Engaging students with real-world experience in the Web 2.0 era: an exploration of web video mediated learning in the university classroom

In the age of Web 2.0 dominance universities are under increasing pressure to investigate the educational applications of user-created content within the traditional culture of knowledge. There is a growing realization in the literature that the incorporation of user-created web video into the curriculum provides a number of pedagogical opportunities for active forms of learning and student-centred teaching practices due to its affordability, accessibility, semantic searchability, flexibility, and versatility. Predicated on the precepts of constructivism and participatory culture, this study aims to explore empirically the pedagogical application of the proposed web video mediated learning strategy in a graduate-level university classroom. Operating in a mixed-method paradigm, the researcher conducted a series of surveys, interviews, and collected learning artefacts in order to complement the survey data with subjective reflections on web video from a student's perspective. Data were collected from a non-randomized convenience sample of 17 master's students in education at a regional university in Alabama, United States. Analysis of data included descriptive and inferential test statistics, coupled with data derived from qualitative analysis. Evidence suggests that participants gained knowledge of web video, and felt more competent in digital media use and production as a result of the research treatment. Such attributes of web video as multimodality, entertainment, diversity of video content, instant gratification, and possibility for customization received an overwhelming positive response from participants. Students also voiced their concerns about the credibility of video producers and the accuracy of video content available on the Web. Further, students indicated their support for web video mediated learning activities - the critical appropriation of web video and the creative production of one's own web video. In particular, participants noted that video-enhanced blogging gave them opportunity to relate new concepts and ideas acquired from the assigned readings to self-selected user-created web video. This study led the researcher expand our understanding of web video as a culturally new form of knowledge representation, and to conclude that the proposed learning architecture was critical to student's success by creating conditions for them to properly balance user-created web video with scholarly knowledge and to become active participants who are accountable for their learning

A Multiple Case Narrative Examining the Experiences of Alumni of a Minority Research and Training Program

The implementation of minority research and training (MRT) programs at the post secondary level has risen to close the educational achievement gap and build undergraduate pathways to generate a highly skilled and diverse STEM pool. Although the numbers of advanced science related degrees have slowly increased over the past decade, partially due to the utilization of MRT programs, this increase has not been adequate to establish an impactful representation in either academic or industry research careers. Numerous studies identify various support interventions influencing positive outcomes among MRT participants achieving graduate degrees. However, majority of the studies utilize quantitative or a mixed methods design. In order to capture student voices and rich descriptive experiences, this study utilized a multiple case study featuring an extensive narrative approach. Informant stories were collected through in depth, open-ended interviews. Individual narratives were described through individual vignettes providing an in depth portrait of each participant. Cross case analysis was then performed to identify variations and common themes across groups. Analysis identified the following four influential factors influencing matriculation into advanced degree programs: belonging and inclusion, near peer mentoring, confidence in science, and family influence. Findings from this study expand the current body of knowledge and provide implications for practice to better serve underrepresented minority (URM) students with science majors

Crowd-supervised training of spoken language systems

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-166).Spoken language systems are often deployed with static speech recognizers. Only rarely are parameters in the underlying language, lexical, or acoustic models updated on-the-fly. In the few instances where parameters are learned in an online fashion, developers traditionally resort to unsupervised training techniques, which are known to be inferior to their supervised counterparts. These realities make the development of spoken language interfaces a difficult and somewhat ad-hoc engineering task, since models for each new domain must be built from scratch or adapted from a previous domain. This thesis explores an alternative approach that makes use of human computation to provide crowd-supervised training for spoken language systems. We explore human-in-the-loop algorithms that leverage the collective intelligence of crowds of non-expert individuals to provide valuable training data at a very low cost for actively deployed spoken language systems. We also show that in some domains the crowd can be incentivized to provide training data for free, as a byproduct of interacting with the system itself. Through the automation of crowdsourcing tasks, we construct and demonstrate organic spoken language systems that grow and improve without the aid of an expert. Techniques that rely on collecting data remotely from non-expert users, however, are subject to the problem of noise. This noise can sometimes be heard in audio collected from poor microphones or muddled acoustic environments. Alternatively, noise can take the form of corrupt data from a worker trying to game the system - for example, a paid worker tasked with transcribing audio may leave transcripts blank in hopes of receiving a speedy payment. We develop strategies to mitigate the effects of noise in crowd-collected data and analyze their efficacy. This research spans a number of different application domains of widely-deployed spoken language interfaces, but maintains the common thread of improving the speech recognizer's underlying models with crowd-supervised training algorithms. We experiment with three central components of a speech recognizer: the language model, the lexicon, and the acoustic model. For each component, we demonstrate the utility of a crowd-supervised training framework. For the language model and lexicon, we explicitly show that this framework can be used hands-free, in two organic spoken language systems.by Ian C. McGraw.Ph.D

