The International Conference on e-Learning (ICEL-2012) invites researchers, practitioners and academics to present their research findings, works in progress, case studies and conceptual advances in areas of work where education and technology intersect. The conference brings together varied groups of people with different perspectives, experiences and knowledge in one location. It aims to help practitioners find ways of putting research into practice and researchers to gain an understanding of real-world problems, needs and aspirations.
The 7th edition of this conference is going to be held in one of the world’s most vibrant cosmopolitans. Located in the heart of Asia, Hong Kong is a metropolis with a unique mix of Eastern and Western cultures and has been a prime destination for business and tourism. The favourable location of Hong Kong has increased its desirability of being developed as an education hub of Asia, where quality educational services and diversified learning opportunities are desired by the ever-growing learning community in the present age of globalisation. The conference will bring participants valuable insights in the latest developments of e-Learning which is one of the most efficient learning modes in the fast-changing knowledge world.
Tuesday
4
Oct 2011
EL 2011 - The 2011 Conference on Education and Learning
Prof. Wierzbicki is committee member of the EL2001 Conference in Korea.
The 2011 Conference on Education and Learning will be held on December 8 - 10, 2011 in Jeju Grand Hotel, Jeju Island, Korea.
EL 2011 is one be the most comprehensive Conferences focused on the various aspects of advances in Education and Learning. The Conference provides a chance for academic and industry professionals to discuss recent progress in the area of Education and Learning.
The goal of EL2011 is to bring together the researchers from academia and industry as well as practitioners to share ideas, problems and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of Education and Learning.
All accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings: LNCS/CCIS series (indexed by EI and others) published by Springer Verlag. Some papers selected will be included in special journals.
Thursday
1
Sep 2011
The eLearning Experiment
According to work conducted at Stanford University the cognitive performance declines when people try to pay attention to many media channels at once. Clifford Nass, co-author of the study, claims "the study has a disturbing implication in an age when more and more people are simultaneously working on a computer, listening to music, surfing the Web, texting, or talking on the phone.
Access to more information tools is not necessarily making people more efficient in their intellectual chores .... people who chronically multitask believe they're good at it."
Christoph Finke and Patrick Schubert from COCREE | Media Group, the students of Multimedia Technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida, Germany, who currently write their theses under my supervision, developed an experiment which aims to determine how we learn and how we process information when we multitask.
The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award is a category of the 2011 MindTrek competition. The category is organized collaboratively by MindTrek, Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing, New Ambient Multimedia Group (NAMU)/Tampere University of Technology, the Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Nokia, and the Ambient Media Association (AMEA). The award is funded by Nokia and the Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing.
An international jury has already selected the finalists of this year's competition. The nominees have just been announced. Please find the details in the official press release.
Tuesday
31
May 2011
Martin Lorber in Conversation with Robert J. Wierzbicki
The EA Blog for Digital Game Culture is a platform by Electronic Arts established to present the world of computers and video games to the readers. The blog discusses different facets of the digital culture, predominantly the backgrounds, developments and future trends of video gaming. Martin Lorber is the host of the EA Blog.
Tuesday
17
May 2011
Freie Presse Reports on a Brand New Study Course in "Media Information Technology and Interactive Entertainment" at HSMW
ICEL 2011, The International Conference on e-Learning
The International Conference on e-Learning (ICEL) is of interest to academics and workers in the growing field. ICEL follows on from the well established ECEL but is convened outside of Europe. Like ECEL it invites researchers to present current research findings and business experiences from the wide community which is now involved in knowledge management and intellectual capital and organisational learning. It offers an opportunity for discussion and deliberation and networking.
Prof. Wierzbicki is Conference Commitee Member for ICEL 2011.
Friday
25
Mar 2011
Innovation Stuntmen Reports on Gamecast
Rendering by Erkan Kosar , Gamecast Team.
Innovation Stuntmen is an online platform showcasing innovative projects from around the world. Robert J. Wierzbicki gave an interview to Innovation Stuntmen on the Gamecast project and on the future of convergent approches to virtual entertainment. Read the Interview at http://www.innovationstuntmen.com/?p=2126
Monday
21
Feb 2011
"Adaptive Media Worlds"
A New Research Project by FgAM
Despite all the progress being made in the field of media and IT, even in interactive media such as video games the user experience is still often a static one. The media format does not recognise the recipient and cannot therefore be adapted to him. In simple terms a video game doesn’t know whether the son in the family wants to play his favourite game taking particularly high risks, or whether it’s his little sister who is sitting in front of the computer screen, despairing because the game is too difficult for her.
