Determining The Computer Literacy Levels Of Vocational Teachers In Southern Nevada And Developing A Computer In-Service Program For Vocational Teachers

The purposes of this study were to ( 1) conduct a study to determine the computer skills level of the vocational teachers in Southern Nevada; (2) design a computer literacy in-service program targeting the specific instructional needs of the deficient vocational teachers; (3) develop a plan for evaluating the in-service training program; and (4) develop an implementation plan for continued computer literacy in-service training and an undergraduate computer literacy training program fer vocational teachers in university teacher training programs. The literature review addressed the first research question by providing the specific competencies for determining the characteristics of computer literacy and identifying the specific questions for the survey instrument. The competencies necessary for computer literacy are (1) hardware literacy; (2) word processing: and (3} advanced program operation, spreadsheet. database, gradebook program, or computer-assisted design (CAD} or the ability to write a simple computer program. The results of the study indicated that fifty percent of the vocational/technical teachers in Southern Nevada are not computer literate. A few content areas, specifically electronics and drafting, had exceptionally high rates of computer literacy with 100 percent for electronics and seventy-three percent for drafting. Some content areas, welding at fourteen percent and graphic arts at thirty percent had exceptionally low levels of computer literacy. The survey data Indicated no significant statistical differences in computer literacy levels between secondary and postsecondary teachers, and no statistical difference based on industry or formal university training. The demographic factor of age was determined by study data to not be a significant impactor on computer literacy. The data on differences based on gender were inconclusive as less than ten percent of teachers surveyed were women. Sixty-two percent of the computer literate vocational teachers surveyed indicated that they were self-taught, and seventy-one percent indicated that they learned their computer skills after beginning to teach. This provided substantial evidence that industry and formal educational institutions have provided very little computer training for vocational teachers. The conclusions reached by the study were that the need for computer literacy training in Southern Nevada does exist. With an accurate estimate of the potential student enrollment identified by the study, the Clark County Community College can commit resources for a program. It is recommended that the college implement the Teacher Computer Literacy Workshop model beginning the first semester of school year 1990-1991 and the University of Nevada system implement this or a similar computer literacy component in their teacher training programs. The final product of this study was the development of a computer literacy training program specifically designed to address the needs of the Southern Nevada vocational teachers. The Teacher Computer Literacy Workshop program design, goals, competencies. instructional media, unit and program evaluation, and revision procedures were elements addressed in the design process

A Twenty-Year Look at “Computational Geology,” an Evolving, In-Discipline Course in Quantitative Literacy at the University of South Florida

Since 1996, the Geology (GLY) program at the USF has offered “Computational Geology” as part of its commitment to prepare undergraduate majors for the quantitative aspects of their field. The course focuses on geological-mathematical problem solving. Over its twenty years, the course has evolved from a GATC (geometry-algebra-trigonometry-calculus) in-discipline capstone to a quantitative literacy (QL) course taught within a natural science major. With the formation of the new School of Geosciences in 2013, the merging departments re-examined their various curricular programs. An online survey of the Geology Alumni Society found that “express quantitative evidence in support of an argument” was more favorably viewed as a workplace skill (4th out of 69) than algebra (51st), trig (55th) and calculus 1 and 2 (59th and 60th). In that context, we decided to find out from successful alumni, “What did you get out of Computational Geology?” To that end, the first author carried out a formal, qualitative research study (narrative inquiry protocol), whereby he conducted, recorded, and transcribed semi-structured interviews of ten alumni selected from a list of 20 provided by the second author. In response to “Tell me what you remember from the course,” multiple alumni volunteered nine items: Excel (10 out of 10), Excel modules (8), Polya problem solving (5), “important” (4), unit conversions (4), back-of-the-envelope calculations (4), gender equality (3). In response to “Is there anything from the course that you used professionally or personally since graduating?” multiple alumni volunteered seven items: Excel (9 out of 10), QL/thinking (6), unit conversions (5), statistics (5), Excel modules (3), their notes (2). Outcome analysis from the open-ended comments arising from structured questions led to the identification of alumni takeaways in terms of elements of three values: (1) understanding and knowledge (facts such as conversion factors, and concepts such as proportions and log scales); (2) abilities and skills (communication, Excel, unit conversions); and (3) traits and dispositions (problem solving, confidence, and QL itself). The overriding conclusion of this case study is that QL education can have a place in geoscience education where the so-called context of the QL is interesting because it is in the students’ home major, and that such a course can be tailored to any level of program prerequisites

