This book presents the status quo of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education, with a focus on China and the 17 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia (the "17+1" cooperation mechanism, as an incubator for pragmatic trans-regions cooperation platform, created by China and the 17 CEECs). With recent advances in ICT in China and the CEECs, it has assumed increasingly important roles in education, including the improvement of the quality of teaching and learning, as well as the promotion of equity in education. The significant contribution of ICT in education is an enabler to achieving the goals of the "17+1 cooperation" mechanism between China and the CEECs, which has attracted considerable attention worldwide, given fresh impetus to cooperation between the two parties, and opened a new chapter in China-CEEC cooperation. The contributors, all of whom hail from these 18 countries, describe the state-of-the-art of ICT in education in their respective country, and focus on three major aspects, namely: the country profile, general status of education development, and ICT in education. In turn, leading experts in educational informatization research compare the situations in different countries. Taken together, the papers offer valuable insights for policymakers and educators on how to integrate ICT into educational processes, and on inter-regional cooperation with regard to ICT in education.

This book describes the current state of the art of various types of immersive learning: in research, in practice, and in the marketplace. It discusses advanced approaches in the design and development for various forms of immersive learning environments, and also the emerging innovations in assessment and research in the field. In addition, it demonstrates the opportunities and challenges in implementing advances in VR and immersion at scale in formal and informal learning. We are living in a time of rapid advances in terms of both the capabilities and the cost of virtual reality, multi-user virtual environments, and various forms of mixed reality. These new media potentially offer extraordinary opportunities for enhancing both motivation and learning across a range of subject areas, student developmental levels, and educational settings. With the development of practical and affordable virtual reality and mixed reality, people now have the chance to experience immersive learning both in classrooms and informally in homes, libraries, and community centers. The book appeals to a broad readership including teachers, administrators, scholars, policy makers, instructional designers, evaluators and industry leaders.

The book addresses the main issues concerned with the new development of learning processes, innovative pedagogical changes, the effects of new technologies on education, future learning content, which aims to gather the newest concepts, research and best practices on the frontiers of technology enhanced learning from the aspects of learning, pedagogies and technologies in learning in order to draw a picture of technology enhanced learning in the near future. Some issues like "e-learning ... m-learning ... u-learning - innovative approaches," "the Framework and Method for Understanding the New Generation Students," "Context-aware Mobile Role Playing Game for Learning," " Pedagogical issues in content creation and use: IT literacy through Spoken Tutorials," "Supporting collaborative knowledge construction and discourse in the classroom," "Digital Systems for Hierarchical Open Access to Education," " Using Annotated Patient Records to Teach Clinical Reasoning to Undergraduate Students of Medicine," " Utilizing Cognitive Skills Ontology for Designing Personalized Learning Environments" and "Using Interactive Mobile Technologies to Develop Operating Room Technologies Competency" are discussed in separate chapters.

This book presents the current state of Open Educational Resources (OER) within the countries covered by the China's Belt and Road Initiative. The authors describe eight aspects of OER development in their countries: infrastructure, policy, resources, open license, curriculum and teaching methodology, outcome, stakeholders and impact. This book also conducts a comparative study between those countries to identify the OER gaps in the Belt and Road countries. It then offers valuable insights and recommendations for several stakeholders, including policy makers and educators, wishing to integrate open educational resources into educational processes, as well as for those involved in inter-regional open educational resources cooperation.

This book focuses on the interplay between pedagogy and technology, and their fusion for the advancement of smart learning environments. It discusses various components of this interplay, including learning and assessment paradigms, social factors and policies, emerging technologies, innovative application of mature technologies, transformation of curriculum and teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best infusion practices, and piloting of new ideas. The book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in reforming teaching and learning methods by promoting smart learning environments. It also facilitates discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, the need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promoting best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments.

This book focuses on the design and architecture of ubiquitous learning environments, associated technologies, various learning scenarios supported by these environments, and different contexts that arise in environments where the seamless immersion of formal and informal activities and interactions has the potential to contribute to the learning process. With particular focus on adaptivity for individual learners, the book explores the diminishing boundaries of formal and informal learning, and the potential of location-aware context-sensitive approaches that are emerging as successors to the Web 2.0 paradigm.

