This opens a world of opportunities for analysing the use of technology in inclusive learning environments that take into account the characteristics and expectations of different kinds of users and different kinds of learning experiences, whether formal or informal, individual or cooperative, lifelong or short term.

The following tutorials will be offered at IEEE ICALT 2008:

• Pervasive Virtual Instructors in Mixed Reality
  
  (Jayfus T. Doswell)
  
  Instructors around the world face challenges in delivering adequate instruction because of the difficulty in finding time to prepare instructional materials. Likewise, learners often experience challenges in learning concepts and/or procedural tasks in a timely manner; this can be dependent upon various instruction methods.
  The IEEE Virtual Instructor Pilot Research Group (VIPRG) investigates solutions to these problems by developing and evaluating how 'virtual instructors' can personalize and improve instruction and provide learners with a tool to increase their knowledge while decreasing learning time in various knowledge domains.
  This tutorial will provide attendees with an understanding of how to design artificial intelligent and embodied/non-embodied virtual instructors (based on the IEEE VIPRG framework) with capabilities to autonomously deliver pedagogically effective instruction in mixed reality (e.g., real-world, virtual reality, augmented reality, augmented virtuality, etc.) environments. Concepts will be applied to learners in both formal and informal learning environments.
• Visual approaches for the creation and deployment of learning designs
  
  (Ernie Ghiglione, Dai Griffith, Abelardo Pardo, Juan Manuel Dodero)
  
  Current developments in learning-design authoring tools stress the use of visual approaches for the definition of ready-to-run collections of collaborative learning activities. Probably the most successful visual editing approach of learning activities has been the LAMS environment, which has recently been released in the 2.0 version.
  Also, new version of RELOAD is about to be released, including visual editing facilities for units of learning. This tutorial will provide attendees with capabilities to use the LAMS 2.0 environment and RELOAD to create a learning design. The opportunity will also be used to evaluate, converge, and search for synergies between the approaches of both authoring tools.
• Design Principles of Educational Mobile Websites
  
  (Woochun Jun )
  
  The purpose of the tutorial is to address broad issues in design principles of educational mobile websites. The tutorial has two main parts: basic design theories and user-interface design. In the former, the main design principles for mobile website design will be introduced. For each design theory, the key ideas will be discussed and some examples given.
  
  The latter topic will focus on message management, display management, interactivity, and motivation issues. Message management addresses sentence structures and link management issues. In display management, text and graphic design issues will be discussed. In the interactivity discussion, providing interactivity in terms of student-student, student-contents, and student-teacher relationships will be addressed.
  
  In the motivation section issues, the basic motivation-supporting model called Keller-Burkman's design model will be introduced. Like interactivity, various motivation-supporting principles are presented in terms of student-student, student-pa, and the student-teacher relationship.
• Problem-based learning online
  
  (Madhumita Bhattacharya and Timo Portimojärvi)
  
  This tutorial provides an opportunity to explore the possibilities of combining problem-based learning with online learning technology. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a challenging approach to curriculum, learning practices, and assessment.
  
  The main idea behind this tutorial is to gather the practitioners and researchers in order to explore and discuss recent technologies such as desktop conferencing, blogging, and other social media, as well as their suitability for PBL online. By the end of the session, participants will be able to evaluate the concept and the process of PBL against their own curriculum and practices.
  
  They will have the experience of using the various available tools and technologies for conducting PBLO, and they will be exposed to ideas and tools that will enable them to conduct PBLO in their own courses.