12,748 research outputs found
Group project work from the outset: an in-depth teaching experience report
This article is an extended version of a paper that was submitted to 24th IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, Honolulu, May 2011CONTEXT - we redesigned our undergraduate computing programmes to address problems of motivation and outdated content.
METHOD - the primary vehicle for the new curriculum was the group project which formed a central spine for the entire degree right from the first year.
RESULTS - so far this programme has been successfully run once. Failures, drop outs and students required to retake modules have been halved (from an average of 21.6% from the previous 4 years to 9.5%) and students obtaining the top two grades have increased from 25.2% to 38.9%.
CONCLUSIONS - whilst we cannot be certain that all improvement is due to the group projects informally the change has been well received, however, we are looking for areas to improve including the possibility of more structured support for student metacognitive awareness
Learning to communicate computationally with Flip: a bi-modal programming language for game creation
Teaching basic computational concepts and skills to school children is currently a curricular focus in many countries. Running parallel to this trend are advances in programming environments and teaching methods which aim to make computer science more accessible, and more motivating. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of Flip, a programming language that aims to help 11–15 year olds develop computational skills through creating their own 3D role-playing games. Flip has two main components: 1) a visual language (based on an interlocking blocks design common to many current visual languages), and 2) a dynamically updating natural language version of the script under creation. This programming-language/natural-language pairing is a unique feature of Flip, designed to allow learners to draw upon their familiarity with natural language to “decode the code”. Flip aims to support young people in developing an understanding of computational concepts as well as the skills to use and communicate these concepts effectively. This paper investigates the extent to which Flip can be used by young people to create working scripts, and examines improvements in their expression of computational rules and concepts after using the tool. We provide an overview of the design and implementation of Flip before describing an evaluation study carried out with 12–13 year olds in a naturalistic setting. Over the course of 8 weeks, the majority of students were able to use Flip to write small programs to bring about interactive behaviours in the games they created. Furthermore, there was a significant improvement in their computational communication after using Flip (as measured by a pre/post-test). An additional finding was that girls wrote more, and more complex, scripts than did boys, and there was a trend for girls to show greater learning gains relative to the boys
Segmental stabilizing exercises and low back pain: What is the evidence?
Study design: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of segmental stabilizing exercises for
acute, subacute and chronic low back pain with regard to pain, recurrence of pain,
disability and return to work.
Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, PEDro
and article reference lists were searched from 1988 onward. Randomized controlled
trials with segmental stabilizing exercises for adult low back pain patients were
included. Four comparisons were foreseen: (1) effectiveness of segmental stabilizing
exercises versus treatment by general practitioner (GP); (2) effectiveness of
segmental stabilizing exercises versus other physiotherapy treatment; (3)
effectiveness of segmental stabilizing exercises combined with other physiotherapy
treatment versus treatment by GP and (4) effectiveness of segmental stabilizing
exercises combined with other physiotherapy treatment versus other physiotherapy
treatment.
Results: Seven trials were included. For acute low back pain, segmental stabilizing
exercises are equally effective in reducing short-term disability and pain and more
effective in reducing long-term recurrence of low back pain than treatment by GP.
For chronic low back pain, segmental stabilizing exercises are, in the short and long
term, more effective than GP treatment and may be as effective as other
physiotherapy treatments in reducing disability and pain. There is limited evidence
that segmental stabilizing exercises additional to other physiotherapy treatment are
equally effective for pain and more effective concerning disability than other
physiotherapy treatments alone. There is no evidence concerning subacute low back
pain.
