Abstract
This paper, referring to a work in progress, describes functional elements of the user interface of a Virtual World that may provide an important contribution to the process by which primary teachers and pupils collaborate in negotiating spatial configurations of educational spaces (classroom, playground, set for a theatre play, etc.). We have observed this process and some of its inherent difficulties and identified requirements or the functional elements of the interface. Finally, we reflect about factors impacting children's feelings of lack of authorship and ownership of spatial configurations resulting from collaboration and how a computer system may help in this regard. This Virtual World is therefore configured to be applied in educational contexts where curricular models reflect the new childhood culture where children have an active role in the spaces where they spend most of their time, as schools that adopt the Portuguese Modern School Movement pedagogical model.

Abstract
In this paper, it is presented a study concerning about the use of the three-dimensional virtual world Second Life (SL) to visualize and contextualize the learning of computer programming. SL allows students to use avatars to create 3D objects and program their behaviours, process data, and interact with external servers, using Linden Scripting Language (LSL), a language with C-like syntax and a state machine. Scripts can execute concurrently, and several students can simultaneously work over the same object and/or script. Through action research, we explore and analyse the potential of SL for teaching-learning introductory computer programming in computer science undergraduate courses. We believe this virtual environment has potential to help students, since it presents an immediately visual feedback of the program execution.

Abstract
Nowadays there are many types of tools for the optimization of organizational information systems. In the context of these tools, we have systems like e-mail, workflow, wikis, among many others. Despite the fact that, for the planning and designing of conventional information systems, there are many techniques that enable the representation of the elements of those systems and the relationships between them, as for what collaborative systems are concerned, we cannot find specification techniques that allow the representation of the existing degrees/levels of interaction. That is a problem because it hinders the proper planning regarding the choice of this kind of systems. In this paper is proposed a matrix-representation technique, which allows the specification of degrees/levels of interaction between organizational entities and the classification of processes according to the time space taxonomy. In a information systems planning project, these technique will be useful for choosing the correct classes of cooperative tools that should be included in final system solutions.

Abstract
With the goal of lessening barriers to the learning of advanced programming techniques, we put into place a trial which required students to get involved with online communities of programmers. Using a course assignment on software architecture styles, students had study a problem, find basis for a tentative approach, and discuss it online with programmers. The expectation was that students would find motivation for their studies from both the contact with communities of programmers, and from having to study and reflect upon their problem well enough to be able to draw the interest of members of those communities. We present the strategy we used, the developments and outcomes, and ideas for further application of this approach. © 2012 IEEE.

Abstract
This paper describes an MPEG-2 distributed studio architecture that was proposed for the ATLANTIC (Advanced Television at Low bit rates And Networked Transmission over Integrated Communications systems) Project. This is one of the European Projects approved in the ACTS (Advanced Communication Technologies and Services) programme. The main goals of this distributed studio are to develop a system that will provide functionality for the production and distribution of TV programmes in an MPEG-2 format, with all the equipment interconnected by an ATM LAN. The architecture of the studio is compliant with the specifications issued by the Digital Audio-Visual Council (DAVIC).

Abstract
This paper presents two contributions: (i) a system architecture capable of staging platform-independent choreographies within different virtual worlds, and (ii) an ontology-based solution for capturing and representing multi-user choreographies with reduced time/effort. We argue that choreographies for virtual worlds should be clearly separated from the technical characteristics of their execution in virtual world technological platforms. Due to the heterogeneity of the various virtual worlds and their domain requirements, we propose exploiting the modularity, generality, and granularity dimensions of ontologies to simplify and empower the choreography modeling capabilities. Instead of a unique ontology, several ontologies with different levels of generality and granularity can be progressively combined to support the modeling requirements of a given choreography. Because these ontologies are aligned with the ontology of each specific virtual world platform, the mapping and transformation between the core ontology is simplified and automated, thus reducing the development and time-to-market.