This book introduces readers to the current status of smart learning in China by providing extensive and accurate data from different contexts of smart learning. In particular, it investigates smart learning in smart cities, which extends the concept of smart learning to cover both formal and informal learning, and to support life-long learning. With digital technologies and the Internet becoming increasingly integrated into learning, the demand for smart learning has grown steadily, especially in smart city scenarios. As the need for life-long learning is on the rise, smart learning environments in cities should be equipped to meet people's demands. Smart learning/education is also one of the key applications of smart cities. Though the book's content mainly focuses on the educational technology field, research in cities and industries is also included. This book offers a valuable resource for graduate students in educational technology, smart learning environment and smart city researchers, cooperative university managers, and all others who are interested in smart learning industries.

This book introduces the advanced technologies used for authentic learning, an educational term that refers to a variety of techniques focusing on how students apply the skills and knowledge acquired in school in real-world situations. In the meanwhile, it presents the latest trends and future developments in learning design, learning environment and assessment for authentic learning using advances in technology, this book discusses how technology supports authentic learning and what makes it effective.

This book presents the current advances and emerging trends in digital technologies for learning and education through a number of invited chapters on key research areas. It addresses information and communications technology (ICT) in a global context, reporting on emerging trends and issues in four areas - basic education, technical and vocational education, distance and continuing education and higher education -, as these four areas represent the primary contexts in which ICT is used to support learning and instruction. This book provides a brief overview of the potential benefits of ICT used in education and some of the best approaches in which different ICTs have been used in education thus far in a global context. It also presents the expertise and the most current research and practices of recognized international educators and researchers in the field of ICT in education. Third, this volume is both informative and transformative in its coverage of the conceptual and practical impact of technology on current educational practices, making it a valuable resource for policymakers, educators and educational researchers around the globe.

The book aims to provide an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners, and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in the reform of the ways of teaching and learning through advancing current learning environments towards smart learning environments. It facilitates opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promotion of best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments. The focus of the contributions in this book is on the interplay of pedagogy, technology and their fusion towards the advancement of smart learning environments. Various components of this interplay include but are not limited to: Pedagogy: learning paradigms, assessment paradigms, social factors, policy; Technology: emerging technologies, innovative uses of mature technologies, adoption, usability, standards, and emerging/new technological paradigms (open educational resources, cloud computing, etc.); Fusion of pedagogy and technology: transformation of curriculum, transformation of teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best practices of infusion, piloting of new ideas.

This book aims to highlight science education in countries along the Belt and Road. It consists of 30 chapters divided into three main parts, namely Arab and African countries, Asian countries and European countries,. We invited science education experts from 29 "Belt and Road" countries to introduce the current status of science education in their countries and the new requirements with the rapid evolution of Information Technology. The major contributions of this book include: 1) Provide the current status of science education in countries along the Belt and Road as well as the requirement for developing and improving science education in these countries; 2) Discuss new insights of science education in future years; 3) Inspire stakeholders to take effective initiatives to develop science education in countries along the Belt and Road.

This book focuses on the interplay between pedagogy and technology, and their fusion for the advancement of smart learning environments. It discusses various components of this interplay, including learning and assessment paradigms, social factors and policies, emerging technologies, innovative application of mature technologies, transformation of curriculum and teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best infusion practices, and piloting of new ideas. The book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in reforming teaching and learning methods by promoting smart learning environments. It also facilitates discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, the need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promoting best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments.

The aim of this book is to prepare students with knowledge and skills to understand the organizational needs and requirements of educational technology. Students should be able to use and manage both existing and emerging technologies effectively and be able to apply associated pedagogies to suit the environment, but also evaluate and manage technological advances of future and the requisite pedagogical shifts to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. The demand of educational technology has been rising steadily, primarily due to the fact that e-learning is a huge and significantly expanding world-wide industry. Commercial e-learning companies, training departments in large companies and organizations, computer software companies and educational institutions the world over employ large numbers of educational technology specialists. There is a strong demand for technologists who understand educational theories and for instructional designers and teachers who understand technologies. This book is targeted towards those who are looking for career in educational technology, instructional design, or media and information systems, or may want to continue their studies in graduate programs in learning and instructional technology, and those who are interested in becoming teacher in K-12 setting but need background in educational technology. This book will also act as a valuable resource in teacher education programs where primary focus on mainstream education and requires an authentic resource in instructional design and educational technology. Keeping in mind the varied needs of the organizations, employees and potential students, this book adopts a competency approach to learning and assessment. The themes and topics take a multi-disciplinary approach, and are aimed at preparing students for competent and innovative educational technology professionals.

