Can You Hear What I See? Nonverbal Communication and the Changing Face of TML

Business training and education are changing. Organizations have experienced dramatic changes in their structure, competitive environment, and the demographics and demands of their employees. As a result, organizations are seeking new and innovative ways to train employees. At the same time the evolution of technology mediated learning tools (TML) has resulted in flexible, interactive, engaging, learning technology tools that promote experiential learning, analytical thinking and problem solving. Simulation based technology mediated learning (SimTML) tools are gaining popularity in practice. SimTML facilitates lifelike environments that utilize animated pedagogical agents (APAs) which employ nonverbal communication traits in their interaction with the user. The effect is a lifelike, face-to-face interaction, between the user and the APA. The result is a flexible, interactive, engaging, TML tool that promotes experiential learning, analytical thinking and problem solving. This paper explores current SimTML technology, how we interact with learning technology, and provides selection and evaluation principles for organizations to use when evaluating SimTML tools for their own training programs

Feelings in Politics: How American Foreign Policy Can Benefit from Interpersonal Communication

Misperception clouds good decision-making in international politics. American foreign policy doesn’t currently allow for ample strategic communication training for the President of the United States to prevent misperception from becoming an issue in international relations. Looking at influential political theorists, it’s easy to discover that they all warn of the detriment that comes with an ineffective communicator in the highest power position in the country. My research provides an overview of different perceptions formed by the United States and China of each other throughout the Presidency of Donald Trump and his counterpart in Beijing, President Xi Jinping. By analyzing the official press releases of each country about the foreign policy moves of the other, I was able to discover the points of weak policy where relations plummeted and where ‘sunshine politics’ prevailed, allowing for further development in the relationship between the two countries’ leaders. When the two leaders were sticking to their agreement of having frequent meetings involving dialogue that both countries held in high precedent, perceptions were positive and relations were amicable. The opposite happened when the dialogue was infrequent and American Message-Influence foreign policy prevailed (Corman, 2008) where there was increased unilateral action towards China without dialogue

Language and affective contact

This abstract is an attempt to analyze several familiar types of speech disorders in children. One may assume that isolated disorders of the various constituents of the language will bring into relief their respective values by demonstrating what does not function, or does not function properly, in each particular instance. Such an analysis also should show what specific difficulties are the consequence of such isolated disorders. Language is the basis of all social relations. Alterations of the social relationships between child and adults, child and other children, child and social groups are to be expected as a consequence of these dysfunctions

Meaning as Response: Experience, Behavior, and Interactive Environment Design

This thesis proposes a novel theory of meaning-as-response inspired by the pragmatist and cultural historian Morse Peckham (1914-1993) and presented for consideration of specifically how artistic behavior can make an immediate difference for affecting technical culture and innovating technical practices. Throughout, the author draws on his own extensive experience and practice of making computational responsive environments conceived of as material experiments for the generation of new forms of thought and feeling. An introduction to Peckham’s original thought is supplied as an entry point for practitioners and theorists alike who are unfamiliar with the most crucial work of this significant “ecological” thinker of the arts. Next, selected aspects of Peckham’s thorough-going behavioral aesthetics are discussed and analyzed in order to contextualize his most important ideas along with their historical and intellectual connections. A primer of Peckham’s “language” of signs is included as supplemental aid for those working along Peckhamian lines. Continuing from the notion of a learning process, next consideration of presuppositions relevant for ongoing practice is taken up. Attention is given in particular to important relevancies during early stages of learning something new or for the first time— from initial interest, to selection and development of working materials, to preparation for wanted further competencies. This research aims to revive interest in this provocative thinker by placing it in a new setting, thereby contributing a fresh angle to recent critical debates on agency, materiality, and embodiment in contemporary art and technology practices. Proposed are strategies that implicate the interests of artist-researchers themselves and bear on efforts to take experimental work outside the insulated spaces of university studio-labs and galleries to put it in connection with a wider array of day-to-day activities. This thesis is concerned with a single problem, namely the possibility of a genuinely new idea emerging from within practice. The relevancy of this problem lies in the fundamental importance of the possibility for all makers, in every place and every time. The question asked is: How can a philosophy of “experience” be applied to the practice and reflection of art-as-research

Race, Resilience, and Resistance: A Culturally Relevant Examination of How Black Women School Leaders Advance Racial Equity and Social Justice in U.S. Schools