Educators\u27 Perceptions of a 21st Century Digital Literacy Framework

The concept of literacy has expanded to include understanding and effective utilization of information, media, and technology. The Children\u27s Internet Protection Act requires school districts to teach proper online use and behavior. The lack of a technology requirement in a rural, public school district in Northeastern Pennsylvania that meets the needs of 21st century learners and the conditions of the Children\u27s Internet Protection Act was the rationale for the development of this project study. The study\u27s conceptual framework stemmed from theories related to new literacies, multimodality, computer education practices, and millennial learners. The research questions examined educators\u27 perceptions of topics and skills to include in a curricular framework that addressed the lack of a comprehensive technology requirement to improve 21st century digital literacy skills for all students. A qualitative case study design was selected and data from 40 open ended questionnaires, one 5-member focus group discussion, and two 6-member focus group discussions were open coded and thematically analyzed. Emergent themes relating to a digital literacy course framework included information access skills and the application of technology. Findings were validated through member checking and triangulated with 62 existing curricular documents. The project for this study consisted of a curricular framework for a 90 day 21st century digital literacy high school course that can be used by any school district to enhance the preparation of students for life after high school. Such use of the findings and culminating project may positively affect social change through a modern definition of literacy thus contributing towards the development of a positive and prepared 21st century citizenry

Bacatá:Notebooks for DSLs, Almost for Free

Context: Computational notebooks are a contemporary style of literate programming, in which users can communicate and transfer knowledge by interleaving executable code, output, and prose in a single rich document. A Domain-Specific Language (DSL) is an artificial software language tailored for a particular application domain. Usually, DSL users are domain experts that may not have a software engineering background. As a consequence, they might not be familiar with Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). Thus, the development of tools that offer different interfaces for interacting with a DSL is relevant. Inquiry: However, resources available to DSL designers are limited. We would like to leverage tools used to interact with general purpose languages in the context of DSLs. Computational notebooks are an example of such tools. Then, our main question is: What is an efficient and effective method of designing and implementing notebook interfaces for DSLs? By addressing this question we might be able to speed up the development of DSL tools, and ease the interaction between end-users and DSLs. Approach: In this paper, we present Bacat\'a, a mechanism for generating notebook interfaces for DSLs in a language parametric fashion. We designed this mechanism in a way in which language engineers can reuse as many language components (e.g., language processors, type checkers, code generators) as possible. Knowledge: Our results show that notebook interfaces generated by Bacat\'a can be automatically generated with little manual configuration. There are few considerations and caveats that should be addressed by language engineers that rely on language design aspects. The creation of a notebook for a DSL with Bacat\'a becomes a matter of writing the code that wires existing language components in the Rascal language workbench with the Jupyter platform. Grounding: We evaluate Bacat\'a by generating functional computational notebook interfaces for three different non-trivial DSLs, namely: a small subset of Halide (a DSL for digital image processing), SweeterJS (an extended version of JavaScript), and QL (a DSL for questionnaires). Additionally, it is relevant to generate notebook implementations rather than implementing them manually. We measured and compared the number of Source Lines of Code (SLOCs) that we reused from existing implementations of those languages. Importance: The adoption of notebooks by novice-programmers and end-users has made them very popular in several domains such as exploratory programming, data science, data journalism, and machine learning. Why are they popular? In (data) science, it is essential to make results reproducible as well as understandable. However, notebooks are only available for GPLs. This paper opens up the notebook metaphor for DSLs to improve the end-user experience when interacting with code and to increase DSLs adoption

Designing, Developing and Testing Financial Models for Non-industrial Private Forestry

This paper describes experiences in the development and testing of three distinct financial models to support farm forestry decisions involving non-traditional tree species in northern Australia and in the Philippines. A variety of options were examined with respect to model design, yield prediction, computing platform, forestry performance criteria and other features. Two of the models focus on the forestry enterprise in isolation, while the third evaluates forestry within the context of the overall farm business. It is found that choice of model design depends on the particular type of application intended and availability of financial data for this application. Some complementarities were gained in replicating features when progressing from one model to the next. Model construction and testing were challenging tasks requiring considerable funds and for two of the models proceeding over a number of years. Validation involved the gradual gaining of confidence in a model as it progressed through various versions. For the more complex models, greater effort in development of the user interface was found to be warranted. The models have proved more suitable for use by extension agents than individual landholders. Even with major resource inputs into model development, a number of desirable additional features can be identified.