This book presents the status quo of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education, with a focus on China and the 17 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia (the "17+1" cooperation mechanism, as an incubator for pragmatic trans-regions cooperation platform, created by China and the 17 CEECs). With recent advances in ICT in China and the CEECs, it has assumed increasingly important roles in education, including the improvement of the quality of teaching and learning, as well as the promotion of equity in education. The significant contribution of ICT in education is an enabler to achieving the goals of the "17+1 cooperation" mechanism between China and the CEECs, which has attracted considerable attention worldwide, given fresh impetus to cooperation between the two parties, and opened a new chapter in China-CEEC cooperation. The contributors, all of whom hail from these 18 countries, describe the state-of-the-art of ICT in education in their respective country, and focus on three major aspects, namely: the country profile, general status of education development, and ICT in education. In turn, leading experts in educational informatization research compare the situations in different countries. Taken together, the papers offer valuable insights for policymakers and educators on how to integrate ICT into educational processes, and on inter-regional cooperation with regard to ICT in education.

This book presents the current state of Open Educational Resources (OER) within the countries covered by the China's Belt and Road Initiative. The authors describe eight aspects of OER development in their countries: infrastructure, policy, resources, open license, curriculum and teaching methodology, outcome, stakeholders and impact. This book also conducts a comparative study between those countries to identify the OER gaps in the Belt and Road countries. It then offers valuable insights and recommendations for several stakeholders, including policy makers and educators, wishing to integrate open educational resources into educational processes, as well as for those involved in inter-regional open educational resources cooperation.

This book introduces the advanced technologies used for authentic learning, an educational term that refers to a variety of techniques focusing on how students apply the skills and knowledge acquired in school in real-world situations. In the meanwhile, it presents the latest trends and future developments in learning design, learning environment and assessment for authentic learning using advances in technology, this book discusses how technology supports authentic learning and what makes it effective.

This book focuses on the interplay between pedagogy and technology, and their fusion for the advancement of smart learning environments. It discusses various components of this interplay, including learning and assessment paradigms, social factors and policies, emerging technologies, innovative application of mature technologies, transformation of curriculum and teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best infusion practices, and piloting of new ideas. The book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in reforming teaching and learning methods by promoting smart learning environments. It also facilitates discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, the need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promoting best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments.

This book describes the current state of the art of various types of immersive learning: in research, in practice, and in the marketplace. It discusses advanced approaches in the design and development for various forms of immersive learning environments, and also the emerging innovations in assessment and research in the field. In addition, it demonstrates the opportunities and challenges in implementing advances in VR and immersion at scale in formal and informal learning. We are living in a time of rapid advances in terms of both the capabilities and the cost of virtual reality, multi-user virtual environments, and various forms of mixed reality. These new media potentially offer extraordinary opportunities for enhancing both motivation and learning across a range of subject areas, student developmental levels, and educational settings. With the development of practical and affordable virtual reality and mixed reality, people now have the chance to experience immersive learning both in classrooms and informally in homes, libraries, and community centers. The book appeals to a broad readership including teachers, administrators, scholars, policy makers, instructional designers, evaluators and industry leaders.

This book introduces readers to the current status of smart learning in China by providing extensive and accurate data from different contexts of smart learning. In particular, it investigates smart learning in smart cities, which extends the concept of smart learning to cover both formal and informal learning, and to support life-long learning. With digital technologies and the Internet becoming increasingly integrated into learning, the demand for smart learning has grown steadily, especially in smart city scenarios. As the need for life-long learning is on the rise, smart learning environments in cities should be equipped to meet people's demands. Smart learning/education is also one of the key applications of smart cities. Though the book's content mainly focuses on the educational technology field, research in cities and industries is also included. This book offers a valuable resource for graduate students in educational technology, smart learning environment and smart city researchers, cooperative university managers, and all others who are interested in smart learning industries.

The book aims to provide an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners, and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in the reform of the ways of teaching and learning through advancing current learning environments towards smart learning environments. It facilitates opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue among various stakeholders on the limitations of existing learning environments, need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promotion of best practices, leading to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments. The focus of the contributions in this book is on the interplay of pedagogy, technology and their fusion towards the advancement of smart learning environments. Various components of this interplay include but are not limited to: Pedagogy: learning paradigms, assessment paradigms, social factors, policy; Technology: emerging technologies, innovative uses of mature technologies, adoption, usability, standards, and emerging/new technological paradigms (open educational resources, cloud computing, etc.); Fusion of pedagogy and technology: transformation of curriculum, transformation of teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best practices of infusion, piloting of new ideas.

