Virtual Environments for Teaching & Learning

Book excerpt: There is a trend to offer courses by virtual means. This approach has definite advantages. For example, virtual programs target professionals who would otherwise have to leave their jobs to pursue the degree. An enormous proportion of universities are in the process of developing courses in a virtual environment. This book deals with virtual environments for teaching and learning. The chapters can be considered to be representative of the many approaches taken and the diversity of applications. The different perspectives and different solutions adopted are the result of intense research in various countries in the area of e-learning. Contents: Use of Virtual Worlds to Teach the Sciences (B M Slator et al.); Traditional vs. Technology-Integrated Distance Education (Z Erlich et al.); Facilitators and Inhibitors of E-Learning (J Liu et al.); Developing and Accessing Adaptive Internet-Based Courses (R M Carro et al.); Towards Intelligent Media-Oriented E-Learning Environments (M Kayama & T Okamoto); An Intelligent Tutoring System for Student Guidance in Web-Based Courses (B uzdemir & F N Alpaslan); Automatic Generation of Problems in Web-Based Tutors (M V Belmonte et al.); The Design of Internet-Based Interactive Learning Models Using Agents and Their Applications (T Ichimura et al.); Supporting Personalization in Distance Education Virtual Communities (E Gaudioso & J G Boticario); An Intelligent System for Capturing Presentation on Desktop Manipulations C Supporting for Video Contents Production (Y Nakamura et al.). Readership: Academics and researchers in education and computer science."