C. Stephanidis (Ed.): Posters, Part II, HCII 2011, CCIS 174, pp. 504–508, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 Study-Buddy: Improving the Learning Process through Technology-Augmented Studying Environments George Margetis 1 , Stavroula Ntoa 1 , Maria Bouhli 1 , and Constantine Stephanidis 1,2 1 Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Institute of Computer Science, N. Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, GR-700 13 Heraklion, Crete, Greece 2 University of Crete, Department of Computer Science, Greece {gmarget,stant,bouhli,cs}@ics.forth.gr Abstract. Taking into account the potential of ICT in education and recogniz- ing the need for smart environments and artifacts, this paper presents Study-Buddy, a context aware system aiming to augment the learning process. The system is constituted of an intelligent reading lamp that monitors students’ interaction with reading material and provides appropriate information through any near computational device (e.g., tablet, notebook, etc.). Study-Buddy is accompanied by LexiMedia, an educational software targeted to language learning. Keywords: ambient intelligence, augmented studying, education. 1 Introduction Ambient Intelligence is an emerging discipline that brings intelligence to everyday environments [1], addressing users’ needs in daily activities. While AmI technologies are gradually gaining focus both in the research community and the industry, tradi- tional ICT technologies have already established their usefulness in several everyday life domains, including education. Taking into account the potential of ICT in assisting the educational process and recognizing the need for smart environments and artifacts, this paper presents Study- Buddy, a system aiming to provide seamless, context-aware support to students, by monitoring their interactions with reading material and presenting related information in a nearby screen. As a result, students can retrieve information supplementary to the reading material in order to better understand specific concepts or terms. In the con- text of this work, an educational application targeted to language learning has been developed as a proof of concept of the Study-Buddy system. 2 Related Work The idea of digitally augmenting physical paper has been an exciting one since the early 90’s. DigitalDesk [2] and its successor EnhancedDesk [3] were two of the pioneering digital paper augmentation applications that set up the base for further