45 research outputs found

    Introduction to Psycholiguistics

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    Critical Programming: Toward a Philosophy of Computing

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    Beliefs about the relationship between human beings and computing machines and their destinies have alternated from heroic counterparts to conspirators of automated genocide, from apocalyptic extinction events to evolutionary cyborg convergences. Many fear that people are losing key intellectual and social abilities as tasks are offloaded to the everywhere of the built environment, which is developing a mind of its own. If digital technologies have contributed to forming a dumbest generation and ushering in a robotic moment, we all have a stake in addressing this collective intelligence problem. While digital humanities continue to flourish and introduce new uses for computer technologies, the basic modes of philosophical inquiry remain in the grip of print media, and default philosophies of computing prevail, or experimental ones propagate false hopes. I cast this as-is situation as the post-postmodern network dividual cyborg, recognizing that the rational enlightenment of modernism and regressive subjectivity of postmodernism now operate in an empire of extended mind cybernetics combined with techno-capitalist networks forming societies of control. Recent critical theorists identify a justificatory scheme foregrounding participation in projects, valorizing social network linkages over heroic individualism, and commending flexibility and adaptability through life long learning over stable career paths. It seems to reify one possible, contingent configuration of global capitalism as if it was the reflection of a deterministic evolution of commingled technogenesis and synaptogenesis. To counter this trend I offer a theoretical framework to focus on the phenomenology of software and code, joining social critiques with textuality and media studies, the former proposing that theory be done through practice, and the latter seeking to understand their schematism of perceptibility by taking into account engineering techniques like time axis manipulation. The social construction of technology makes additional theoretical contributions dispelling closed world, deterministic historical narratives and requiring voices be given to the engineers and technologists that best know their subject area. This theoretical slate has been recently deployed to produce rich histories of computing, networking, and software, inform the nascent disciplines of software studies and code studies, as well as guide ethnographers of software development communities. I call my syncretism of these approaches the procedural rhetoric of diachrony in synchrony, recognizing that multiple explanatory layers operating in their individual temporal and physical orders of magnitude simultaneously undergird post-postmodern network phenomena. Its touchstone is that the human-machine situation is best contemplated by doing, which as a methodology for digital humanities research I call critical programming. Philosophers of computing explore working code places by designing, coding, and executing complex software projects as an integral part of their intellectual activity, reflecting on how developing theoretical understanding necessitates iterative development of code as it does other texts, and how resolving coding dilemmas may clarify or modify provisional theories as our minds struggle to intuit the alien temporalities of machine processes

    A subtler diplomacy: Kenneth Burke and the New Criticism

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    Language Acquisition Through Motor Planning (LAMP): Impact on Language & Communication Development for Students with Complex Disabilities

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    Thesis advisor: Susan BruceAugmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is central to the lives of many individuals who are not able to effectively use spoken language. AAC systems are an essential component of a student’s ability to access his/her world, including daily communication and school content. The provision of such systems is a high priority in the field and supports the emancipation of those with limited voice, power, and independence that must function within a social structure that has been designed for the more typically abled. The study employed a single-case multiple staggered baseline design with randomized intervention implementation and intervention schedule using the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards from 2010. Five students with complex disabilities using advanced speech generating devices with the LAMP method, Language Acquisition Through Motor Planning, (Halloran & Halloran, 2006), of picture symbol organization participated in the study. The LAMP method was examined, and the potential impact on language and communication it may have. Specifically, the ability to use print versus picture symbols for communication and literacy was investigated within the context of a highly structured 1:1 literacy lesson facilitated by interventionists. Results indicated that all students made varying degrees of gains in the use of print words. These gains were sustained in the generalization phase. Operational skills were impacted demonstrated by increased skill development in navigation of the speech generating device and the type of vocabulary selected. In addition, communication functions were expanded, and in some cases, there was a significant increase in the complexity of word usage across people and settings. Discussions on interventionists perceptions are presented and integrated within individual student results providing context and direction on training needs.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction

    Equivalent Fraction Learning Trajectories for Students with Mathematical Learning Difficulties When Using Manipulatives

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    This study identified variations in the learning trajectories of Tier II students when learning equivalent fraction concepts using physical and virtual manipulatives. The study compared three interventions: physical manipulatives, virtual manipulatives, and a combination of physical and virtual manipulatives. The research used a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach to collect and analyze data and used two types of learning trajectories to compare and synthesize the results. For this study, 43 Tier II fifthgrade students participated in 10 sessions of equivalent fraction intervention. Pre- to postdata analysis indicated significant gains for all three interventions. Cohen d effect size scores were used to compare the effect of the three types of manipulatives—at the total, cluster, and questions levels of the assessments. Daily assessment data were used to develop trajectories comparing mastery and achievement changes over the duration of the intervention. Data were also synthesized into an iceberg learning trajectory containing five clusters and three subcluster concepts of equivalent fraction understanding and variations among interventions were identified. The syntheses favored the use of physical manipulatives for instruction in two clusters, the use of virtual manipulatives for one cluster, and the use of combined manipulatives for two clusters. The qualitative analysis identified variations in students’ resolution of misconceptions and variations in their use of strategies and representations. Variations favored virtual manipulatives for the development of symbolic only representations and physical manipulatives for the development of set model representations. Results also suggested that there is a link between the simultaneous linking of the virtual manipulatives and the development of multiplicative thinking as seen in the tendency of the students using virtual manipulative intervention to have higher gains on questions asking students to develop groups of three or more equivalent fractions. These results demonstrated that the instructional affordances of physical and virtual manipulatives are specific to different equivalent fraction subconcepts and that an understanding of the variations is needed to determine when and how each manipulative should be used in the sequence of instruction

    URI Undergraduate Course Catalog 1992-1993

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    This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island Undergraduate Course Catalog.https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/course-catalogs/1042/thumbnail.jp

    1976 Catalog

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