Nikolas Vidakis

Building ‘Flexible’ vacation packages using collaborative assembly toolkits and dynamic packaging: The Case Study of the eKoNES

The paper motivates and presents an approach for assembling innovative information-based products and services by virtual cross-organization communities of practice. Using a case study on assembling vacation packages, we describe the cross-organizational virtual partnership, the mechanics allowing it to operate as a virtual community of practice and how collective intelligence of the members is appropriated to ensemble innovative information-based products for tourists. The results provide useful insights into innovating through virtual networking as well as the ICT tools that may be used to foster value-creating networks of practice in boundary spanning domains.

Transformable boundary artifacts for knowledge-based work in cross-organization virtual communities spaces

The paper elaborates on the design and use of cross-organization virtual community spaces facilitating knowledge-based collaborative engagement in the practice of a boundary spanning alliance. Our approach builds upon the concept of transformable boundary artifacts and advances a perspective upon their design as first class objects in common information spaces. Using a case study on vacation package assembly, we identify offline elements of practice and discuss the components of an interaction vocabulary devised to facilitate their transformable interactive embodiment. Transformations allow boundary artifacts to exhibit plasticity as they transcend different social worlds and computing contexts within the cross-organization virtual community space, which in turn, forms the virtuality through which members make sense of collaborative work and contribute to a shared mission. Such contributions are materialized through recurrent interactions with different versions of boundary artifacts, which remain consistent and synchronized at all times.

A Novel Educational Game for teaching Emotion Identification Skills to Preschoolers with Autism Diagnosis

Emotion recognition is essential in human communication and social interaction. Children with autism have been reported to exhibit deficits in understanding and expressing emotions. Those deficits seem to be rather permanent so intervention tools for improving those impairments are desirable. Educational interventions for teaching emotion recognition should occur as early as possible. It is argued that Serious Games can be very effective in the areas of therapy and education for children with autism. However, those computer interventions require considerable skills for interaction. Before the age of 6, most children with autism do not have such basic motor skills in order to manipulate a mouse or a keyboard. Our approach takes account of the specific characteristics of preschoolers with autism and their physical inabilities. By creating an educational computer game, which provides physical interaction with natural user interface (NUI), we aim to support early intervention and to enhance emotion recognition skills.

Combining Ludology and Narratology in an Open Authorable Framework for Educational Games for Children: the Scenario of Teaching Preschoolers with Autism Diagnosis

This paper presents the initial findings and the on-going work of IOLAOS project, a general open authorable framework for educational games for children. This framework features an editor, where the game narrative can be created or edited, according to specific needs. A ludic approach is also used both for the interface as well as for the game design. More specifically, by employing physical and natural user interface (NUI), we aim to achieve ludic interfaces. Moreover, by designing the educational game with playful elements, we follow a ludic design. This framework is then applied for the scenario of teaching preschoolers with autism diagnosis. Children with autism have been reported to exhibit deficits in the recognition of affective expressions and the perception of emotions. With the appropriate intervention, elimination of those deficits can be achieved. Interventions are proposed to start as early as possible. Computer-based programs have been widely used with success to teach people with autism to recognize emotions. However, those computer interventions require considerable skills for interaction. Such abilities are beyond very young children with autism as most probably they don’t have the skills to interact with computers. In this context, our approach with the suggested framework employs a ludic interface based on NUI, a ludic game design and takes account of the specific characteristics of preschoolers with autism diagnosis and their physical abilities for customizing accordingly the narrative of the game.

Facial expression recognition teaching to preschoolers with autism: a natural user interface approach

The recognition of facial expressions is important for the perception of emotions. Understanding emotions is essential in human communication and social interaction. Children with autism have been reported to exhibit deficits in the recognition of affective expressions. Their difficulties in understanding and expressing emotions lead to inappropriate behavior derived from their inability to interact adequately with other people. Those deficits seem to be rather permanent in individuals with autism so intervention tools for improving those impairments are desirable. Educational interventions for teaching emotion recognition from facial expressions should occur as early as possible in order to be successful and to have a positive effect. It is claimed that Serious Games can be very effective in the areas of therapy and education for children with autism. However, those computer interventions require considerable skills for interaction. Before the age of 6, most children with autism do not have such basic motor skills in order to manipulate a mouse or a keyboard. Our approach takes account of the specific characteristics of preschoolers with autism and their physical inabilities. By creating an educational computer game, which provides physical interaction by employing natural user interface (NUI), we aim to support early intervention and to foster facial expression learning.

