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This paper develops frameworks to help Internet media designers address end‐user information presentation preferences by advancing structures for assessing metadata design variables. Design variables are then linked to user cognitive styles. An underlying theme is that AI methodologies may be used to help automate the Internet media design process and to provide personalized and customized experiences. User preferences concerning knowledge acquisition in online experiences provide the basis for discussions of cognitive analysis, and are extended into structural implications for media design and interaction. The assumption is made that frameworks for the alignment of design metadata with user metacognitive elements may serve as a reference to aid information design for Internet‐based media.

Youngkyun Baek is professor of educational technology at Boise State University, USA. He had been teaching since 1991 at Korea National University of Education. Previously, he worked at Korea Educational Development Institute. His research interests are on instructional games, simulation, and mobile devices in education. He has presented several papers at SITE, NECC, AERA, and OECD Expert Meeting on gaming and simulations. Recently, he published two books on educational games and wrote several book chapters. Now he is designing a social network game on global warming and doing a research on intrinsic motivational factors in instructional games.

Based on the premise that computers have now become cultural and cognitive artifacts with which and not from which learners interact on a daily basis, this chapter focuses on best practices in preparing and engaging digital natives to become tomorrow’s leaders of a global knowledge economy that is increasingly dependent on electronic modes of communications. Using a study based on online tools in a writing course taught at the University of Victoria (Canada), we take a qualitative interpretative stance to explain the opportunities and challenges of learning and teaching in such environments. We comment on such aspects as the need to properly address learner’s functional skills (or lack off), the various tools that can be used to engage and motivate learners, and the need to go beyond methods based on delivery in order to better focus on the development of multiliteracies, in particular critical literacy and functional literacy. Our argument, grounded in cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning, favors an interdisciplinary approach while focusing on disciplines that are typically housed in the humanities, in particular second language academic programs. Our discussions and conclusions move from these case studies to a more general reflection on the extent to which electronic environments are reshaping higher education.

Two different types of technology-enabled stories that can help expand the notion of narratives are discussed in this chapter. The narratives found in digital storytelling and video games offer new possibilities and advantages for language learners and instructors. They are multimodal, immersive, and authentic; they offer significant motivational benefits and allow for agentive, situated, and participatory learning. Both forms, DST and video games, exemplify new modes of relating meaningful narratives. Media creation and sharing as well as gaming are familiar domains for today's learners. Thus, if these authentic practices are part of the learner's everyday experiences, it makes sense to utilize their potential for educational purposes. As the review of some applications in this chapter indicates, there is an area of convergence that is of particular interest for language learning purposes and may lead us to contemplate a redefinition of these narrative forms. In addition to more traditional narratives, these new and emergent forms can and should be represented in language learning curricula.

The construction industry is affected by the technologies of Industry 4.0 as the buildings are transforming into complex productions. Integration of innovative technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), in construction management is an emerging area to increase efficiency and effectiveness. With an aim of determining the current situation, this study evaluates the literature on VR and AR within construction management research.

The methodology of this research is based on descriptive and bibliometric analyses to understand and state the current relations between VR-AR technologies and construction management research. According to the meta-analysis (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA]) protocol of reviewing, 143 papers between 2010 and 2021 from Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) and Science Direct have been retrieved, and then analysis has been applied on these papers. Descriptive analysis contains increment of publications throughout the years, rates of papers according to countries and content of the publications. The bibliometric analysis involves the analysis through Excel and VOSviewer: co-occurrence of keywords, country-based, source and citation.

The results of this study emphasize the increasing interest in the adoption of VR-AR technologies in construction management research. As the number of publications has been continuously increased, this trend indicates the strength and growing interest in the topic. Another significant finding is VR-AR implementation studies are mostly based on building information modelling (BIM). In this study, the results of analyses have been discussed in terms of learning, knowledge areas and digital technologies as part of construction management.

This study contributes to providing a significant theoretical reference for the potentials of VR-AR in construction management research. VR-AR technologies mostly attract the interest of researchers from architectural design studies; however, there is a gap to investigate their potentials in terms of construction management. Additionally, this study focuses on the last 11 years, which indicate the latest trends.