The research project "Adaptive Media Worlds" (AdaM), running until the end of 2011 and sponsored by the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts, aims to create a demo of a system which enables media to individually adapt to the needs, mood and social profile of the different users whilst they are using it. By integrating emotion recognition in which the emotions and behaviour of the recipient are recognised and evaluated and the media elements varied, the receptive experience should be enhanced. Elements which can be automatically adapted include amongst others: topic focuses, plots in films and serials, offers in online shops, advertising, and game situations and difficulty levels in video games. Players who like to solve puzzles will then actually get more puzzles to solve in the game. The research project shall illustrate how adaptive systems in video games, online platforms and other internet-based media applications can be integrated and thereby pave the way for a future in which it is no longer the user that has to adapt to the medium, but instead the medium which will adapt itself to the needs of the user.
The project is a follow-up of the project GAMECAST which was finalized in December 2010. The heads of the projects are Prof. Robert J. Wierzbicki (Faculty of Media) and Prof. Wilfried Schubert (Faculty of Informatics). The chief producer of the AdaM system is Thomas Schmieder, BA (Faculty of Media).
Monday
14
Feb 2011
Teaching in Milano, Italy
Prof. Wierzbicki was a visiting professor at the University of Bicocca in Milano. He was lecturing on "Cross-Media for Tourism" in the master track "Comunicazione per il turismo" of Prof. Cesare Massarenti. The teaching was part of the ERASMUS programme.
An agreement between the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida and the the University of Bicocca in Milano was signed in February which includes student exchange: 2 undergraduated and 2 graduated students from each side for one semester per academic year.
Wednesday
12
Jan 2011
SL:MIMA 2011 Celebrates the Best in Moving Image and Music Production
The splendid Gala Night wrapped up the 3 days of the Swan Lake: Moving Image & Music Awards. Read more about the winners, workshops and makers of the international event at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida at the project website.
The GAMECAST project running at the University of Applied Sciences Mitweida and sponsored 2009 - 2010 by the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts closes out in December 2010. A follow-up research funding for 2011 has been requested.
Friday
3
Dec 2010
EVA Kick-Off Meeting in Cluj, Romania
In December the EVA (European Virtual Academy) project was kicked-off in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania in Romania. The goal of the EVA project is to build a virtual campus of visual culture studies. The EVA project is funded by the European Union Lifelong Learning Programme and runs until the end of 2012.
The EVA partners are Babeş-Bolyai University (UBB), Cluj, Romania (coordinator), University of Milano-Bicocca (BIC), Milano, Italy, Hochschule Mittweida - University of Applied Sciences (HSMW), Mittweida, Germany, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transilvania (SHUT), Cluj, Romania and Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK).
The members of the EVA consortium are (see picture): Cesare Massarenti (BIC), Szenkovics Dezso (SHUT), Agnes Petho (SHUT), Ari Närhi (TAMK), Robert J. Wierzbicki (HSMW), Cai Melakoski (TAMK), Doru Pop (UBB), Sandra Bularca (UBB).
Wednesday
10
Nov 2010
Tampere Art Factory (TAF) International Week, April 11-15, 2011
Invitation from Finland
"We would love to see you at our fourth International Week
April 11-15. It is a wonderful meeting of friends from our partner universities
and other institutes. We will again have some 50 guests.
Some guests give lectures, tutorials, shows or workshops,
all guests participate in the seminars, intense discussions in the
International Teachers Lobby, network and relax in the smoke sauna and enjoy
our annual festival, Tampere Art Factory.
Tampere Art Factory (TAF) opening weekend will be April
15-16. The core of the festival is the works of our graduating students, but we
will also see results of International Week workshops and much, much more.
Thomas Schmieder presents Gamecast at the Medienforum
Thomas Schmieder presented the recent research results of the GAMECAST project at the Medienforum in Mittweida. The presentation focused on conveying of gamers' emotions to ther digital representations (avatars) in virtual environments. The students of the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida developed an interface which makes it possible to connect the SHORE™ software library licesed from the Fraunhofer Institute to the game engine used in GAMECAST. SHORE™ (Sophisticated Highspeed Object Recognition Engine) is a highly optimized software library for face and object detection and fine analysis.
Robert J. Wierzbicki was visiting Professor at the College of Dunaujvaros in Hungary. Prof. Wierzbicki was teaching in the classes of Gábor Klucsik, lecturer in Multimedia at the College. Topics of interests were interactive storytelling, digital art and converged media. Also, collaboration and teacher's exchange within the Erasmus Programme were discussed.
Sunday
22
Aug 2010
4th Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards Competition
6th – 8th October 2010, Tampere, Finland
The Ubimedia competition seeks to broaden our understanding of where and how ubiquitous media will influence our future life. The competeition is looking for disruptive artistic visions as well as clever near-to-market solutions off the beaten tracks! This includes any range of innovative ubimedia, pervasive, or ambient products and services. The Ubimedia Award is a highly interdisciplinary competition and we invite Designers, Computer Scientists, Artists, Economists and Engineers to take a stand on the following questions with their entries:
What is the particular aesthetic experience opened up by the rise of ubiquitous and ambient media?
