Visual Literacy and New Technologies

This body of research addresses the connection between arts, identity and new technology, and investigates the impact of images on adolescent identities, the relationship between online modes of communication and cyber-bullying, the increasing visualization of information and explores the way drawing and critical analysis of imagery develops visual literacy. Commissioned by Adobe Systems Pty Ltd, Australia (2003) to compile the Visual Literacy White Paper, Bamford’s report defines visual literacy and highlights its importance in the learning of such skill as problem solving and critical thinking. Providing strategies to promote visual literacy and emphasizing the role of technology in visual communication, this report has become a major reference for policy on visual literacy and cyber-bullying in the UK, USA and Asia

QuAC : Question Answering in Context

We present QuAC, a dataset for Question Answering in Context that contains 14K information-seeking QA dialogs (100K questions in total). The dialogs involve two crowd workers: (1) a student who poses a sequence of freeform questions to learn as much as possible about a hidden Wikipedia text, and (2) a teacher who answers the questions by providing short excerpts from the text. QuAC introduces challenges not found in existing machine comprehension datasets: its questions are often more open-ended, unanswerable, or only meaningful within the dialog context, as we show in a detailed qualitative evaluation. We also report results for a number of reference models, including a recently state-of-the-art reading comprehension architecture extended to model dialog context. Our best model underperforms humans by 20 F1, suggesting that there is significant room for future work on this data. Dataset, baseline, and leaderboard available at http://quac.ai.Comment: EMNLP Camera Read

The Representation of Cultural Content in Global Elementary Coursebook

This study was to find out the types of cultural content source found in the reading and listening texts presented in Global elementary coursebook (2012) and the similarities and differences of the types of cultural content source found in those texts. The data were analyzed using the theory of types of cultural content source proposed by Matsuda (2012). The findings of this study showed that the reading texts met 54.9% of global culture, 35.3% of target culture, and 9.8% of local culture while the listening texts met 72.5% of global culture, 25% of target culture, and 2.5% of local culture. All in all, as proposed by Matsuda (2012), a good coursebook is the one that has multiple sources of cultural content; and Global elementary coursebook fulfills this criterion as it has three types of cultural content source

“The feeling of fear was not from my student, but from myself”: A pre-service teacher’s shift from traditional to problem-posing second language pedagogy in a Mexican youth prison

This era of globalization, capitalism, and economic progress has given rise to mass incarceration, as a considerable number of youths in developing and developed countries live behind bars in detention facilities without appropriate educational support. Educators in these facilities deposit knowledge, through traditional pedagogical approaches, under systemic oppression and surveillance deemed necessary for safety and security. This study investigated implementations of Freire’s (2000) problem-posing pedagogy using a participatory action research (PAR) approach through the lens of critical theory. Two of the co-authors helped develop a Freirean language teaching program in an urban youth prison in Mexico, centering student teachers’ critical self-awareness by providing them with opportunities to reflect on their identity, life experiences, and reality while teaching in prison. Through critical, autoethnographic self-reflections of a bilingual teacher candidate on her teaching practices, this study provides insights into how the teacher was impacted by the problem-posing pedagogy and how it was reflected in her transformation to a critical, loving teacher and student progress. This research embraces a humanistic approach to teaching incarcerated youth in Mexico through care and courage by supporting them as students, as well as by empowering their voices and thoughts. Building a learning community, where students and teachers create respectful human connections through dialogue and discussions on language, culture, and lived experiences, is portrayed in this research as essential

Encourage. Empowering People. Annual Report 2012

Peter Löscher, President of the Siemens Stiftung Board of Trustees, on behalf of the Board: Siemens Stiftung aims to contribute to positive changes in society with technical solutions, concrete concepts, and platforms for knowledge transfer. Cooperating with various stakeholders is a fundamental requirement for increasing the impact of its projects and anchoring them for the long term. For that reason, Siemens Stiftung seeks to cooperate with other foundations and non-governmental organizations as well as with government institutions, businesses, and the scientific community. Partnerships allow complementary approaches, skills, and resources to be bundled and sustainable programs to be developed. The previous fiscal year, in particular, delivers impressive examples of how such partnership models can increase the effectiveness of project work

