The Role of Technology in the Development of PK-12 Teacher Leadership During COVID-19

In March of 2020, school buildings were closed in response to the global health crisis. Administrators and teachers alike were forced to reimagine education in order to meet the needs of students and the community, effectively over a single weekend across an ever changing landscape. Servant and distributive styles of leadership were needed to face these unprecedented, adaptive challenges and a “new normal” model of leadership rose to prominence. Because connecting in a virtual environment requires technological acuity in skill, pedagogy, and practice, effective teachers who had developed cultures of choice, creativity, and autonomy in their student-centered classrooms weathered this rapid shift more easily than others. These effective teachers modeled successful, productive communication and collaboration norms and many were called upon to share their expertise to support communication and collaboration norms and many were called upon to share their expertise to support dynamic, ever shifting pandemic conditions to identify how elements of technology interacted with teacher leadership identity and development by way of effective instruction, teacher voice, influence and reach, collegial interactions, recognition, and opportunity

Comparative Study on Agile software development methodologies

Today-s business environment is very much dynamic, and organisations are constantly changing their software requirements to adjust with new environment. They also demand for fast delivery of software products as well as for accepting changing requirements. In this aspect, traditional plan-driven developments fail to meet up these requirements. Though traditional software development methodologies, such as life cycle-based structured and object oriented approaches, continue to dominate the systems development few decades and much research has done in traditional methodologies, Agile software development brings its own set of novel challenges that must be addressed to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software. It is a set of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development process, where requirements and development evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams that allows rapid delivery of high quality software to meet customer needs and also accommodate changes in the requirements. In this paper, we significantly identify and describe the major factors, that Agile development approach improves software development process to meet the rapid changing business environments. We also provide a brief comparison of agile development methodologies with traditional systems development methodologies, and discuss current state of adopting agile methodologies. We speculate that from the need to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software, Agile software development is emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. The purpose of this paper, is to provide an in-depth understanding, the major benefits of agile development approach to software development industry, as well as provide a comparison study report of ASDM over TSDM.Comment: 25 pages, 25 images, 86 references used, with authors biographie

Improving sustainability through intelligent cargo and adaptive decision making

In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange

Is today's architecture about real space, virtual space or what?

Nowadays digital technologies and information and telecommunication technologies are widely used in every aspect of our lives. This article focuses on the digital technologies and their effect on the place-making activities. First an overview of the digital technologies for the creation, occupancy and management of a building is given. Secondly, the concepts of space and virtual space are discussed. Through these discussions, the concept of places and its virtual alternatives and recombination the use of space are described. Finally some concluding remarks are made on whether today’s place making activities about real space or it extends beyond that

The multi-functional foot in athletic movement: Extraordinary feats by our extraordinary feet

The unique architecture of the foot system provides a sensitive, multi-tensional method of communicating with the surrounding environment. Within the premise of the paper, we discuss three themes: complexity, degeneracy and bio-tensegrity. Complex structures within the foot allow the human movement system to negotiate strategies for dynamic movement during athletic endeavours. We discuss such complex structures with particular attention to properties of a bio-tensegrity system. Degeneracy within the foot structure offers a distinctive solution to the problems posed by differing terrains and uneven surfaces allowing lower extremity structures to overcome perturbation as and when it occurs. This extraordinary structure offers a significant contribution to bipedalism through presenting a robust base of support and as such, should be given more consideration when designing athletic development programmes

Leading Ways: Preliminary Research on LEF Leadership for the Public Education Network

In the early 1980s, public schools, particularly in urban areas, were struggling with changing demographics and a need for greater community commitment to public education. Small independent community-based organizations, called local education funds (LEFs), were first established at this time by community leaders to bridge the gap between communities and their schools. Twenty years later, the Public Education Network (PEN), the national organization of more than 70 of the country's LEFs, is championing LEFs' unique contributions to educational reform and planning new methods to continue to support their work. One important aspect of PEN's efforts is the development of a research agenda around LEF leadership and effectiveness.The Urban Institute has supported the emerging research on LEF leadership in several ways. First, in 2001, researchers administered and analyzed results of a survey of all current LEF executive directors. The results provided a snapshot of leadership characteristics and attitudes. Second, in 2002, researchers reviewed existing literature on LEFs and nonprofit leadership and interviewed several individuals about the founding of LEFs. Third, also in 2002, researchers conducted 60-to 90-minute telephone interviews with 10 founding directors of early LEFs.This report describes efforts by the Urban Institute and PEN to better understand and describe leadership in LEFs. The research conducted to date reveals the following common features of LEF leadership:LEF leaders create a space for sustained collaboration in communities. Founders, in particular, see their work as establishing unique and lasting forums in their communities.LEF leadership fits well in an adaptive leadership framework, in which the director educates him or herself about community values and exposes issues that must be resolved through collaborative action. Adaptive leaders mobilize others around a community consensus rather than dictate a solution. In the case of LEFs, developing key relationships contributes to successful leadership.These relationships involve community members, principals, government officials, local businesses, and other stakeholders. Because LEFs are meant to provide a permanent venue for collaboration, these relationships are not only instrumental but also ends in themselves.Although LEF leaders are extremely invested in their communities in terms of socioeconomic status and race, they are not typically representative of the communities their LEFs serve. This gap in constituency and representation leads to uncertainty about whether LEFs effectively engage all segments of the community in their work. More inclusive leadership, then, is an issue worth exploring.LEF leadership appears to involve making strategic choices in an environment of constraints. With limited human and financial resources, LEFs must attempt to achieve their goals through a complex interaction with their communities and schools. Key stages in LEF development include the shift to greater community engagement and systemic reform. However, not all LEFs follow the same developmental pattern

Diverse perceptions of smart spaces

This is the era of smart technology and of ‘smart’ as a meme, so we have run three workshops to examine the ‘smart’ meme and the exploitation of smart environments. The literature relating to smart spaces focuses primarily on technologies and their capabilities. Our three workshops demonstrated that we require a stronger user focus if we are advantageously to exploit spaces ascribed as smart: we examined the concept of smartness from a variety of perspectives, in collaboration with a broad range of contributors. We have prepared this monograph mainly to report on the third workshop, held at Bournemouth University in April 2012, but do also consider the lessons learned from all three. We conclude with a roadmap for a fourth (and final) workshop, which is intended to emphasise the overarching importance of the humans using the spac

Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector

This report highlights five key trends and how their coming together will shape the social sector of the future. Based on extensive review of existing research and in-depth interviews with thought leaders and nonprofit leaders and activists, it explores the trends (Demographic Shifts; Technological Advances; Networks Enabling Work to be Organized in New Ways; Rising Interest in Civic Engagement and Volunteerism; and Blurring of Sector Boundaries) and looks at the ways nonprofits can successfully navigate the changes. The monograph is by La Piana Consulting, a national firm dedicated to strengthening nonprofits and foundations

Innovation Lab For Museums: Case Studies in Innovation and Adaptive Capacity

This case study on Latino New South follows the journey and partnerships of three cultural institutions -- the Levine Museum of the New South (Charlotte, NC), the Atlanta History Center (Atlanta, GA), and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, AL). These three organizations entered the Innovation Lab for Museums with the intention of making their programs and institutions more resonant with, and responsive to, the fast-growing Latino communities in their respective cities