This culturally relevant qualitative examination of the leadership of Black women educational leaders (BWEL) committed to advancing a social justice leadership agenda within the contested spaces (Stovall, 2004) comprising United States (U.S.) P-12 schools, employs an African centered emancipatory methodology (Kershaw, 1990, 1992; Tillman, 2002), situated in a conceptual framework grounded in the research on applied critical leadership (Santamaria, 2013). It examines, highlights, celebrates, and makes transparent, the unique leadership of BWEL. Engaged to rebuke the silencing and marginalization of women educational leaders of color in the educational leadership discourse, this study bridges engages a multiple case study approach, phenomenological analysis, and participatory orientation to better understand how eight complexly diverse BWEL leverage positive aspects of their multicultural perspectives and subjectivities to respond to equity challenges linked to educational inequality for HMMS, while simultaneously navigating 21st century school reform policies and practices situated in white privilege, power, and anti-black oppression. This study also opens up brave liberatory space for participating BWEL to engage in a recursive cycle of critical reflection, dialogue, problem-posing, and action on the site-based equity challenges they face within their respective leadership spaces in real-time, filling an important gap in the educational leadership research. Specifically, it responds to calls for more constructive models of social justice leadership praxis centered in the voices and experiences of those engaging the work in communities confronting the equity challenges of our time, thereby comprising research and theory in action, and provoking a necessary dialogue on what it means to lead for social justice. Having implications for how the field might reimagine and reconstruct educational leadership, theory and development, this research bridged critical race and critical multicultural education theories to the discourses in educational leadership, birthing emergent themes for an alternate and culturally-centered approach to leadership I call critically relevant transformative multicultural leadership or CR-TML. This study has import for practicing educational leaders, those who develop educational leaders, legislators and policy makers impacting the work of educational leaders, and anyone with an interest in educational leadership for social justice

Using social media to enhance knowledge sharing in authentic contexts : a case of undergraduate computer science students at Bindura University

Social Media(SM) is one of the major ways that the 21st Century students communicate and interact with one another. This has been evidenced by wide academic research on SM usage in modern education settings. Facebook is one of the most popular SM sites visited by students on a daily basis. In this minor-dissertation, a study of Bindura University Computer Science students' educational uses of Facebook during Industrial Attachment is explored. Qualitative results of students' interaction on Facebook (FB) to explore authentic learning during industrial attachment are discussed. In this study, conversation analysis of Facebook posts was performed against nine elements of authentic learning by Herrington Reeves and Oliver (2010). This was done to investigate the extent to which FB supported authentic learning during Industrial Attachment programme. Students were exposed to an environment where ideas could be explored at length in the context of real situations. Experiences shared and analysed showed that tasks assigned were complex and broad enough for students to actually make decisions about how they are supposed to complete them. This qualified authentic learning during industrial attachment

Multilingualism across the Lifespan

This innovative collection examines key questions on language diversity and multilingualism running through contemporary debates in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Reinforcing interdisciplinary conversations on these themes, each chapter is co-authored by two different researchers, often those who have not written together before. The combined effect is a volume showcasing unique and dynamic perspectives on such topics as multilingualism across the lifespan, bilingual acquisition, family language policy, language and ageing, language shift, language and identity, and multilingualism and language impairment. The book builds on Elizabeth Lanza’s pioneering work on multilingualism across the lifespan, bringing together cutting-edge research exploring multilingualism as an evolving phenomenon at landmarks in individuals’, families’, and communities’ lives.　Taken together, the book offers a rich portrait of the different facets of multilingualism as a lived reality for individuals, families, and communities. This ground-breaking volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics

Multilingualism across the Lifespan

"This innovative collection examines key questions on language diversity and multilingualism running through contemporary debates in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Reinforcing interdisciplinary conversations on these themes, each chapter is co-authored by two different researchers, often those who have not written together before. The combined effect is a volume showcasing unique and dynamic perspectives on such topics as multilingualism across the lifespan, bilingual acquisition, family language policy, language and ageing, language shift, language and identity, and multilingualism and language impairment. The book builds on Elizabeth Lanza’s pioneering work on multilingualism across the lifespan, bringing together cutting-edge research exploring multilingualism as an evolving phenomenon at landmarks in individuals’, families’, and communities’ lives.　Taken together, the book offers a rich portrait of the different facets of multilingualism as a lived reality for individuals, families, and communities. This ground-breaking volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.

Integrating digital literacy and traditional print text: A focus on struggling readers during guided reading

This action research examines how digital literacies can be integrated into guided reading groups with struggling readers. It looks closely at the way a well-planned text set, both digital and print, can support struggling readers in their literacy learning. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) and multimodal analysis, I analyzed observations, interviews, and documents to understand how struggling readers engaged with both digital and print texts, transliteracy skills, as well as with each other. Findings revealed that the support of a text set, both teacher and student driven, supported student engagement, comprehension, and development of transliteracy skills. With teacher support, students were able to move beyond the digital screen to engagement through discussion. Analysis showed that with time, modeling, and use of multiple texts, a sense of agency and identity was built within each struggling reader. An emerging model is presented to show the ways in which teachers can integrate digital literacies into guided reading and how over time students can build transliteracy skills that support critical thinking and deeper discussion