International student exchange is integral to internationalization at higher education institutions and global human resource development in Japan. However, border closures and restrictions on physical mobility since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to adopt virtual mobility models to deliver international exchange programs.…

Purpose: This study aims to explore if and to what extent an online avatar-assisted virtual classroom can work to alleviate groups of Japanese university students' anxiety around giving spoken presentations. It also explores how to create a more inclusive language learning environment and encourage interaction between the students in the virtual…

Plagiarism in academic writing is known to be an issue of concern for educators, administrators, and students alike. Using self-reporting studies and plagiarism detection software, previous research has established that plagiarism in university-level academic writing is relatively common amongst the work of L1 and particularly L2 writers and that…

This paper describes a mixed-methods investigation into whether an asynchronous, virtual collaboration with Japanese peers helped pre-service social studies teachers in the U.S. demonstrate civic competence as it relates to international and global education. After the collaboration, most students described themselves as better-prepared world…

This paper proposes a novel educational support system for technical experiments involving the production of practical electronic circuits for sound processing. To support circuit design and production, each student uses a computer during the experiments, and can learn circuit design, virtual circuit making, and real circuit making. In the…

Transformed into a large collaborative learning environment, the Internet is comprised of information reservoirs namely, (a) online classrooms, (b) social networks, and (c) virtual reality or simulated communities, to expeditiously create, reproduce, share, and deliver information into the hands of educators and students. Most importantly, the…

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the EUROCALL society succeeded in holding the 28th EUROCALL conference, EUROCALL2020, on 20-21 August as an online, two-day gathering. The transition process required to make this happen was demanding and insightful for everyone involved, and, in many ways, a logical consequence of the core content and purpose of…

Recent studies of learner interaction in virtual worlds have tended to select basic tasks involving open-ended communication. There is evidence that such tasks are supportive of language acquisition, however it may also be beneficial to consider more complex tasks. Research in task-based learning has identified features such as non-linguistic…

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a powerful tool for both science and engineering education in the real world. Therefore, Japanese educators/researchers (with assistance from a US educator) carried out a pilot study to determine the effectiveness of using PBL activities in Metaverse. Their project was carried out by student teams from the US and…

This paper reports on the task-based interaction of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in the 3D multiuser virtual environment (MUVE) Second Life. The discussion first explores research on the precursors of MUVEs, text-based 2D virtual worlds known as MOOs. This is followed by an examination of studies on the use of MUVEs in Computer…

"Research Informing Practice--Practice Informing Research: Innovative Teaching Methodologies for World Language Educators" is an edited volume that focuses on innovative, nontraditional methods of teaching and learning world languages. Using teacher-research projects, each author in the volume guides readers through their own personal…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 13th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2016), October 28-30, 2016, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by the University of Mannheim, Germany, and endorsed by the…

Virtual teams are a common phenomenon in organizations today. Universities are no exception to this trend and, in response, are offering class rooms without boundaries by introducing online programs which allow individuals from all walks of life and diverse geographical locations to come together. Cross-cultural virtual teams, collaborating with…

This article describes the creation of a fully online master's program for e-learning specialist training. This program is the first of its kind in Japan. As background information, Japan's general trends in e-learning are described, including activities of the e-Learning Consortium Japan and National Institute of Multimedia in Education. Such…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2016, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, 1-3 July, 2016. This conference is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2016, 1-4 July. The e-Learning (EL) 2016 conference aims…