Welcome to the Smart Mobile Interactive Learning Environments (SMILE) Laboratory at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. The mission of the SMILE lab is to provide high quality Research, Development and Training in the area of Mobile Learning.
You are welcome to contact us and collaborate with us.
The use of devices and networks to support various types of learners and to operate various educational activities in any environment. In anytime anywhere mobile learning, a learner should be able to efficiently perform an educational activity possibly cooperating and/or collaborating with others using multiple devices and networks as s/he moves in an environment.
We address real-life challenges in education (learning, teaching, training, assessment) using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We tackle problems such as the need for everywhere and anytime continuous learning, disconnection between education and work, massive numbers of learners, uninterested and unmotivated learners, high dropout rates in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), low skilled workforce, unemployment, digital divide, etc.
We incorporate social networking, urban computing and serious games into course design and delivery of a hands-on, real-world approach to education. Our research and development is focused on: i) measuring and identifying the context, and ii) based on this estimated context, providing appropriate personalized recommendations and feedback (visualizations, cognitive, affective, motivational) to the learner.
We are devoted to improving education, learning and assessment in schools (from primary and middle school to university) and workplaces (vocational, informal, non-formal, continuing, lifelong education) using ICT. We aim at making the teaching, training and learning more effective, useful, interesting and enjoyable using ICT.