The Collective Building of Knowledge in Collaborative Learning Environments

The intention of this chapter is to investigate how collaborative learning environments (CLEs) can be used to elicit the collective building of knowledge. This work discusses CLEs as lively cognitive systems and looks at some strategies that might contribute to the improvement of significant pedagogical practices. The study is supported by rhizome principles, whose characteristics allow us to understand the process of selecting and connecting what is relevant and meaningful for the collective building of knowledge. A brief theoretical and conceptual approach is presented and major contributions and difficulties about collaborative learning environments are discussed. New questions and future trends about the collective building of knowledge are suggested

Using gaming paratexts in the literacy classroom

This paper illustrates how digital game paratexts may effectively be used in the high school English to meet a variety of traditional and multimodal literacy outcomes. Paratexts are texts that refer to digital gaming and game cultures, and using them in the classroom enables practitioners to focus on and valorise the considerable literacies and skills that young people develop and deploy in their engagement with digital gaming and game cultures. The effectiveness of valorizing paratexts in this manner is demonstrated through two examples of assessment by students in classes where teachers had designed curriculum and assessment activities using paratexts

Out of the Classroom and Into the Community: Service Learning Reinforces Classroom Instruction

Technology students successfully developed four complete sets of house plans including floor plans, framing plans, and elevations. Because Habitat relies on donations of doors, windows, and cabinets, detail drawings and schedules vary and were not included. Unskilled persons who volunteered time and labor for Habitat needed concise and unambiguous directions from supervisors. The students\u27 drawings of floor and elevation plans provided these workers with a clear and graphic representation of the construction goals. As noted above, students were held to professional and technical accountability. This process was put in place to replicate real-world practices and to give students a sense of accomplishment that is achieved when they maintain their commitment to community-based responsibilities. As Hill (2004) notes, service learning projects not only provide technological artifacts that have real-world purpose and value, but they cultivate desirable attributes of citizenship and charity that are beneficial to society (p. 11 ). The academic service learning project outlined in this article is an example of a community outreach project that can be successfully completed at the secondary or postsecondary level. This project was a win-win for the students, the community, and the university. The technology students reported a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment resulting from their contributions to families in the local community. Beyond this, Dundon (2000) found that service learning projects helped students answer the questions: What do I do well? What life experiences have shaped me and made me who I am? (p. 34). This partnership between the University and Habitat for Humanity created a successful academic service learning project that gave these technology students real-world experiences, enhanced classroom learning, and enhanced the technology students\u27 personal and social maturation

The adoption of open sources within higher education in Europe : a dissemination case study

For some time now, the open-source (OS) phenomenon has been making its presence felt; disrupting the economics of the software industry and, by proxy, the business of education. A combination of the financial pressure Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) find themselves under and the increasing focus on the use of technology to enhance students' learning have encouraged many HEIs to look towards alternative approaches to teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the "OS" has challenged assumptions about how intellectual products are created and protected and has greatly increased the quantity and arguably the quality of educational technologies available to HEIs

Contours of Inclusion: Frameworks and Tools for Evaluating Arts in Education

This collection of essays explores various arts education-specific evaluation tools, as well as considers Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the inclusion of people with disabilities in the design of evaluation instruments and strategies. Prominent evaluators Donna M. Mertens, Robert Horowitz, Dennie Palmer Wolf, and Gail Burnaford are contributors to this volume. The appendix includes the AEA Standards for Evaluation. (Contains 10 tables, 2 figures, 30 footnotes, and resources for additional reading.) This is a proceedings document from the 2007 VSA arts Research Symposium that preceded the American Evaluation Association's (AEA) annual meeting in Baltimore, MD

The Craft of Incentive Prize Design: Lessons from the Public Sector

In the last five years, incentive prizes have transformed from an exotic open innovation tool to a proven innovation strategy for the public, private and philanthropic sectors. This report offers practical lessons for public sector leaders and their counterparts in the philanthropic and private sectors to help understand what types of outcomes incentive prizes help to achieve, what design elements prize designers use to create these challenges and how to make smart design choices to achieve a particular outcome. It synthesizes insights from expert interviews and analysis of more than 400 prize

The onus on us? Stage one in developing an i-Trust model for our users.

