Supervision of cyber teachers: Examining U.S. based cyber school policy and practice

This study extends the body of knowledge in the field of K-12 teacher supervision through an investigation of contemporary literature on supervision in traditional and cyber schools; an inventory of current cyber school supervisory practices, procedures, policies, needs, and issues; and a review of related supervisory documents. The results of the outreach effort yielded an effective response rate of 9% resulting in an unintended, but important finding, in that a better mechanism is needed for identifying, categorizing and reaching cyber schools. The study supports contemporary beliefs related to the necessity and importance of a quality supervisory program and that multiple considerations and approaches are available. Participating schools report substantially lower teacher to supervisor ratios than the national average and that supervision practices have a positive impact on quality of instruction. Respondents indicate that the principal is primarily responsible for supervision however; many call upon other individuals such as peer mentors, instructional supervisors, and team leaders to assess and support the teacher. Most participating schools incorporate the use of classroom observations using archived data and report that email is most widely used and most useful supervisory tool. Student work/test scores, input from students, teacher self-reflection, and input from parents are reported to be the most widely used sources of data. Professional development needs and a lack of time for supervision are reported to be the biggest supervisory challenges facing cyber school administrators

Interactive Whiteboard Technologies in High School: A Quantitative, Quasi-Experimental Comparison of Their Impact on the Levels of Measure that Determine a Return on Investment

This quantitative, quasi-experimental, non-equivalent group study will examine the impact on levels of measure that determine a return on investment (ROI) of differing forms of interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology utilized with a class\room technology package consisting of a video projector, a document camera, and a computer at a high school in a suburban school district in southeastern Virginia. Three forms of IWB will be compared: a full screen IWB, a mobile interactive whiteboard (MIWB) and a tablet based whiteboard app (IWBAPP). Student performance and survey data will be analyzed to determine the impact on students and teachers who were exposed to the three forms of whiteboard technologies. The ROI levels of measure for the three technologies will be compared to groups that did not utilize any IWB. The indication of the results will be discussed further. Additionally, the limitations and suggestions for further research will be discussed

This Is the World Calling: The Global Voices and Visions of Internet Radio and Television

Internet radio and TV--tuning into information and feature programs broadcast via the Internet and receivable on a personal computer--piqued interest among educators, librarians, and instructional technologists in the 1990s. Then, connectivity and bandwidth issues affected widespread use. However, interest in Internet broadcasting and podcasting has seen a resurgence in the last few years. Internet radio and TV is more than just a new toy--there's real content online, applicable to the curriculum. Language instruction, music, politics, religion, history, culture, business, science, and more are just a few clicks away. This session will provide background on international Internet radio and TV broadcasting; sources for programs; curricular materials available online; and ideas for application to library and educational services

Myriad : a distributed machine vision application framework

This thesis examines the potential for the application of distributed computing frameworks to industrial and also lightweight consumer-level Machine Vision (MV) applications. Traditional, stand-alone MV systems have many benefits in well-defined, tightly- controlled industrial settings, but expose limitations in interactive, de-localised and small-task applications that seek to utilise vision techniques. In these situations, single-computer solutions fail to suffice and greater flexibility in terms of system construction, interactivity and localisation are required. Network-connected and distributed vision systems are proposed as a remedy to these problems, providing dynamic, componentised systems that may optionally be independent of location, or take advantage of networked computing tools and techniques, such as web servers, databases, proxies, wireless networking, secure connectivity, distributed computing clusters, web services and load balancing. The thesis discusses a system named Myriad, a distributed computing framework for Machine Vision applications. Myriad is composed components, such as image processing engines and equipment controllers, which behave as enhanced web servers and communicate using simple HTTP requests. The roles of HTTP-based distributed computing servers in simplifying rapid development of networked applications and integrating those applications with existing networked tools and business processes are explored. Prototypes of Myriad components, written in Java, along with supporting PHP, Perl and Prolog scripts and user interfaces in C , Java, VB and C++/Qt are examined. Each component includes a scripting language named MCS, enabling remote clients (or other Myriad components) to issue single commands or execute sequences of commands locally to the component in a sustained session. The advantages of server- side scripting in this manner for distributed computing tasks are outlined with emphasis on Machine Vision applications, as a means to overcome network connection issues and address problems where consistent processing is required. Furthermore, the opportunities to utilise scripting to form complex distributed computing network topologies and fully-autonomous federated networked applications are described, and examples given on how to achieve functionality such as clusters of image processing nodes. Through the medium of experimentation involving the remote control of a model train set, cameras and lights, the ability of Myriad to perform traditional roles of fixed, stand-alone Machine Vision systems is supported, along with discussion of opportunities to incorporate these elements into network-based dynamic collaborative inspection applications. In an example of 2D packing of remotely-acquired shapes, distributed computing extensions to Machine Vision tasks are explored, along with integration into larger business processes. Finally, the thesis examines the use of Machine Vision techniques and Myriad components to construct distributed computing applications with the addition of vision capabilities, leading to a new class of image-data-driven applications that exploit mobile computing and Pervasive Computing trends

