报告题目：網絡教學的國際發展和趨勢及CITE的相關关研究
报告时间：4月17日（周三）下午2:30-5:00
地点：文南楼404教室
报告人：Professor Nancy Law (University of Hong Kong)
Associate Dean (Development), Faculty of Education；
Director, Centre for Information Technology in Education
报告时间：29日（周一）上午9:30 – 12:00
报告人简介：张伟远博士，现任香港大学专业进修学院首席研究员、继续教育和终身学习研究中心总监、网络教学中心总监，《国际持续教育及终身学习期刊》执行主编。兼任北京师范大学博士生导师和客座教授、华东师范大学顾问教授，澳门城市大学客座教授和澳门发展研究所荣誉所长、以及国家开放大学、北京开放大学、上海开放大学、江苏开放大学、云南开放大学、天津电大、广州大学、首都师范大学等高校的客座教授。张博士担任10多份英联邦学习共同体、中国、日本、韩国、马来西亚、加拿大、土耳其等国家和国际组织的远程教育学术期刊的国际顾问、编审、及编委。张博士出版专著/编著/合著17本，学术论文200多篇。获得香港的高校、全国、华人地区、国际组织颁发的“最佳论文奖”、“卓越成就奖”14项。2008年更荣获亚洲开放大学协会颁发的“杰出成就奖（AAOU Meritorious Service Award）”，表彰其对亚洲地区远程教育和网络教学发展研究方面的杰出贡献，从1997年至2012年的十五年期间，全球获得此殊荣的有11位，其他10位都是开放大学的正校长，表彰他们对发展开放大学的杰出的社会贡献。
Title：Beyond Serious Games: Virtual Learning Environments for Understanding Complex Knowledge and Skills
Date and Time：April 23th (Tue)，10:00 to 11:00am
Presenter：Professor Michael J. Jacobson, Ph.D. （The University of Sydney）
Abstract：The use of games to serve educational purposes, sometimes referred to as “serious games,” has been receiving considerable recent attention. Implicit in much of the research in this area is that learning mainly occurs in the virtual experiences of the serious game and that learners will in turn be able to apply or use their new understandings and knowledge skills to new problems and contexts. In contrast, the research discussed in this talk explores the thesis that virtual experiences may be able to reflect salient aspects of the cultural practices of science as part of the learning activities; that is, learning does not occur “in” the virtual experiences of a serious game, rather, learning is mediated by virtual experiences that reflect culturally authentic practices in modern science. Specifically, the practice of science in the 21st century is increasingly embracing computational modeling techniques to compliment traditional quantitative and observational approaches for conducting research. Yet, despite calls that students learn science by doing science as inquiry, students in Australia and internationally have relatively few opportunities to do computational scientific inquiry in ways that mirror computational modeling being done in scientific research. In this talk, I discuss research over the past three years in which my team has developed an agent-based virtual environment consisting of an immersive virtual world for experiencing and exploring a complex ecosystem. The system incorporates predator-prey interactions based on computational biology modeling techniques that are linked to an agent-based modeling tool. I discuss findings from classroom studies involving the use of the Omosa Virtual Worldfor students to engage in computational scientific inquiry as they learned about experimental design and a predator-prey ecosystem. Implications of this approach are discussed.
Bio:Michael J. Jacobson, PhD is a Professor and Chair of Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney. He also is the Co-director of the Centre for Research on Computer-supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo), and Deputy Director, Institute for Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, and an Affiliate of the New England Complex Systems Institute. Previously, he was an Associate Professor in the Learning Sciences Laboratory at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the Senior Associate Director and an Associate Professor at the Korea University Center for Teaching and Learning in Seoul, Korea. Dr. Jacobson has also held faculty and research positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Vanderbilt University, and The University of Georgia, and he has been involved with organizational and international consulting activities. His research has focused on the design of learning technologies to foster deep conceptual understanding, conceptual change, and knowledge transfer in challenging conceptual domains. Most recently, his work has explored learning in agent-augmented multi-user virtual environments and with agent-based modeling and visualization tools, as well as cognitive and learning issues related to understanding new scientific perspectives emerging from the study of complex systems. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991.