“Metaverse” has become a buzzword in the Chinese stock market. However, it remains unclear whether a firm's metaverse-related announcements will elicit positive stock market reactions. Whether and how stakeholder reactions are influenced by a firm's metaverse-related readiness also needs to be further explored. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

The authors derived a set of factors based on readiness theory and business ecosystem literature and extend them into the context of the metaverse. The authors used a sample of 642 Chinese listed firms in 2021 to investigate the hypotheses through the event study.

The study’s findings show that metaverse coverage induces a positive stock market reaction, but it is subject to three moderating effects. The authors introduce the novel concepts of IT readiness, ecosystem readiness and digital infrastructure readiness as the moderators. Stakeholders perceive metaverse announcements as overhyped, and stock prices do not fluctuate significantly after a metaverse announcement when the listed firms are not ready to embrace the metaverse.

This study is one of the first that introduces the event study method into the metaverse research, and it reveals that different levels of readiness influence stakeholders' evaluations and reactions to corporate metaverse coverage. This provides empirical evidence on metaverse development in China from the stock market's perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the Web 2.0 Expo in New York.

Conference report.

The conference was geared primarily to the business community with talks, presentations, and exhibits that focused on developing Web 2.0 strategies to get consumers to visit and revisit their web sites.

Presents some of the highlights from the conference.

This chapter presents innovative approaches to active learning that were introduced into the teaching of preservice teachers at the Faculty of Education of University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, in the Czech Republic. Over the last three years, the Technology-Enhanced Learning course has seen substantial innovations in both the content and use of teaching strategies designed to prepare the students for their professional lives. The whole update of the course was implemented using the results of action research – all individual changes were rigorously tracked and analyzed. The state of the art in the active learning domain in education of preservice teachers is presented in this chapter.

There is a description of the procedure to update the course, based on the reflections of teachers and feedback from students, gathered during action research. Detailed evaluations of particular methods of active learning that have been proven in teaching are provided.

Besides practical activities with tablets and smartphones, during which students familiarize themselves with various types of applications and reflect on their use in teaching, the course was extended by the use of practical aids for the efficient inclusion of mobile technologies for teaching – the Czech version of Allan Carrington’s Padagogy Wheel. This aid is derived from the revised Bloom’s taxonomy and SAMR model and helps the systematic reflection of preservice teachers when preparing for technology-enhanced teaching.

A significant part of the teaching consists of cooperative projects between preservice teachers and pupils of elementary schools – for example, the preservice teachers help elementary school pupils discover possibilities of virtual reality during Google Cardboard activities, or preservice teachers in teams with elementary school pupils create digital stories together on the topic of Internet safety.

The innovative approach to active teaching in the Technology-Enhanced Learning course is apparent even during the exam. In the course of the exam, students process, present, and defend a lesson plan for the implementation of an activity using digital technologies.

Throughout the learning, as well as at the end, preservice teachers are encouraged to reflect on the teaching in the Technology-Enhanced Learning subject.

The Furniture, Fixture and Equipment (FFE) sector is well placed to leverage virtual reality (VR) technology for competitive and operational advantages; however, the diffusion of VR applications in this sector has followed a steep curve. This study reports on the implementation of two novel VR applications in the FFE sector and also investigates the challenges and benefits associated with their use and adaptability.

A sequential exploratory mixed research methodology consisting of three phases was adopted for this study. This included identification of factors that affect/facilitate the implementation of VR (Challenges and Benefits) using experiments during in-house prototyping of VR applications, a rigorous literature review and questionnaire survey to solicit FFE Stakeholder's (n = 117) opinion on the utility and usefulness of the proposed applications and to the understand factors that facilitate and inhibit their implementation in FFE's context, particularly as a design communication and coordination tool.

The findings of this study revealed that distributed and single-user VR has become essential to digitalising the FFE sector's design communication with improved design communication being regarded as the most important benefit of its use. Conversely, the most critical challenge that inhibits the implementation of these two VR applications in the FFE sector is the perceived cost.

This study provides valuable insight to FFE's stakeholders to devise action plans to mitigate myriad complex and interrelated factors that affect the adoption of virtual reality technology in the FFE sector that are otherwise very hard to understand, and the consequential implementation of any mitigation plans cannot be devised.