The Book of Endless Sorrows is an anthology that combines a diverse range of voices and stories, each contributing to a rich tapestry of themes and narratives.The first story, "Hereafter Life After Life," presents Solomon, responsible for overseeing the arrival of the newly deceased at the Gate of Judgment. The narrative covers the judgment process and the separation of memories from the spiritual essence and focuses on themes of purification and redemption.Much of the anth...

The Global Collaboration initiatives related in this book are examples of how educators have experimented with different mechanisms to provide science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education programmes through information and communication technologies. In many cases, these programmes have looked at the allied personal communication and collaboration skills that students of these subjects also need: the so-called STEM+ curriculum.In particular, these approaches to...

Since the publication of the companion volume Researching Learning in Virtual Worlds in 2010, there has been a growth not only in the range and number of educational initiatives taking place in virtual worlds, but also in the depth of analysis of the nature of that education. Understanding Learning in Virtual Worlds reflects those changes through a collection of chapters that are extended versions of research presented at the second Researching Learning in Virtual Environ...

The proposed book explores the theme of identity, specifically as applied to its role and development in virtual worlds. Following the introduction, it is divided into four sections: identities, avatars and the relationship between them; factors that support the development of identity in virtual worlds; managing multiple identities across different environments and creating an online identity for a physical world purpose.

Constructed in Cotswold style in the sixteenth century and standing on a ridge above the river at Malmesbury, next to the famous abbey church Abby House was built as a residence for the family of one of England's most important Tudor clothiers. It was raised above the remains of a thirteenth-century building, still in situ, that was associated with the Benedictine abbey. Today, it's surrounded by some of the most beautiful private gardens in the country, which are open daily in season to t...

The Windrush is the largest of the Cotswold rivers. Running for about forty miles through parts of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, it is also the longest. It is the waterway that turned Bourton-on-the-Water into an inland resort, and it fl ows adjacent to the major tourist venue of Burford. It runs alongside historic Witney, and close to the picturesque Slaughters. This book begins with a description of the river, its uses in the past, the countryside through which it passes, and its valu...

Old Town, the original Swindon, developed slowly and modestly throughout the medieval period, on a hill some 450 feet above sea level. By the middle of the nineteenth century, it was still a small country town. Almost every worker was employed in some form of agriculture, or as a servant to the gentry who were beginning to build their villas a decent distance from the low, thatched cottages and the traders' premises at its centre. The railway arrived in 1840 and changed all that. As the ne...

The use of Virtual Worlds (VWs) has increased in the last decade. VWs are used for communication, education, community building, creative arts, and more. A good deal of research has been conducted into learning and VWs, but other areas remain ripe for investigation. Factors from technological platforms to the nature and conventions of the communities that use VWs must be considered, in order to achieve the best possible interaction between virtual spaces and their users. Making Sense of Sp...

As the title indicates, this book highlights the shifting and emergent features that represent life online, specifically in and around the territory of e-learning.Cybercultures in themselves are complex conglomerations of ideas, philosophies, concepts, and theories, some of which are fiercely contradictory. As a construct, 'cyberculture' is a result of sustained attempts by diverse groups of people to make sense of multifarious activities, linguistic codes, and practices in complic...

The Internet and associated technologies have been around for almost twenty years. Networked access and computer ownership are now the norm. There is a plethora of technologies that can be used to support learning, offering different ways in which learners can communicate with each other and their tutors, and providing them with access to interactive, multimedia content. However, these generic skills don’t necessarily translate seamlessly to an academic learning context. Appropriation of t...

This edited volume explores how digital games have the potential to engage learners both within and outside the classroom and to encourage interaction in the target language. This is the first dedicated collection of papers to bring together state-of-the-art research in game-based learning.

This publication has grown out of two frustrations. One is the experience that so many applications in the area of information and communication technology (lCT) are built without an eye to what the users can handle or need for their work, systematic user oriented evaluation of new tools is therefore limited. The video recorder provides a good general example of this phenomenon, but more worryingly so do many software tools designed for use in organisations. The other frustration arises fr...