The flow experience, or flow, is an optimal state of experience, which is characterized by intense concentration, deep involvement, and high enjoyment. During flow, time passes quickly, the sense of the self as a social actor is lost, and action and awareness merge. According to flow theory, flow occurs when (1) perceived challenges and existing skills match, and (2) there are clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about the progress being made, while engaged in activities. Moreover, flow theory as a model of optimal human development postulates that through the flow experience, people develop more complex skills by stretching existing ones. In this paper, we overview flow theory and discuss how the flow experience can facilitate effective e-Learning for the students.

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In earlier stages of language learning and training, pictures are used to facilitate understanding, especially of word meanings. Pictures in e-learning exercises so far are mostly image files embedded by the developers into a text document or a web page. The icon-fonts proposed by Gros are promising alternatives in that end-users can enter orthographic inputs and get icon images on a text document, and thus can offer a basis for full-fledged language learning including writing and reading. The icon-fonts have been implemented on two distinct methods: on the Open-Type technology and via the AutoCorrect function of Word and OpenOffice Writer. Their advantages and disadvantages are discussed, and exercises for language learning and training are constructed with both methods.

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We developed Real-Time HD(High Definition)-based WEB distance learning system for many kinds of students such as working students, old-age student etc that have a strong hope to realize the system that can satisfy such requirements students can attend in seminars and lectures at not only classroom but also any place. The system employs SMV2 that is based on H264 protocol (MPEG4) and multi-path scheme on internet. As a result, it realizes not only interactive lecture but also to distribute motion pictures of lecture and supported materials to non-limited number of personal computers located at home and/or business office. This paper describes the system, and reports the effectiveness of the system.

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This paper describes ICT-driven FD for the distance education by achieving the stability of the distance learning system and by applying the active learning to the students at the remote classroom. Organizational support, its process, and the tools to enable the interaction with the students at the remote classroom are revealed to be important as well as the maturity of the distance learning system. Finally the ICT-related support coupled with FD is the key success factor for the FD in the distance education.

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Since a course management system consists of the tools which faculty and students are repeatedly using the same function, it should be designed by a particular methodology to avoid users from unnecessary operations. To conduct a quantitative analysis for the user interface of the Web based course management system, we defined mouse operation as a criterion factor and developed a tool to trace the mouse movement on the PC display. This paper proposes how to improve the user interface in perspective from the optimization of process, selection of design components to form the user interface, and its layout. Finally the quantitative result is shown to apply this idea for designing the user interface.

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Some previous research have been conducted on CSCL incorporating peer evaluation. Regardless of this, there seems to hardly exist pieces of literature proposing a concrete procedure for such evaluation. The only exception is “peer evaluation function” of workshop module in Moodle. Its mechanism, however, is not precise enough to solve the problems previously mentioned. In this research, the authors aim to develop a module on Moodle which realizes reasonable peer evaluation among learners and also synthetic evaluation with learners’ study logs, with the aid of AHP technique.

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In order to facilitate the education by Project Based Learning (PBL) method, it is very important for the instructors to share the information about the activities of all the students. It is, however, difficult for the instructor to attend every team meeting and take care of all the students individually, and it is much more important to keep track of the activities of the students in teams. Hence, we have developed a PBL facilitation system which visualizes the projects and provides web based tools to help students work collaboratively. In this paper, we report on a PBL course that uses the above system, and investigate its usefulness.

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CMS (Course/Contents Management System) is a very useful platform of online cooperative learning and communication in language education. But, though on the Internet, it does nothing but control learners within itself and, in other words, merely enclose them from outside. To begin a new approach to resolve this dilemma, the present writer utilizes social web services, mostly Google and SNS. The former enable the class to share online documents synchronously, serving as a real time wiki. The latter has students'writings revised and improved by correction and comments from online anonymous peers. These activities can meet various needs of learning communities based on the long tail theory, partially removing the drawback of CMS above. As a result, students'motivation seems to be enhanced and have their peer activities stimulated. An integrative balance between such web services and CMS will be taken into consideration in this paper.

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