At-Risk High School Graduates and Their Post-Graduation Experiences: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and perspectives of students who were identified as at-risk during high school and have transitioned into emergent adulthood. Sources of data included responses from eight participants, selected via purposeful sampling, through a semi-structured interview. This in-depth study revealed challenges and barriers the participants experienced during high school and post-graduation. Three major themes emerged from the study: attitude, influential relationships, and environment. All participants considered dropping out of high school due to similar factors such as negative peer influences, family challenges, mental health, substance abuse, and an overall poor school environment. For all participants, transferring to the at-risk alternative high school made a positive difference and allowed them to graduate high school. Findings from this study provide recommendations for supporting students who are at-risk during high school and as they transition into emergent adulthood. Opportunities for future research include expanding the demographics of the participants as well as examining the significance of peer relationships at an alternative high school

The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare

During a decade of global counterterrorism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns, the United States was confronted with a new kind of adversary. Without uniforms, flags, and formations, the task of identifying and targeting these combatants represented an unprecedented operational challenge for which Cold War era doctrinal methods were largely unsuited. This monograph examines the doctrinal, technical, and bureaucratic innovations that evolved in response to these new operational challenges. It discusses the transition from a conventionally focused, Cold War-era targeting process to one optimized for combating networks and conducting identity-based targeting. It analyzes the policy decisions and strategic choices that were the catalysts of this change and concludes with an in depth examination of emerging technologies that are likely to shape how this mode of warfare will be waged in the future.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1436/thumbnail.jp

2008-2009

Contains information on courses and class descriptions as well as campus resources at Collin College.https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/catalogs/1020/thumbnail.jp

2006-2007

Contains information on courses and class descriptions as well as campus resources at Collin College.https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/catalogs/1018/thumbnail.jp

2007-2008

Contains information on courses and class descriptions as well as campus resources at Collin College.https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/catalogs/1019/thumbnail.jp

The Muzzled Hope: Utilizing Black Protest Thought to Examine African American Males\u27 Identity Development and Academic Success in the Rural U.S. South

The problems faced by African American males in the United States is often the result of misconstrued images and stereotypes that present this segment of the population in a distasteful manner. If one chimes in to various circuits of popular culture, glances over the latest headlines of newspapers, and/or listens to the confluent lyrics of hip hop that, eloquently, bridges life struggles with melodic hooks to expose the oppression faced by people of color, one thing becomes apparent: Social progression is dependent upon society’s ability to magnify, listen to, and incorporate the voices of marginalized groups. With the majority of educational research, in relation to African American males, focusing on the abandonment of Black boys in public schools and their lack of academic achievement, little attention has been given to the factors that promote success amongst this segment of the population. Utilizing Black Protest Thought (Watkins, 2005) as the theoretical framework in conjunction with qualitative methodology, the researcher deconstructed the existing stereotypes of African Americans by presenting counter-narratives of three African American males who have achieved academic success (which is defined as obtaining a doctoral degree). Demographic surveys were administered to gain insight on participants’ household composition, socioeconomic status, educational history, and parents’ educational attainment. Moreover, semi-structured interviews were conducted to address one central question: How do African American males experience educational success despite issues associated with race and racism? Although findings of the study mirror some of the existing literature, this work contributes to the discourse of education in significant ways. Identified themes derived from the study that influenced the academic success and identity development of African American males are as follows:a high level of self-esteem; the adaptation of the prove them wrong syndrome; the development and adherence to spirituality; understanding education’s utilitarian value; participation in extracurricular activities; the prevalence of family support; and the presence of strong community mentors