What constitutes the specific intelligence that drives future media environments?
How will location- and context-aware media services change our social life?
How will our future lives look like in the era of ubiquitous computation, and how can society benefit from these advanced technologies?
Valid competition entries include:
Pervasive and ubiquitous games
Ambient installations
Artistic works related to ubiquitous media and computation
Business models and management strategies
Ambient and ubiquitous media technology
Ubiquitous and ambient media services, devices, and environments
Context aware, sensing, and interfaces for ubiquitous computation
Ergonomics, human-computer interaction designs, and product prototypes
Software, hardware and middleware framework demonstrations
Ambient television
etc.
Prof. Wierzbicki is member of the Jury panel for the competition.
Friday
30
Jul 2010
EVA is Coming! ;)
The EU has accepted the proposal EVA (European Virtual Academy) submitted for the Erasmus Programme under the Lifelong Learning Programme Call for Proposals Call EAC/41/09 (2009/C 247/09) and selected the project for the EU co-financing.
EVA is a collaboration project among the following learning institutions:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
University of Applied Sciences Tampere, Finland
University of Applied Sciences Mittweida, Germany
Sapientia Hungarian University of Transilvania, Cluj-Napoka, Romania
The Virtual Academy is a learning environment that will stimulate the skills of the current generation of students. Young people are increasingly rooted in the visual culture, based on video games, learning through the Internet, online tutorials, multimedia, etc. The new vision of teaching will be implemented in all the participating countries to start. The project is designed to provide a platform later to be transferred to all interested European higher education institutions.
The functionality of visual communication has been underestimated as photography and cartoons claimed artistic autonomy rather than being submissive to the explicit message to be conveyed. Commercials and pervasive messages in ideological campaigns are early adopters of visuals. Since 3D image spaces in Virtual Reality have been introduced it is a must to meet between scientific researchers, art directors, photographers and illustrators.
"Creative industries" is the epitome for critical applications like social software, gaming and cultural documentaries. This IADIS VC conference opens the landscape for those who bring overlooked messages from theory and practice and those who have the intuition that the visual languages prevail in attitudinal and affective communication. Multi cultural projects demand a high of sophistication in semiotic awareness. Especially this aspect is a fast-growing domain for communication specialists.
ABSTRACT: Our life patterns and culture increasingly find their roots in visual media: film, video games, internet and multimedia. Visual media shape the image of our world and our society, thereby being, however, somewhat detached from reality, portraying the bold and the beautiful as role models. Entertainment has become a driving force in the creation of films, television programs and the design of computer games. Education and pedagogical aspects are often neglected. Values and norms in our society seem to be continually losing importance. Our society appears to be getting poorer, both financially and intellectually. In this article we demonstrate the potential that can be found in media forms of the future in repect of education and discuss a number of aspects of reader response and aesthetic response in connection with media and violence.
Dominic Markert introduces the Ureal Engine to the students of media technology
Students of media technology (track Digital Media | Faculty of Media) were introduced by Dominic Markert to the Unreal Engine renderer. Among others the matinee was explained which allows complex camera scenes to be scripted within the Unreal GUI.
Unreal Engine 3 is a complete development framework for DirectX 10-equipped PCs,
Xbox 360® and PLAYSTATION®3, providing the vast array of core technologies,
content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game studios,
advanced visualization and simulation developers and creators of linear 3D
animated content.
Professor Artur Lugmayr from the University of Tampere, Finland, visits Mittweida
Professor Artur Lugmayr, renowned expert in the area of ambient media, visited Mittweida in March, 2010. Different topics associated with the GAMECAST project were discussed.
Prof. Lugmayr gave a lecture on Ambient Media and presented the winning projects from the Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards.
Wednesday
24
Mar 2010
Allan Dumbreck from the University of the West of Scotland presents the Master Course programmes
Allan Dumbreck, Senior Lecturer and Head of Commercial Music at the University of the West of Scotland gave a presentation on the master course in Commercial Music.
Monday
6
Apr 2009
Ambient Media - a new research group at the Faculty of Media at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida established
Prof. Wierzbicki is head of a new research group at the Faculty of Media, University of Applied Sciences Mittweida. The research focus of the new group is put on the Ambient Media, interactive TV and creative digital content.
EVA Online Courses
Proc. FGIT 2011 - Future Generation Information Technology Conference, Jeju Island, Korea
New Course of Study: "Media Information Technology and Interactive Entertainment"
