Recent advances in mobile and wireless communication technologies have enabled various new learning approaches which situate students in environments that combine real-world and digital-world learning resources; moreover, students are allowed to share knowledge or experiences with others during the learning process. Although such an approach seems to be promising and innovative, researchers have indicated several problems when applying it to practical applications, in particular, the lack of proper strategies or tools to assist the students to learn collaboratively in such a learning scenario with abundant content. Students might feel interested when using the mobile devices to learn; however, without proper assistance or guidance, their learning achievements are usually disappointing. To cope with this problem, this study proposes a concept map-oriented Mindtool for collaborative ubiquitous learning. Experimental results from a natural science course in an elementary school show that this approach not only enhances learning motivation but also improves the learning achievements of the students.

How to design useful digital game-based learning is a topic worthy of discussion. Past research focused on specific game genres design, but it is difficult to use when the target game genre differs from the default genres used in the research. This study presents macrodesign concepts that elucidates 11 crucial game-design factors, including game goals, game mechanism, game fantasy, game value, interaction, freedom, narrative, sensation, challenges, sociality, and mystery. We clearly define each factor and analyze the relationships among the 11 factors to construct a game-based learning design model. Two application examples are analyzed to verify the usability of the model and the performance of these factors. It can assist educational game designers in developing interesting games.

There has been little informal learning research concerning the issues and learning factors for students who are engaged in receptive language skills (reading and listening) development in a Context-Aware Ubiquitous Language Learning (CAULL) context. Therefore, the researchers first developed a CAULL environment for students to learn the surroundings of Cheng Kung Lake with the use of the handheld PDA, the wireless internet, and RFID readers and tags. There were three sections in the learning content about Cheng Kung Lake, including the reading units, scenario-based conversations, and RFID-generated Q&A in the reading and audio clips. Further, there were 47 intermediate-proficiency-level graduate students participating in this study.The results indicate that most students benefited from using this kind of CAULL and improved their receptive language skills, as well as demonstrate students' positive attitudes towards the implementation. Finally, design and development issues, affecting learning factors, problems and suggestions in such a CAULL environment were discussed. G-Z. Liu et al.

Although schools and government agencies actively provide career guidance service in Taiwan, most college graduates are still troubled about their career choices. This study attempts to design a digital game for career planning. The advantage of digital games is to improve people's motivation and interest for career direction seeking, and guiding them to explore career that suit them. This paper aims to assess the feasibility of a career game, and propose possible approaches for making game-based career guidance system.