Humanities in transition : liberation of knowledge in Central Asia and the potential role of the European Union

Concluding this article, the importance of the rational discourse in modern classes and local forums in contemporary Central Asia should be mentioned again. The liberation of knowledge should be a permanent part of educational initiatives in this region, which is on its long journey from one party autocratic system to the democratic pluralistic one. During this transition some few things should be central. 1. All innovations on education, including the revising role of humanities should be based on the indigenous traditions and the long history of the region including Islamic, Jadid’s tradition, but also soviet experiences in the last century (historically inherited German system). Furthermore, the modern international experiences on humanities should be not only superficially implemented from outside, but thoroughly integrated. The development of independent and creative thinking of the learners (students) should be always central for reform initiatives. 2. The revised concept of knowledge and cognitive system has to be based on new epistemology with broader perspective, including all the types of knowledge. These different types of knowledge include not just so called “rationalistic” one, which in fact often serves the interests of ruling classes, but also the experiences of all slices of societies, as well as the cross-civilization approaches, which open the way of dialog and communication with others. 3. It should be suggested to remove the dominating dichotomy type of thinking, escape Manichean dualistic concepts in order develop new bodies and research areas of humanities, based on pluralism (but not on secularism only). Communication and collaboration with the educational and research institutions of developed countries like EU and US would be essential for achievement of the desired goals and implementation of projects. During a conference on higher education in developing countries with focus on Muslim regions organised by the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilization AKU ISMC in February - March 2005 in London one participant pointed out the importance of mentioning the indigenous Islamic educational heritage like memorization in Central Asian education. Regarding this remark, the questions arises, whether the memorization is the only real indigenous Islamic heritage in education. In this case what is the role of memorization in Muslim philosophy, arts, sciences, other creative professions? Was memorization essential for such Muslim scholars and encyclopaedists from the10th to the15th centuries like Avicenna, Abu Raikhan Biruni, Nasiriddin Tusi and Mirzo Ulughbek, artists like Kamaliddin Behzod or esoteric teachers such as Sufis like Jalaliddin Rumi etc.? Memorizing was not the only learning method in Muslim culture. According to his autobiography, Avicenna read Aristotle´s ‘Metaphysics’ time, but not only for the sake of memorization, but mostly to find its adequate meaning. Every time time, when he understood the meaning of this book with help of Abu Nasr Farabi´s comments, he celebrated this event by sending charity to the people in mosque. The memorization would be essential, if one accepts Islam only as religion, but not as culture and civilization. Of course, memorization has an important role in education, but only at the beginning, in elementary and secondary schools, but not at the universities. It is a useful tool for teaching and performing of religious rituals, for poetry and other humanities, as well as for medicine (for example, the formulation of the treatments in poetic form as in Urjuza fi-t-tib,Ibn Sina). Memorization in Muslim culture was the way to refer to the other sources, as scholars used to cite by memory, not by direct copying of the sources. It is well-known fact, that humanities have played an important role in Muslim civilisations (Goodman, 2003) and they had a strong impact on other cultures, especially, western European. Many scholars agree with the statement, that Muslim humanistic traditions was transformed by Europeans and served as one of the sources of humanism and renaissance. Recent scientific works on humanities have redefined the disciplinary organization of teaching and research and have introduced wider variety and new areas, such as gender or minoritie issues, studies of cultural diversities etc. However, many American scholars nowadays are worrying about the decline of humanistic research (Kernan, 1997) and about the shift of curriculum from university to “multiversity” and to “demoversity”. It is necessary to analyse, rethink and spread the positive experiences of Jadids and AKHP, as well as to motivate and encourage humanities teachers for innovations. Central Asian scientists in humanities have wide field for new research area. There are so many unknown (unthought) slices of culture (formal, informal), which never have become the object of research because of the political correctness, ideology, religious, ethnics or gender superstitions. Central Asian universities need to develop new research programs in humanities, similar to the well-known works by Martha C. Nussbaum (2000, 2004), Peter N. Stearns (1993) and others in USA. However, these kinds of works depend on investments, which cannot be provided by the current central state budget due to corruption, turbulent financial crisis and economic stagnation. Regarding this issue, one should think about new projects for collaboration and integration with EU. The courses in humanities with new approaches in arts, literature, sociology, philosophy, religions, political sciences, research in gender, cultural, religious and minorities issues, as well as analysis of such human behaviour like disgust, shame or hatred are important for liberation of thinking process in order to develop new generation of leaders in the region. Only the modern values, based on indigenous roots can help to build new and good society. However, this should not be implemented artificially. Currently several educational programs organised by EU for Central Asian countries, like Tempus, Erasmus Mundus etc. are working in the region. Last years the majority of Central Asian countries joined Bologna-process of education. The dialog between higher education institutions is important and the communicative ethics (the notion of J. Habermas) play a central role in this exchange. More effective support in form of scholarships, research programs, training projects for teachers and the students will have a very positive influence on Central Asia with regard to the broader mutual understanding and democracy promotion

