In the years 2004 to 2012, a long-term study on the effectiveness of safety experts was commissioned by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV). An interdisciplinary team of scientists investigated in these years the activities and the effectiveness of services for professionals responsible for occupational safety and health (OSH). In a case study-like manner it is discussed how the technology that was originally developed as an acquisitions and incentive instrument for the various phases of the safety experts' long-term study, now has become the safety experts’ online community. Both as a stand-alone instrument of prevention as well as a place of learning for professionals for occupational safety, it seems to be a highly appropriate technology. Accompanying the mentoring ensures regular technology updates to meet the increasingly broad use by a growing number of OSH specialists.

Modern education has to take on various roles and contingencies over the last decade – both for good and worse. Public school systems are competing with private and now charter schools for student enrollment and virtual or online learning schools. A question many parents and educators struggle with – how do we grow and develop children and young adults' academic needs through the use of technology? The question may be simple; however, the answer is far complicated. Technology provides help in various ways a human being cannot, including instant gratification of Google searches, video education, synchronous education game formats, distant learning from different ends of the country, and so on. Virtual education has seen a growing demand in the last decade. Many institutions worldwide are implementing online classes as academic needs are switching from traditional to non-traditional. Professional development in virtual settings is rapidly increasing along with education budgets to support these technological mammoths' databases and software programs. However, is one ‘one-size-fits-all' model adequate for all learning styles? Despite the rapid growth of online education, many challenges and dispositions exist with the design and delivery to students on all academia levels. Software engineers and lack of developmental acquisitions for user-friendly formatting to students with exceptional learning styles differ from the norm. This paper addresses the question of virtual learning opportunities missed in online programs' software development compared to their physical alternatives in ‘brink and mortar' or face-to-face instruction. The three research questions behind this study were as follows: Are there areas and functions of virtual education that need to be fixed within the public-school setting platforms? If, so what? Are the platforms/software's used ‘one size fits all' or individually programmed to grade level, age of user(s), and/or academic needs (Gifted/IEP, mental/physical disabilities, learning disabilities, language)? Areas of recommendation to positively change missing or unsuccessful platforms to accommodate research questions one and two. Observations, documents and records, and open-ended structured interviews were the data collection methods used in this study to understand virtual education in midst of a pandemic. The researcher is interested know how children are significantly challenged – internet connectivity, socioeconomic and support systems of both social and emotional needs, gifted children were equally compared to their non-gifted peers in the wake of a global pandemic. Schools districts overlooked many areas causing significant concern for both teachers and parents of student academic needs. To justify a ‘one-size-fits-all' approach given lack of planning, cannot justify a substitute for education, through resource limitations and declining success tools to students who need it most. Teachers were split in seeing the progressive advances in fully virtual education which were favorited by younger, tech-savvy educators, compared to their older colleagues who preferred traditional methods of paper and {pen}cils. Public and Charter Schools have the option to continue fully virtual, hybrid education and traditional methods of education based on students adaptation, chronological age, maturity, including teachers opting in for lower class size, ability to work from home and providing more resources to students who are significantly handicapped based on socioeconomic, disabilities, and/or parents reliance as first/active responders.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has attracted a great deal of interest since its inception, as reflected in a large body of relevant literature; most of the literature deals with TBLT in in-person (IP) settings and a small number of TBLT applications in online settings. The shift from the traditional IP mode to the virtual classroom caused by COVID-19 has made the effective application of TBLT a concern. However, most of the past studies have been conducted from the researcher’s perspective, which cannot meet the urgent needs of language teachers from a practical standpoint. This study examined TBLT in virtual Chinese classroom from the perspectives of teachers and students. The action research was conducted to observe the challenges students encountered in online TBLT sessions. Surveys and interviews were conducted to collect data from participants to understand the students’ viewpoints towards online TBLT. The data were analyzed to determine how teachers made actions to improve the TBLT learning and whether these actions were effective. After six weeks of research, the data from the participants revealed that students encountered many problems in online TBLT session, such as difficulties of applying online TBLT including student’s lack of media literacy and the limitedness of Zoom affordance; the challenges of designing tasks for online L2 TBLT class such as teacher’s lack of attention on taking students’ task preferences, grouping methods and targeted prompts into consideration; as well as the challenges of peer collaboration in virtual TBLT for example the dis-connectivity, peer communication, and response distribution issues. In response to challenges that I observed in my study, I integrated and analyzed the following teacher actions to help improve students’ performance and the effectiveness of online TBLT sessions. I rewrote the prompts to provide students with multiple perspectives on the context and appropriate vocabulary in terms of the pre-task materials. Also, I selected relevant grouping patterns for each task type and grouped them appropriately. Moreover, I reduced the power imbalance between the teacher and students, intervened in the in-task discussions appropriately, provided students with guidance on specific Zoom classroom functions, and effectively managed the time spent on each cycle of the TBLT. Last but not least, I enhanced student meta-cognition, provided students with complete information about the TBLT process, explained the benefits and purpose of the assignment, encouraged interaction and collaboration among the students, and attempted to provide a safe and comfortable learning environment for students. To conclude, both students and teachers encounter challenges in this new online learning model environment; thus, we all need to adapt and learn how to learn and teach in this new situation. In this study, I tried different approaches to improve the observed problems and promote the effectiveness of teaching and the learning experience of students through a teacher action research approach. Feedback from participants indicated that the actions were effective. The study revealed that teacher should take the students’ needs into consideration when designing and implementing online TBLT in the future and make a difference through teacher actions. It is hoped that this study can offer some implications on applying TBLT in the virtual setting.