Right to preserve? Copyright and licensing for digital preservation project: final report

The Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation Project ran from September 2002 to March 2004 and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The aim of the research was to investigate whether and how copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content affect the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content, and to suggest ways in which any problems can be overcome. The project included a review of the library, legal and related literatures. Questionnaire surveys were then used to explore the views of libraries, publishers and authors. These were supplemented by twenty in-depth, face-to-face interviews with librarians, publishers, legal experts, digital preservation experts and representatives of rights holder organisations. An invitation-only seminar was held, at which delegates discussed possible solutions to the issues identified

The E-Writing Experiences of Literary Authors

The e-writing experience is new and not yet fully understood and there is a story to be told about the enigmatic term e-writing and its impact on authors in the e-paradigm. In this study I collected understandings of e-writing by exploring the experiences of literary authors through qualitative case studies. I set out to find answers amidst two interconnected plots of inquiry. The first plot examined e language, in particular the term e-writing, and asked how authors understand the term e-writing and how their experiences contributed to that meaning. The second storyline asked how the digital revolution and resulting e-culture changed their work, writing practices, and conception of themselves as authors. Eight authors participated in this study. The first author was interviewed in a pilot study and seven authors participated in the subsequent main study. Data was collected using semi- structured interviews that were recorded and transcribed, lists compiled of the authors’ works that included information about publication methods, and screenshots of the authors’ online presence such as social media participation and personal websites. Data was analyzed simultaneously with collection and the result is a narrative text describing the e-writing experiences of literary authors. Unraveling the enigma of e-writing was a task complicated by its own conclusions. The findings of this study emerged as the story progressed and climaxed in the understanding that e-writing as a term is not used or understood by authors beyond the general context they derived from the prefix e. Therefore, the e-writing experiences of literary authors can be more accurately described as a writing experience influenced by or situated in e-culture. These experiences revealed current authorship as being in an era of transition, where new media, new relationships between readers and authors, and new forays into virtual community are changing the work of authors, but also where residual print culture has a stronghold on our understandings and practices

Interstate Interstitials: Bumper Stickers, Driver-Cars and the Spaces of Social Encounter on Contemporary American Superhighways

Since the turn of the 21st century, it has been the established aim of mobilities scholars to investigate the ways in which contemporary life is conditioned and carried out through the movements of people, things and ideas. Despite concerns over global climate change on the one hand, and the heyday of peak-oil receding quickly into the rear view mirror on the other, the primary vehicle of mobility in the United States remains the personal automobile. Contemporary American notions of self and identity are frequently interpreted through the individual’s relationship(s) to cars and driving, and while cars themselves are mass-manufactured items, they afford a number of many non-technical practices of customization as modes of individuation. Perhaps most commonplace of these practices is the use of bumper stickers. This thesis is a critical examination of the type of everyday cultural construction and social encounter that may emerge from reading bumper stickers in motion. Such a practice is informed by both the structural and systemic conditions of American superhighway automobility, as well as by the phenomenological effects of isolation and speed on the road these conditions produce. An embodied subject, emerges through participation in the regime of automobility, but the body I have in mind is not, strictly speaking, the unitary, human body. It is, rather, a performed, materially-heterogeneous assemblage: a reader-car, through which unexpected—often asymmetrical and asynchronous, but nonetheless social— spaces of interaction coalesce and extend