to work remotely (Internet/intranet) in current CL, including virtual elements which interact with real ones. An educational experience was conducted to assess the developed ARL with the participation of a group of 10 teachers and another group of 20 students. Both groups have completed lab practices of the contents in the subjects Digital Systems and Robotics and Industrial Automation, which belong to the second year of the new degree in Electronic Engineering (adapted to the European Space for Higher Education). The labs were carried out by means of three different possibilities: CL, VL and ARL. After completion, both groups were asked to fill in some questionnaires aimed at measuring the improvement contributed by ARL relative to CL and VL. Except in some specific questions, the opinion of teachers and students was rather similar and positive regarding the use and possibilities of ARL. Although the results are still preliminary and need further study, seems to conclude that ARL remarkably improves the possibilities of current VL and RL. Furthermore, ARL can be concluded to allow further possibilities when used online than traditional laboratory lessons completed in CL.

Nowadays, universities are making a great effort orienting their strategies to the market. In this line, they are adopting new technologies and even offering virtual degrees. This research tries to analyse whether the market orientation of virtual universities leads them to increase student’s trust towards the institution, the affective and calculative commitment of the students and, in summary, the future intention to use of the services that University provides. These issues are of great interest because of the increasing competition in educational market brought by the European Space for Higher Education and widely use of new technologies.