This thesis presents an exercise-based edutainment system intended for children. It is designed to enhance their cognitive development by encouraging movement in a fun way. The main idea behind the system is that children will have fun constructing a physical, tangible user interface. In addition, they will learn how to spell many words that represent objects and entities by stepping on a collection of coloured pads and receiving responses through a set of multimedia outputs related to these entities. For this purpose we have designed and implemented a tangible user interface that facilitates interaction with the system. This tangible user interface is called "SmartPads" and is composed of coloured tiles that can be physically connected to each other to form any shape. The pads are mapped onto a computer screen in real-time. A user interacts with the interface by stepping on the pads. We have incorporated two games that allow children of different ages to benefit from the system's functionalities and encourage them to interact with it. This thesis provides detailed information about the proposed system and its related components, discusses the design and development of the two games, and measures the system's performance when used by the children.

This research aims at exploring the existence of a relationship between the use of multimedia in teaching and instructional design guidelines (IDG). An ontology of types of media and teaching methods was developed. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 20 instructors. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed. While these are results from a pilot study with a small sample, the analyses suggests a relationship between the use of media in teaching and IDG that is influenced by years of teaching experience and field of study (i.e., Social Sciences). The instructors’ self-assessment of IDG and media usage was not reliable and further validation of a self-assessment instrument is needed. This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility of the methodology which can be used in future research with more participants. / Graduate

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Despite the potential and increased availability of media technology, including advanced technologies such as computers and CD-ROM multimedia, teachers' actual use of technology, and particularly of the advanced technologies, in FLT/L in higher education in Korea still tends to be limited. The purposes of this study were, therefore: 1) to investigate the current patterns and contexts of teachers' (and for reference, students') use of media technology and their attitudes towards its use in FLT/L at university level in Korea; 2) to examine the cause of problems and the possibilities of improvement in its use in FLT/L; and 3) based on these findings, to suggest some solutions and strategies for applying them to the Korean context. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were adopted, i.e., questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations were used to collect the data required for this study. The subjects consisted of forty-eight teachers who teach English (and 535 students) at twelve universities in the central districts in Korea. In addition, workshopbased experiments were carried out to gather additional data on teachers' opinions and to evaluate the implications of the study. This study shows that the majority of Korean teachers (and students) have positive attitudes towards the use of media technology in FLT/L, with generally no significant gender and years of teaching experience (and academic years) differences, although they make little use of it. The study suggests that the availability of media technology equipment and appropriate materials in particular, teachers' knowledge of it, and proper teacher training have a positive impact on teachers' attitudes towards its use, and are, in addition to their positive attitudes, the other main factors influencing its successful implementation in FLT/L. It is concluded that to provide the teachers with sufficient knowledge of the capabilities of media technology and to encourage wider use, more access to hardware and software is necessary, and training to familiarise teachers with the hardware and software and its potential for language teaching is essential. Therefore, suggestions are made for the effective use of existing facilities, and for a model that could be adopted for teacher training courses.

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<p> Video games represent the future of storytelling, changing the impact of cultural narratives in important ways through a process of learning and internalization of game content that alters players&rsquo; perceptions of self and reality. Continued rigorous research of interactive media is necessary because of the speed at which technology changes its capabilities and the dominant nature of its format&mdash;it is how many people will tell, hear, and experience stories, culture, and values in the coming years. This dissertation argues that a deeper understanding of how people play video games and what these play experiences mean must rely on interdisciplinary lenses of analysis that value player reports, programming choices, and cultural narratives equally. I establish a theoretical and methodological approach that defines elements of what it means to play video games, and study the qualitative influence of game-play on thought and behavior through pragmatic analysis of interview data. Samples of masculine discourses of game play in the United States provide a starting point for this exploration of video game impact through discussions of play theory, narratology, game programming and interaction with interactive media hardware.</p><p> Common social concerns regarding increased violence, aggression, or de-socialization as a result of this medium were not represented in the population presented in this dissertation. Players recognized the allure of the so-called negative aspects of video games, but ultimately expressed a decided disconnect between the real world and virtual experiences of play, describing cathartic and therapeutic reasons for their enjoyment of those elements. An interdisciplinary approach to video game research must be embraced, despite a constant call for quick, universal answers to their most common critiques. Foundational themes for understanding the influence of interactive digital play experiences on personal identity and ideology construction are demonstrated through thematic and sociolinguistic analyses of in-depth interview data. These include play theory, narratology, human-computer interaction theory, and player report data. I draw on the established theoretical backgrounds of these disciplines to suggest a new term, ergodic ontogeny, to describe this complex process of personal development resulting from influences of interactive digital media gaming that reach beyond play experiences.</p>

