Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

In order to explore the effect of the school environment and students’ individual characteristics to their virtual learning communities, this study conducts an experiment to observe two groups of students – one from an academic university and the other from a technical institute – taught by the same teacher under the same course and the same online learning system. Findings indicated that: (1) the categorization of higher education institutions in Taiwan indeed created a “differentiating” effect; (2) Both in traditional classroom settings and an asynchronous online learning environment, recognition of school environment and students’ characteristics do affect how learning communities are formed; (3) In similar learning environments, an asynchronous online learning environment will lower the impact of the school environment and students’ characteristics on interactive models of learning communities, thereby narrowing the gap between dominant and fringe groups.

Traditionally, when people want to learn martial arts, they have to go to training clubs and learn under the coach together with the other students. To reduce the tuition fees, there are usually a lot of students under a single coach and hence, it is difficult for the students to get enough suggestions in the class. It would be far easier if the students could practice themselves at home and ask for suggestions from a virtual coach in the computer. Occasionally, in case they find difficulties going to the next step, they may then approach the real coach for suggestions and training. In this paper, we propose such a training system based on the motion capture system. The system automatically analyzes the motions of the player and gives suggestions. The students can also view the martial art techniques stored in the system or their own techniques captured by the motion capture system from various points of view in order to gain objective ideas of the techniques.

Stories and story-telling are a cultural achievement of significant relevance, even in modern times. Since ancient times stories have served to entertain and teach mankind to “transmit” knowledge from generation to generation. Story-telling ranges from simple aural narrations to traditional inter-generational discourse and, in modern times, workflow-oriented organizational learning. Web-based systems are by nature well-suited to support learning from digital stories in communities of practice. Despite the potential of story-telling to foster knowledge sharing in communities its full power to stimulate community-based learning processes in yet only marginally exploited. Although there are many story-telling approaches, most of them are not suitable for non-linear story creation and consumption. In addition, most of these are not based on a well defined methodology that underpins the story development process. In this paper we present the implementation of a non-linear multimedia story-telling environment based on the movement oriented design (MOD) paradigm. Finally, using a media-theoretic approach, we utilize structural aspects of story telling and identify patterns related to successful non-linear multimedia stories.

This paper proposed the design model and implementing method of IDSVL (Intrusion Detection System virtual lab system) based on component technique. IDSVL system is implemented with Java language, which makes it independent of operating system. In IDSVL system, all IDS modules, which includes data generator module, event generator module, analyzer module statistic and displaying module and management module, are developed with Java Bean so that it is scalable and gets good performance in software reuse. The client of IDSVL system is implemented with Java Applet, users can not only set the experiment flow visually but also choose the type of simulation attack streams, configure filter rules and detection rules, set the display mode of experiment result. In the whole process of experiment, users participate in configuration and operation of IDS intuitively and this is helpful for the users to understand and master the structure and theory of IDS.

Nowadays most web-based learning systems have already utilized advanced technologies like web services and etc., even grid computing to minimize the gap between traditional learning and e-Learning. Meanwhile, there is a trend towards achieving automatic and personalized learning. However, learners may find difficulty navigating through learning resources on their own; process control in e-Learning systems is still not fully considered. This paper proposes the learning path concept and its formal definition method, and then a process control model for e-learning is proposed to implement the process control from e-Learning applications to learners. This work improves the learning efficiency by providing teachers tools for designing courses with learning paths and giving students the opportunities to achieve an orderly learning experience through process control strategy. Some questions in application and future works are also discussed.

The Gong system has been developed for web based communication. It supports synchronous and asynchronous audio communication and can be embedded in other learning management systems. This paper discusses two novel features which are targeted at language learners using the system. The first is the ability to automatically index an audio recording. After the indexing has taken place the user is able to select one or several words and hear just those words spoken in isolation. The second is the ability to vary the playback speed of any recorded message. The technical details of their implementation as well as pedagogical use of these features are discussed.

In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a survey on using IT in administration and management in Hong Kong (HK) primary schools after carrying out the implementation of the five-year IT plan in by the HK government. A questionnaire was designed to collect data on five areas: IT competency levels of different school personnel, the level of using IT in administration and management activities, the level of reliance of schools on IT systems and the barriers to the full use of IT systems. Several suggestions are made to exploit the full potential of IT in schools. In particular, we suggest using web-based learning as a mode of training for servcing teachers.

As an important human characteristic, facial expression plays an important role in the applications of identity authentication, animation production, human-computer interaction, web-based education, etc. In this paper, we propose a facial expression hallucination approach through eigen-associative learning (EAL). The approach consists of two steps, in the first step, the global facial expression is estimated, and in the second step, we synthesize high-frequency image features to enhance the global face. The proposed EAL approach is adopted in both steps, which can synthesize the imaginary facial expressions of the input face with neutral expression. Compared with existing method, the EAL approach can be easily applied to new test data and retain high computational efficiency. Experiments show that the EAL approach generates reasonable imaginary facial expressions.

This paper presents a P2P-based multimedia streaming system, called Live2006, to provide a scalable, robust, and high available live streaming distance education service. Based on the concept of Application Layer Multicast, a tree-based structure is designed to connect the peers, and the peers share the receiving streaming to reduce network traffic. A high level quality of service is maintained even a significant number of individuals are watching the same distance education program. It also enables all users to share their study experiences and achieve “peer-to-peer learning”. Live2006 also provides the streaming services for users located behind the firewall or users using the private IP addresses behind an NAT (Network Address Translation). Thus, users can easily access the distance education programs through their devices, including the resource limited handset devices, in anytime and anywhere. Live2006 also supports IPv6 protocol for next generation Internet infrastructure.

With vigorous development of Internet, especially the web page interaction technology, distant e-learning has become more and more realistic and popular. To solve the problems of sharing and reusing teaching materials in different e-learning systems, presently several standard formats, including SCORM, IMS, LOM, and AICC, etc., have been proposed by several different international organizations. SCORM LOM, i.e. the Learning Object Metadata, enables the indexing and searching of learning objects in a learning object repository by extended sharing and searching features. However, LOM is deficient in semantic-awareness operations in spite of its multifarious fields in describing a Learning Object. It is difficult for a learner, even for advanced learners, to completely specify so many terms when they are searching. This paper proposes a service-based framework for personalized learning objects retrieval and recommendation. The work of personalization harnesses the power of probabilistic semantic inference for query keywords, LOM-based user preference logging, and other users’ feedback for recommendation weighting to retrieve the most suitable learning object for users. An ontology-based query expansion algorithm and an integrated learning objects recommendation algorithm are also proposed.