Too often the suggestion of using games and virtual environments in an educational setting is met with skepticism and objections. Many traditionally-oriented educators are simply not aware of the benefits that come from implementing digital games into an instructional environment. Serious Games and Virtual Worlds in Education, Professional Development, and Healthcare seeks to counter these doubts by explaining how digital environments can easily become familiar and beneficial for educational and professional development. Highlighting techniques beyond the traditional practice, this reference source is useful for researchers, academics, professionals, and students interested in the benefits to implementing these games into various aspects of our environment.

Social media is becoming increasingly attractive for users. It is a fast way to communicate ideas and a key source of information. It is therefore one of the most influential mediums of communication of our time and an important area for audience research. The growth of social media invites many new questions such as: How can we analyze social media? Can we use traditional audience research methods and apply them to online content? Which new research strategies have been developed? Which ethical research issues and controversies do we have to pay attention to? This book focuses on research strategies and methods for analyzing social media and will be of interest to researchers and practitioners using social media, as well as those wanting to keep up to date with the subject. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Technology in Human Services.

Dieses essential erklärt, wie sich helfende Beziehungen in den Bereichen Beratung, Coaching und Psychotherapie mit den Möglichkeiten der avatar-basierten Gestaltung virtueller Realität umsetzen lassen. Insbesondere im klinisch-therapeutischen Bereich entwickeln sich zusehends dreidimensionale virtuelle Interventions- und Arbeitsmethoden. Die Möglichkeiten des Social Web eröffnen eine Vielzahl neuer Formen online-gestützter Kollaboration und Interaktion von Menschen, sei es face-to-face oder mittels virtueller Repräsentanten.