This thesis proposes a novel system to determine the best representation of a video in the sense that, a user watching the video reaches the highest level of satisfaction possible, given the resource capabilities of the viewing device. Utility theory is used to obtain a utility function representing the user satisfaction as a function of video coding parameters, and the viewing device capabilities. The utility function is formulated as the weighted sum of three individual components. These components are chosen such that, the satisfaction on any one of the components is independent of the satisfaction on every other component. The advantage of such decomposition is the ability to express individual components as simple mathematical relations, modeling user satisfaction. Afterwards, the unknown parameters of these models are determined by results of subjective tests, performed by a multitude of users. Finally, simulated annealing is utilized to find the global optimum of this utility function representing the user satisfaction. Simulation results based on subjective viewing tests on a resource limited mobile device indicate a consistent user satisfaction by the determined optimal encoding parameters of the video.

Online multimedia education systems traditionally tend to consist almost exclusively of multiple choice or numeric response style questions. However, many curricula such as math, physics, and chemistry typically involve students completing large, complex, multi-step problems where the process used to solve the problem is more important than the final answer. Current online multimedia systems are generally insufficient to model or assess problems like these. In this thesis, I address this issue by implementing a Process Analyzer and its authoring tool. The Process Analyzer aims to improve student problem solving skills by acting as a self-tutoring tool that can analyze a students problem-solving process and adapt accordingly, providing corrective guidance hints if necessary. Secondly, it provides instructors with an in-depth analysis of the process or thinking steps that students are using to solve complex problems. Instructors can therefore assess students based on their problem-solving process, and not just their final answer. / Software Engineering and Intelligent Systems

Das kulturelle Gedächtnis speichert immer gewaltigere Mengen von Informationen und Daten. Doch nur ein verschwindend geringer Teil der Inhalte ist derzeit über digitale Kanäle recherchierbar und verfügbar. Die Projekte mediaglobe und yovisto ermöglichen, den wachsenden Bestand an audiovisuellen Dokumenten auffindbar und nutzbar zu machen und begleiten Medienarchive in die digitale Zukunft. mediaglobe hat das Ziel, durch automatisierte und semantische Verfahren audiovisuelle Dokumente zur deutschen Zeitgeschichte zu erschließen und verfügbar zu machen. Die Vision von mediaglobe ist ein web-basierter Zugang zu umfassenden digitalen AV-Inhalten in Medienarchiven. Dazu bietet mediaglobe zahlreiche automatisierte Verfahren zur Analyse von audiovisuellen Daten, wie z.B. strukturelle Analyse, Texterkennung im Video, Sprachanalyse oder Genreanalyse. Der Einsatz semantischer Technologien verknüpft die Ergebnisse der AV-Analyse und verbessert qualitativ und quantitativ die Ergebnisse der Multimedia-Suche. Ein Tool zum Rechtemanagement liefert Informationen über die Verfügbarkeit der Inhalte. Innovative und intuitiv bedienbare Benutzeroberflächen machen den Zugang zu kulturellem Erbe aktiv erlebbar. mediaglobe vereinigt die Projektpartner Hasso-Plattner Institut für Softwaresystemtechnik (HPI), Medien-Bildungsgesellschaft Babelsberg, FlowWorks und das Archiv der defa Spektrum. mediaglobe wird im Rahmen des Forschungsprogramms »THESEUS – Neue Technologien für das Internet der Dienste« durch das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie gefördert. Die Videosuchmaschine yovisto hingegen ist spezialisiert auf Aufzeichnungen akademischer Lehrveranstaltungen und implementiert explorative und semantische Suchstrategien. yovisto unterstützt einen mehrstufigen 'explorativen' Suchprozess, in dem der Suchende die Möglichkeit erhält, den Bestand des zugrundeliegenden Medienarchivs über vielfältige Pfade entsprechend seines jeweiligen Interesses zu erkunden, so dass am Ende dieses Suchprozesses Informationen entdeckt werden, von deren Existenz der Suchende bislang nichts wusste. Um dies zu ermöglichen vereinigt yovisto automatisierte semantische Medienanalyse mit benutzergenerierten Metadaten zur inhaltlichen Erschließung von AV-Daten und ermöglicht dadurch eine punktgenaue inhaltsbasierte Suche in Videoarchiven.