No / The rise of mainstream virtual learning environments has facilitated the operation of information spaces to support display, simulation, and interactive modelling. As well as disseminating information and knowledge, they can also be used to accumulate learning as each user is also a potential contributor. This paper examines the use of information environments to support mobile learning and dynamic decision making and the extent to which physical or social space can support the application. Such applications are not limited to the traditional data analysis and modelling functions but can be extended to include storytelling, theatre, and other aspects of the arts and the entertainment industry.

No / As the Internet and World Wide Web continue to influence corporate and private activities, systems are needed that mimic human-to-human interface, to simplify the human-to-computer interface. Intelligent Agents are likely to play a significant role in the design of such interfaces, and this book explores how they could influence media-based systems. Throughout, the text maps out the considerable advances that have already been made, paving the way toward a future where computers will be truly described as an intelligent aid to our personal and business lives.

No / The very word "digital" has acquired a status that far exceeds its humble dictionary definition. Even the prefix digital, when associ­ ated with familiar sectors such as radio, television, photography and telecommunications, has reinvented these industries, and provided a unique opportunity to refresh them with new start-up companies, equipment, personnel, training and working practices - all of which are vital to modern national and international economies. The last century was a period in which new media stimulated new job opportunities, and in many cases created totally new sectors: video competed with film, CDs transformed LPs, and computer graphics threatened traditional graphic design sectors. Today, even the need for a physical medium is in question. The virtual digital domain allows the capture, processing, transmission, storage, retrieval and display of text, images, audio and animation without familiar materials such as paper, celluloid, magnetic tape and plastic. But moving from these media to the digital domain intro­ duces all sorts of problems, such as the conversion of analog archives, multimedia databases, content-based retrieval and the design of new content that exploits the benefits offered by digital systems. It is this issue of digital content creation that we address in this book. Authors from around the world were invited to comment on different aspects of digital content creation, and their contributions form the 23 chapters of this volume.

This research project is about the lived experiences of upper secondary school and adult education teachers from a remote region of Sweden, during the global pandemic of 2020 – 2021. Educational change can be understood in terms of experiences, through listening to teachers’ voices, which have the capacity to bring new knowledge for future usage of digital platforms in education. Teaching is an embodied experience and opportunities for movement have become limited in the virtual learning environment. A radical change in the methods of communication has also occured, in particular the verbal and non-verbal clues of oral interaction, which differ in physical and virtual classrooms. Interpersonal relationships have been shown to be of the utmost importance for successful learning, and these need to be formed and maintained both online and offline. Some students are at risk of falling behind academically and socially due to remote learning. The research has shed light on this situation and illustrates how governments should work effectively with teachers to ensure that all students can succeed, regardless of individual setbacks experienced during the global pandemic. This is an ethical responsibility of importance to ensure that no student will be disadvantaged as a result of remote learning.

The methodologies for English language teaching and the roles os ESP and EIL are discussed. Additionally, the role of culture and learning theories for prefessional training are presented. This framework is applied to two pilot programs and the results are debated. Consequently, a new framework is designed that includes new methodologies and places a greater importance on the role of EIL.

No description available.

The COVID-19 Pandemic forced educators to move course delivery to online learning with little or no training or preparation. Teachers' virtual instruction preparedness, pre-service teachers, and school districts are still lacking, despite technology goals instituted by the Board of Education. One of the immediate concerns of the online course delivery was school districts' capabilities for virtual instruction regarding infrastructure and resources. Funding, lack of equipment, and resources to maintain hardware and training prove to be common obstacles schools and staff face. Another concern was SBAE teachers’ readiness to use the online learning tools available to school districts. Teacher pedagogy, knowledge, skills, and confidence prevent teachers and pre-service teachers from exploring and utilizing technology in their classrooms. Additionally, moving all students to online learning environments presented a challenge for those teachers who knew little about educational technology tools or other online resources. This study aims to assess if SBAEs in Illinois are adequately prepared to use technology as the sole source of instruction for virtual learning and whether Illinois schools are capable of virtual instruction. To meet both the educational needs of the current generation of learners and are meeting educational standards set by the Illinois State Board of Education requirements, even in a virtual learning environment. As well as determine what gaps may be present in SBAE teacher education programs concerning the preparation of student teachers to utilize classroom technology to teach virtually. Some skill gaps identified include utilizing the flipped classroom approach, incorporating mobile applications into lessons, and utilizing virtual instruction for student collaboration and assessment. Most teachers indicated they felt somewhat prepared for virtual instruction and moderately prepared to incorporate technology into their lessons through teacher education programs, school districts, and professional organizations. Recommendations included future in-service training for SBAE teachers regarding using educational technologies and virtual learning platforms. Also, training for SBAE teachers on synchronous online learning platforms and the use of 1:1 technology is warranted. Pre-service programs are recommended to include coursework on educational technologies and virtual instruction. Faculty in preparation programs for SBAE teachers are encouraged to adapt curricula to support these skills and promote pre-service teachers practicing the utilization of virtual instruction in authentic classroom settings.