The long and winding road ...

The long and winding road is a metaphor for a journey, often used to describe life journeys and the challenges encountered. The metaphor was used for the title of my keynote to refer both to the journey towards the current position of virtual exchange in education policy \u2013 but also the long road ahead. This paper aims to explore the emergence of virtual exchange in educational policy and how it has been adopted by non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and policy makers to address geo- and socio-political tensions. Though still a relatively new field, in recent years there have been some important developments in terms of policy statements and public investments in virtual exchange. The paper starts by looking at the current state-of-the-art in terms of virtual exchange in education policy and initiatives in Europe. Then, using an approach based on \u2018episode studies\u2019 from the policy literature, the paper explores the main virtual exchange schemes and initiatives that have drawn the attention of European policy makers. The paper closes by looking at some of the lessons we have learnt from research on the practice of virtual exchange, and how this can inform us as we face the long road ahead of us. The focus of this paper is on the European context not because I assume it to be the most important or influential, but rather because it is the one I know best, since it is the context in which I have been workin

Peer reviews: What can we learn from our students?

This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate unit for pre-service teachers. In this unit students learn to use information technologies as part of their future teaching practice. The unit aims to foster graduates who become life-long reflective educators by providing opportunities to explore and reflect on how they might use technology in authentic learning situations. Whilst peer review is an appropriate activity for supporting critical thinking and reflective practice in this kind of unit, it requires a number of decisions to be made in relation to student preparation and support, implementation strategy, and technological infrastructure to make it work in specific contexts. Much research has been conducted in recent years to inform educators in making these decisions. However, there are still gaps in the research, particularly in how to improve the quality and consistency of feedback that students give to each other in their feedback. This paper describes the experiences of implementing an online peer review system aiming to improve quality and consistency of feedback. This exploration has revealed that we can learn much about ways to improve our teaching practices by giving students an opportunity to review each other’s work and give each other feedback

New Frontiers of Social Investment: Learning from the InterCement Experience

This is a case study done by the Dom Cabral Foundation evaluating the presence of Camargo Corrêa Institute programs and InterCement company Camargo Corrêa Group, in the municipality of Pedro Leopoldo (MG)

Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata

“Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata” The staged sacred and social dances of the Afro-Cuban community were chosen to represent the new “revolutionary identity” of Cuba. Maya J. Berry writes about this phenomenon in her essay, “From ‘Ritual’ to ‘Repertory’: Dancing to the Time of the Nation” in the Afro-Hispanic Review. This paper builds on that work. First, it defines a bodily archives a performed identity. Constructed by the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba (CFN), Compania Raices Profundas, Cutumba and Ballet Folklorico Afro-Cubano, this archives created the revolutionary identity. Through these dance companies\u27 methods of “folklorization,” a “classical-folkore” repertory and training was created. Second, this paper seeks to understand the ways this “classical-folklore” has been exported from Cuba and influenced the Diaspora dance movement in the United States. An example of its export takes place in the “Explorations in Afro-Cuban Drum and Dance” workshop which takes place in Arcata, California perpetuates the classical Afro-Cuban training outside of Cuba and is central to this study of Popular dance