Improving Progression and Satisfaction Rates of Novice Computer Programming Students Through ACME - Analogy, Collaboration, Mentoring and Electronic Support

The problems encountered by students in first year computer programming units are a common concern in many universities, including Victoria University. As a fundamental component of a computer science curriculum computer programming is a mandatory unit. It is also one of the most challenging units for many commencing students who often drop out from a computing course as a consequence of having failed, or performed poorly, in an introductory programming unit. This paper reports on a research project undertaken to develop and implement a strategy to improve the learning outcomes of novice programming students. Aimed at ‘befriending’ computer programming to help promote success among new programming students, the strategy incorporates the use of analogy, collaboration, mentoring sessions, and electronic support. The paper describes the elements of the strategy and discusses the results of its implementation in semester 1, 2007

Wikis as collaborative learning tools for knowledge sharing: Shifting the education landscape

Wikis support collaborative learning in a classroom environment. Nevertheless, the argument of wikis as an unstructured medium for learning and issues concerning security and privacy matters are overshadowed by the full potential benefit it brings to education fields. Educational wikis are very different from the wiki that we know in the biggest online encyclopedia; wikipedia.org. The implementation of wikis in education relies on its pedagogy approach, hence known as wiki pedagogy. The study conducted in Malaysia schools provides the case study for educational wikis to be deployed in school. The approach taken in the study using design experiments managed to formulate a pedagogy for effective use of wikis in education. Findings of the study may provide a new perspective in understanding the current practice of teaching and learning in school. The essence of socialization of learning facilitate by using wikis lead to collaborative knowledge building among students that they are not learning the knowledge but they are involved in the learning process which makes them a distinguish learners

Geology at ANU (1959-2009)

This history was undertaken to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geology Department at ANU, and to honour its founding professor David A. Brown. It includes contributions from some 100 former students outlining their career successes. This history was compiled by Dr Mike Rickard, a staff member of the Department of Geology from 1963 to 1997, who also served as Head of Department for seven years. He graduated BSc and PhD from Imperial College London in 1957 and has specialised in mapping the structure of mountain chains in Ireland, Canada, Norway, and southern South America. He also mapped volcanic rocks for the Geological Survey of Fiji. He taught Structural Geology and Tectonics and has supervised field work in south eastern and central Australia. After retirement he has taught U3A courses in Earth Science

Geology at ANU (1959-2009)

This history was undertaken to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geology Department at ANU, and to honour its founding professor David A. Brown. It includes contributions from some 100 former students outlining their career successes. This history was compiled by Dr Mike Rickard, a staff member of the Department of Geology from 1963 to 1997, who also served as Head of Department for seven years. He graduated BSc and PhD from Imperial College London in 1957 and has specialised in mapping the structure of mountain chains in Ireland, Canada, Norway, and southern South America. He also mapped volcanic rocks for the Geological Survey of Fiji. He taught Structural Geology and Tectonics and has supervised field work in south eastern and central Australia. After retirement he has taught U3A courses in Earth Science

Educational Technology and Education Conferences, June to December 2012

The conference list contains events such as "Learning and Teaching","Innovation in e-Learning", "Online Teaching", "Distance Learning Administration", "The World Open Educational Resources Congress", "Mobile Health", and "Realizing Dreams"

Determinants of corporate social and environmental reporting in Indonesia: An analysis from economic, social and political perspectives

The objectives of this study are to examine the extent of corporate social and environmental reporting among Indonesian companies and to ascertain its determinants from multiple perspectives: economic, social, and political. The multiple-perspective approach offers alternative interpretations of a similar phenomenon. This study attempts to fill both the theoretical and empirical gaps in corporate social and environmental reporting in Indonesia. It focuses on contentquality and uses a combination of the tools of Clarkson’s environmental index and Sutantoputra’s social index. The sample of this study consisted of 740 observations for five years from 2005 to 2009. Panel data was employed and pooled regression was performed using EViews v.8 to observe the association among the variables of the company characteristics and corporate social and environmental disclosure. Profitability, leverage and size were included as control variables. The results revealed that the level of corporate social and environmental reporting in Indonesia was low. However, the corporate social and environmental disclosure had increased from previous years and was dominated by soft disclosures. The results reported in this study show strong support for the firm’s industry sensitivity, government environmental monitoring, media coverage, strategic posture, government shareholding, foreign activity, leverage and size. Conversely, blockholder ownership, award, and profitability were not supported by this study. Hence, this study has shown that company characteristics can be determined by economic, social, and political perspectives. In this respect, a multiple-perspective approach can help one to take advantage of the complementariness of different theories and gain alternative interpretations of the same phenomenon through a more holistic analysis

An investigation into the use of B-Nodes and state models for computer network technology and education

This thesis consists of a series of internationally published, peer reviewed, conference research papers and one journal paper. The papers evaluate and further develop two modelling methods for use in Information Technology (IT) design and for the educational and training needs of students within the area of computer and network technology. The IT age requires technical talent to fill positions such as network managers, web administrators, e-commerce consultants and network security experts as IT is changing rapidly, and this is placing considerable demands on higher educational institutions, both within Australia and internationally, to respond to these changes