The Fourth International Conference on Internet and Web Applications and Services (ICIW 2009)

Abstract

The Fourth International Conference on Internet and Web Applications and Services (ICIW 2009) held between May 24-28, 2009 in Venice/Mestre, Italy, covered the complementary aspects related to designing and deploying of applications based on IP&Web techniques and mechanisms. <br/> ICIW 2009 comprised five complementary tracks. They focused on Web technologies, design and development of Web-based applications, and interactions of these applications with other types of systems. Management aspects related to these applications and challenges on specialized domains were aided at too. Evaluation techniques and standard position on different aspects were part of the agenda. <br/> ICIW 2009 also featured the following tracks: <br/> • SLAECE - Social and Legal Aspects under Emerging Computing Environments • VEWAeL - Virtual Environments and Web Applications for e-Learning <br/> We take here the opportunity to warmly thank all the members of the ICIW 2009 Technical Program Committee as well as the numerous reviewers. The creation of such a broad and high quality conference program would not have been possible without their involvement. We also kindly thank all the authors that dedicated much of their time and efforts to contribute to ICIW 2009. We truly believe that, thanks to all these efforts, the final conference program consisted of top quality contributions. <br/> This event could also not have been a reality without the support of many individuals, organizations, and sponsors. We are grateful to the members of the ICIW 2009 organizing committee for their help in handling the logistics and for their work to make this professional meeting a success. <br/> We hope that ICIW 2009 was a successful international forum for the exchange of ideas and results between academia and industry and for the promotion of progress in Internet and Web applications and services research. <br/> We are convinced that the participants found the event useful and communications very open. <br/> We also hope the attendees enjoyed the beautiful surroundings of Venice/Mestre, Italy. <br/> The concept of optimal best practice, reflecting the paradigm of positive psychology, gained extensive research interests from scholars in the fields of Psychology and Education. Optimal best practice, from the perspective of academia, is concerned with the maximization of a person's cognitive competence in a specific domain of academic learning. Achieving optimal best practice, in this sense, requires the 'activation and enactment' of the process of optimization. In recent years, with the emergence of the study of positive psychology, educators and researchers have explored and focused on the development of different theoretical and methodological conceptualizations that could explain a experience of optimal best. Our significant theoretical and empirical contributions, which consisted of research development in Australia, Malaysia, and Taiwan, have involved the proposition of the Framework of Achievement Bests. <br/> The Framework of Achievement Bests (Ngu & Phan, 2018), recently introduced, emphasizes a person's optimal best practice in daily settings. Best practice encompasses three major components: acquired knowledge, personal experience, and personal functioning. The coining of this term 'best practice,' in particular, focuses on different levels of best practice that may exist on a continuum, for example: realistic achievement best and optimal achievement best. This book chapter, in line with the scope of progressive education, explores in detail the concept of optimal best practice, situated within the context of secondary school mathematics learning. In particular, reflecting our recent research development, we provide a complex methodological conceptualization for understanding of optimal best practice, which takes into account cognitive load imposition.