Learning is a goal driven social activity determined by motivational factors. To be able to efficiently gamify learning for improved student motivation and engagement, the educators have to understand the related aspects studied in games, motivational psychology and pedagogy. This will help them to identify the factors that drive and explain desired learning behaviors. This paper presents a survey of the main approaches employed in gamification and the emerging new directions in the context of the relevant motivational psychology and pedagogy. The focus is on the motivational factors that impact learning and understanding of behavior change. The purpose of the paper is two-fold: on one side, to provide analysis and guide to relevant works related to gamification along with outlining the emerging trends, and on the other, to provide foundation for evaluation and identification of the areas of possible improvements.

The world is embracing an open education model. The success of this process implies an adequate awareness, an assumption that is inconsistent with recent reports and statistical facts. Despite the major advances in recent years, Open Educational Resources (OER) are still not in the mainstream of Computer Science course development. Motivated by the need to fill this gap, this paper analyzes the evolution of the OER development and the emerging trends relevant to Computer Science education. The aim is to raise the awareness and promote a practical transition process towards an adequate model that aligns the interests of all stakeholders.

Online learning is one of the fastest growing trends in Technology- Enhanced Learning (TEL). Technology in combination with an instruction that addresses the cognitive and social processes of knowledge construction could offer more diverse and effective online learning opportunities than their face-to-face counterparts. In this review we attempt to summarize different forms and practices in K-12 online and blended learning as they appear in various regional, national and cultural contexts. The article starts with introducing some basic concepts and terminology, sums up the state of K-12 online learning around the world and ends with summarizing some trends and challenges observed in current K-12 online learning practices.

The paper presents a method for representing whole and fragmented ceramic vessels depicted as two dimensional archaeological drawings. The process of construction of such a representation is described. It includes contour extraction from a vessel cross-section, splitting the contour into inner and outer profiles and converting them to tangent representation, is described. Some initial results of experiments, using the proposed representation for solving the task of identification of ancient Greek amphorae are discussed.