Regarding some of the topics Lisa proposed, I'll address them in terms
of student feedback received in English and Japanese when I taught an
intensive graduate course on online education to English pedagogy majors
at the University of Tsukuba.

* When and how does fun enhance learning, motivation, engagement, and
retention?

Students reported that my humor helped create a very frank atmosphere.
Fun also relieves the usual inhibitions that act as an "affective filter"
to learning acquisition and promotes optimal intrinsic motivation.

* Do notions of fun differ across cultures and generations and how does this
impact learning?

Japanese humor tends to be self-deprecating or slapstick. No one loses
friends by acting clueless. A speech that started with a joke would be
considered odd, so there's also a cultural difference in what places
or occasions humor would be acceptable. The graduate students found their
regular professors, a generation older than themselves, stuffy and remote
(talk about distance education), so the younger generation seems more
receptive to both humor and frankness.

* How can the selection and use of eLearning technologies increase fun?

Audioconferences with mentors abroad were most exciting and motivating to
the graduate students, offering immediacy, authenticity, and opening the
usually hermetically sealed Japanese classroom to the world.

Collegially, Steve McCarty, Professor, Osaka Jogakuin College, Japan
President, World Association for Online Education (WAOE)
Online library: http://www.waoe.org/steve/epublist.html