Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Interaction and Engagement

Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, user-created virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

This 2006 paper on classroom reponse systems was presented at the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois. This paper asks the question: Does the use of PRS increase student engagement during class and improve student understanding of course material?

Attrition continues to be a major issue in higher education. Attrition rates for classes taught through distance education are 10 - 20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting. Educators should engage students early and often, using different learning strategies customized to the class content and the students' pre-existing knowledge. The goal for the professor is to develop relationships with the students such that they feel comfortable in the environment. The professor should facilitate learner-learner integration and collaboration so that they will learn from one another and expand their knowledge base together. Through an integrative literature review, this article presents key concepts in online learning and a review of different methods of engaging students with the goals of enhancing the learning process and reducing attrition rates.

Many educators "see the enticement of notoriety through Web 2.0-style social tools--blogs, wikis and the like--as a way to engage students in their education and maybe even get them to choose one school over another. "