This article describes a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)-funded project, conducted by a cross-disciplinary team, examining trust in information resources in the web environment employing a literature review and online Delphi study with follow-up community consultation. The project aimed to try to explain how users assess or assert trust in their use of resources in the web environment; to examine how perceptions of trust influence the behavior of information users; and to consider whether ways of asserting trust in information resources could assist the development of information literacy. A trust model was developed from the analysis of the literature and discussed in the consultation. Elements comprising the i-Trust model include external factors, internal factors and user's cognitive state. This article gives a brief overview of the JISC funded project which has now produced the i-Trust model (Pickard et. al. 2010) and focuses on issues of particular relevance for information providers and practitioners

Integrating Narratives with Digital Humanities Tools to Inform Holocaust Education Pedagogies

Holocaust educators have a concern regarding how to learn and teach about the Holocaust after survivors and liberators are no longer alive to provide first-hand testimony. In response to this dilemma, I have developed a digital humanities web portal unique to Nebraska to preserve the survivors’ and liberators’ collective and individual memories. The Nebraska Holocaust Survivor & WWII Veteran Network and Educational Portal, the product for this dissertation, integrates local narratives with digital humanities frameworks to establish a dynamic, public platform and provide various educational opportunities. The site encourages engagement with online primary resources of Holocaust survivors and Nazi camp liberators who settled in Nebraska following WWII. First, I introduce my positionality as a Jewish, Holocaust educator and include a literature review integrating frameworks of critical theories. I proceed by providing an explanatory video chapter of the development and methodology of the digital humanities portal. This research also considers how the website can be a teaching tool that interfaces with digital storytelling to accompany state educational standards in secondary classrooms and higher education research. The final section includes some observations on preliminary student reflections and suggestions for future assessments that will be implemented with the use of this tool. The site enables users to understand the deconstruction of democracy in pre- WWII Europe and exemplifies the power of an individual’s resilience. Pedagogue Ivan Illich (1973, as cited in R. Kahn, 2010) claimed technologies “could guide the reconstruction of education to serve the need of varied communities, to promote democracy and social justice” (pp. 96-97). Today, digital access to materials related to the Holocaust offers avenues for discovery and research previously not imagined. Investigating initial responses to the portal’s searchable and aggregated resources provides insight into the impact of information through different digital humanities repositories. Centering these unique stories preserves the memories of these individuals, enhances their narratives with primary resources, and provides educational opportunities for studying the Holocaust

Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Nursing Students’ Lived Experience of Spiritual Care in High-Fidelity Simulation

Abstract Addressing patients\u27 spirituality is fundamental to holistic patient-centered care. Spiritual care education should be emphasized in associate degree nursing (ADN) programs where patient care practice begins with high-fidelity simulation. Research on ADN students\u27 experiences providing spiritual care in high-fidelity simulation is nonexistent; therefore, this study involved understanding ADN students\u27 lived experiences regarding this topic. This study used a phenomenological heuristic approach guided by Erickson, Tomlin, and Swain\u27s theory of modeling and role modeling and Watson\u27s theory of human caring. Twenty-seven ADN students enrolled in a developmental (pediatrics, maternal-child health, and obstetrics) course at a local college in the southeastern US were recruited via a flyer left in their classroom. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven ADN students who consented to participate in the study, with saturation occurring after four student study participant interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Data analysis occurred using thematic coding. Results showed four themes: defining spirituality, defining spiritual care in nursing, lack of education on spirituality, and barriers to spiritual care in simulations. Implications for ADN nurse educators include simulations that explicitly address spiritual care. The results of this study influence positive social change by preparing nursing workforces to be comfortable with addressing patients\u27 needs to promote patients\u27 healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Future studies should examine students\u27 and faculty\u27s perceptions of spiritual care involving high-fidelity simulations