This book presents the current advances and emerging trends in digital technologies for learning and education through a number of invited chapters on key research areas. It addresses information and communications technology (ICT) in a global context, reporting on emerging trends and issues in four areas – basic education, technical and vocational education, distance and continuing education and higher education –, as these four areas represent the primary contexts in which ICT is used to support learning and instruction. This book provides a brief overview of the potential benefits of ICT used in education and some of the best approaches in which different ICTs have been used in education thus far in a global context. It also presents the expertise and the most current research and practices of recognized international educators and researchers in the field of ICT in education. Third, this volume is both informative and transformative in its coverage of the conceptual and practical impact of technology on current educational practices, making it a valuable resource for policymakers, educators and educational researchers around the globe.

This book aims to capture the current innovation and emerging trends of digital technologies for learning and education in k-12 sector through a number of invited chapters in key research areas. Emerging Patterns of innovative instruction in different context, Learning design for digital natives, Digital learning resources for personalized learning in both formal and informal educational settings, e-leadership and teacher's digital capacity will be covered in the book. This book intends to provide reference for the innovation in K-12 schools. Researchers, policy makers, school administrators and also teachers could benefit from this book on researchers and methods for innovation in K-12 schools all over the world.

The book addresses the main issues concerned with the new development of learning processes, innovative pedagogical changes, the effects of new technologies on education, future learning content, which aims to gather the newest concepts, research and best practices on the frontiers of technology enhanced learning from the aspects of learning, pedagogies and technologies in learning in order to draw a picture of technology enhanced learning in the near future. Some issues like “e-learning ... m-learning ... u-learning – innovative approaches,� “the Framework and Method for Understanding the New Generation Students,� “Context-aware Mobile Role Playing Game for Learning,� “ Pedagogical issues in content creation and use: IT literacy through Spoken Tutorials,� “Supporting collaborative knowledge construction and discourse in the classroom,� “Digital Systems for Hierarchical Open Access to Education,� “ Using Annotated Patient Records to Teach Clinical Reasoning to Undergraduate Students of Medicine,� “ Utilizing Cognitive Skills Ontology for Designing Personalized Learning Environments� and “Using Interactive Mobile Technologies to Develop Operating Room Technologies Competency� are discussed in separate chapters.

This book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in reforming teaching and learning methods by transforming today's learning environments into smart learning environments. It will facilitate opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue between various stakeholders on the limitations of current learning environments, the need for reform, innovative uses of emerging pedagogical approaches and technologies, and sharing and promoting best practices, which will lead to the evolution, design and implementation of smart learning environments. The focus of the contributions is on the interplay and fusion of pedagogy and technology to create these new environments. The components of this interplay include but are not limited to: Pedagogy: learning paradigms, assessment paradigms, social factors, policy Technology: emerging technologies, innovative uses of mature technologies, adoption, usability, standards, and emerging/new technological paradigms (open educational resources, cloud computing, etc.) Fusion of pedagogy and technology: transformation of curricula, transformation of teaching behavior, transformation of administration, best practices of infusion, piloting of new ideas.

This volume contains the proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications (ADMA 2009), held in Beijing, China, during August 17-19, 2009. We are pleased to have a very strong program. Acceptance into the conference proceedings was extremely competitive. From the 322 submissions from 27 countries and regions, the Program Committee selected 34 full papers and 47 short papers for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the proceedings. The c- tributed papers cover a wide range of data mining topics and a diverse spectrum of interesting applications. The Program Committee worked very hard to select these papers through a rigorous review process and extensive discussion, and finally c- posed a diverse and exciting program for ADMA 2009. An important feature of the main program was the truly outstanding keynote spe- ers program. Edward Y. Chang, Director of Research, Google China, gave a talk titled "Confucius and 'Its' Intelligent Disciples". Being right in the forefront of data mining applications to the world's largest knowledge and data base, the Web, Dr. Chang - scribed how Google's Knowledge Search product help to improve the scalability of machine learning for Web-scale applications. Charles X. Ling, a seasoned researcher in data mining from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, talked about his in- vative applications of data mining and artificial intelligence to gifted child education.