Ludic Educational Game Creation Tool: Teaching Schoolers Road Safety

This paper presents initial findings and ongoing work of the game creation tool, a core component of the IOLAOS(IOLAOS in ancient Greece was a divine hero famed for helping with some of Heracles’s labors.) platform, a general open authorable framework for educational and training games. The game creation tool features a web editor, where the game narrative can be manipulated, according to specific needs. Moreover, this tool is applied for creating an educational game according to a reference scenario namely teaching schoolers road safety. A ludic approach is used both in game creation and play. Helping children staying safe and preventing serious injury on the roads is crucial. In this context, this work presents an augmented version of the IOLAOS architecture including an enhanced game creation tool and a new multimodality module. In addition presents a case study for creating educational games for teaching road safety, by employing ludic interfaces for both the game creator and the game player, as well as ludic game design.

Multimodal natural user interaction for multiple applications: The gesture — Voice example

In this paper we present a natural user interface system. The device utilized for achieving natural interaction is the MS-Kinect which provides RGB, depth & audio signal. Our system is based on the theory of multimodal interaction and provides the ability to the user to interact simultaneously with different applications using vocal commands and gesture in conjunction. The difference of our system from other similar efforts is that it uses a multimodal interaction approach to manipulate multi-applications by employing a generic container, which runs at the background and serves as an intermediate between multimodal input and active applications running on a computer. We describe the architecture of the system based on multimodal interaction and its representative example using two PC applications.

Multimodal desktop interaction: The face - object - gesture - voice example

This paper presents a natural user interface system based on multimodal human computer interaction, which operates as an intermediate module between the user and the operating system. The aim of this work is to demonstrate a multimodal system which gives users the ability to interact with desktop applications using face, objects, voice and gestures. These human behaviors constitute the input qualifiers to the system. Microsoft Kinect multi-sensor was utilized as input device in order to succeed the natural user interaction, mainly due to the multimodal capabilities offered by this device. We demonstrate scenarios which contain all the functions and capabilities of our system from the perspective of natural user interaction.

Designing the Learning Process: The IOLAOS Platform

The robust growth of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its massive usage in every aspect of human life has made a tremendous impact on the learning process, leading to new concerns over the need to reform the educational system to embody such technologies. Therefore, a resurgence of interest has occurred in how to use serious games as assistance to pedagogical activities over the last years. Serious games though must be designed for individuals to provide a personalized experience and increase perceived value for learners. However, creating such games is not an easy task, requiring an expertise from a wide variety of fields such as game and software developers, educational specialists, game testers and teachers. Driven from the above reasons we have designed and developed the IOLAOS platform, which aims to facilitate the collaboration of user roles in order to (a) enable educational experts to codify the learning process, styles and preferences into game creation, (b) share information and instructions with game developers to make their games adaptable (c) allow teachers to shape the learning process and create their own virtual classes, monitor learning sessions and customize their learners game experience based on their profile, (d) offer learners a unique educational game experience and (e) permit game testers to constantly evaluate the whole process and provide feedback for the reliability of the platform and the learning process itself.

Access Moodle Using Smart Mobile Phones. A Case Study in a Greek University

The use of learning management systems (LMS) has grown considerably in universities around the world. This study investigated how often students used a mobile phone to access various activities on Moodle. The students’ point of view is important since they are the main users of the offered teaching technique and can cooperate in implementing and improving an e-course as a very important stakeholder in the e-learning process. A survey on self-reported usage was filled by 122 university students in a course offered by the faculty of Preschool Education at the University of Crete. Follow-up interviews were conducted to solicit students’ perceptions on mobile access to Moodle and the underlying reasons. The results show significant differences in students’ usage of various Moodle activities via mobile phones. Students’ responses also suggest that Moodle is used merely as an electronic document repository and not as an effective learning tool due to the limitations of mobile access on usability and reliability.