Conclusion: For low back pain, segmental stabilizing exercises are more effective
than treatment by GP but they are not more effective than other physiotherapy
interventions
HILT : High-Level Thesaurus Project. Phase IV and Embedding Project Extension : Final Report
Ensuring that Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) users of the JISC IE can find appropriate learning, research and information resources by subject search and browse in an environment where most national and institutional service providers - usually for very good local reasons - use different subject schemes to describe their resources is a major challenge facing the JISC domain (and, indeed, other domains beyond JISC). Encouraging the use of standard terminologies in some services (institutional repositories, for example) is a related challenge. Under the auspices of the HILT project, JISC has been investigating mechanisms to assist the community with this problem through a JISC Shared Infrastructure Service that would help optimise the value obtained from expenditure on content and services by facilitating subject-search-based resource sharing to benefit users in the learning and research communities. The project has been through a number of phases, with work from earlier phases reported, both in published work elsewhere, and in project reports (see the project website: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/). HILT Phase IV had two elements - the core project, whose focus was 'to research, investigate and develop pilot solutions for problems pertaining to cross-searching multi-subject scheme information environments, as well as providing a variety of other terminological searching aids', and a short extension to encompass the pilot embedding of routines to interact with HILT M2M services in the user interfaces of various information services serving the JISC community. Both elements contributed to the developments summarised in this report
Recent trends, technical concepts and components of computer-assisted orthopedic surgery systems: A comprehensive review
Computer-assisted orthopedic surgery (CAOS) systems have become one of the most important and challenging types of system in clinical orthopedics, as they enable precise treatment of musculoskeletal diseases, employing modern clinical navigation systems and surgical tools. This paper brings a comprehensive review of recent trends and possibilities of CAOS systems. There are three types of the surgical planning systems, including: systems based on the volumetric images (computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasound images), further systems utilize either 2D or 3D fluoroscopic images, and the last one utilizes the kinetic information about the joints and morphological information about the target bones. This complex review is focused on three fundamental aspects of CAOS systems: their essential components, types of CAOS systems, and mechanical tools used in CAOS systems. In this review, we also outline the possibilities for using ultrasound computer-assisted orthopedic surgery (UCAOS) systems as an alternative to conventionally used CAOS systems.Web of Science1923art. no. 519
An IMS-Learning Design Editor for a Higher Education Blended Learning Scenario
The IMS-Learning Design has been developed to
support the creation of reusable and pedagogically
neutral learning scenarios and content. Although it is
especially suitable for eLearning, there is a lot of
interest on using it in higher education blended
learning scenarios. However there are some related
key issues which must be managed such as cultural
bias and the need for expensive human resources to
design and develop specification compliant units of
learning. They can be addressed by the design of
ad-hoc editors supporting concrete learning design
units of learning. We suggest some solutions to
overcome these limitations, based on our experience
designing the user interface of an IMS-LD compliant
editor, GDUS+. We also explain our user centering
approach, and give some conclusions about the
benefits of using IMS-LD
Recommended from our members
From print to Web: issues in re-purposing for an Open Resources Repository
The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has gained rapid support for its goals of universal access to education. The UK Open University's contribution is OpenLearn, a project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation which, over the next two years, aims to re-purpose several thousand study-hours of existing learning materials for online delivery.
The UK Open University has gained a hard-won reputation for the quality of its learning materials and integrated Supported Open Learning model. However, these materials are, as a rule, developed within the framework of long courses that typically require between 300 and 600 hours of study. Furthermore, many of the courses are 'interdisciplinary' in that they are developed by teams that include members associated with different faculties. The courses are, therefore, generally structured in terms of themes that run throughout the course and may span a variety of academic disciplines. Also, despite the breadth of knowledge brought into play when a course is developed, the courses normally reflect pedagogical and disciplinary assumptions and views that are prevalent in the UK.
Based on the authors' experience of the OpenLearn project, this paper explores some of the key issues encountered when re-purposing resources. These issues include how to provide material not supported by tutorial guidance, the suitability of media components for conversion and the inter-relationship between the multimedia components. The paper will also briefly discuss the requirements for evaluation of the re-purposing process. The issues raised are potentially of relevance to other re-purposing initiatives
Softer perspectives on enhancing the patient experience using IS/IT
Purpose – This paper aims to argue that the implementation of the Choose and Book system has failed due to the inability of project sponsors to appreciate the complex and far-reaching softer implications of the implementation, especially in a complex organisation such as the NHS, which has multifarious stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors use practice-oriented research to try and isolate key parameters. These parameters are compared with existing conventional thinking in a number of focused areas.
Findings – Like many previous NHS initiatives, the focus of this system is in its obvious link to patients. However we find that although this project has cultural, social and organisational implications, programme managers and champions of the Connecting for Health programme emphasised the technical domains to IS/IT adoption.
Research limitations/implications – This paper has been written in advance of a fully implemented Choose and Book system.
Practical implications – The paper requests that more attention be paid to the softer side of IS/IT delivery, implementation, introduction and adoption.
Originality/value – The paper shows that patient experience within the UK healthcare sector is still well below what is desired
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