No abstract

Over the last decade, there have been many changes in the field of political analysis at a global level. Through social networking platforms, millions of people have the opportunity to express their opinion and capture their thoughts at any time, leaving their digital footprint. As such, massive datasets are now available, which can be used by analysts to gain useful insights on the current political climate and identify political tendencies. In this paper, we present TwiFly, a framework built for analyzing Twitter data. TwiFly accepts a number of accounts to be monitored for a specific time-frame and visualizes in real time useful extracted information. As a proof of concept, we present the application of our platform to the most recent elections of Greece, gaining useful insights on the election results.

Teachers incorporate gamification techniques and game-based learning (GBL) into the learning material rapidly. Technological advancements on the world wide web have essentially assisted GBL as it has allowed the creation of many educational platforms and applications. Despite these web applications' advancements, technology has more to offer than a just website, moving into virtual worlds, enhancing the real world with digital content and artefacts, using users' geolocation to navigate them into learning material around their physical world, and gathering, processing, and analysing information about the users with the purpose to better adjust the information provided to them. The collaboration between gamification techniques and modern technologies are explored to showcase the possibilities this merger can give. Applications using state-of-the-art technologies and gamification techniques tend to increase engagement and motivation of students, increase their soft skills, and develop a positive perspective towards learning and education.

Contemporary software applications have shifted focus from 2D representations to 3D. Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) are two technologies that have captured the industry’s interest as they show great potential in many areas. This paper proposes a system that allows developers to create applications in AR and VR with a simple visual process, while also enabling all the powerful features provided by the Unity 3D game engine. The current system comprises two tools, one for the interaction and one for the behavioral configuration of 3D objects within the environment. Participants from different disciplines with a software-engineering background were asked to participate in the evaluation of the system. They were called to complete two tasks using their mobile phones and then answer a usability questionnaire to reflect on their experience using the system. The results (a) showed that the system is easy to use but still lacks some features, (b) provided insights on what educators seek from digital tools to assist them in the classroom, and (c) that educators often request a more whimsical UI as they want to use the system together with the learners.

No abstract