How to Draw a Heart: Teaching Art to Incarcerated Youth

This article traces the progress of a social theory-based university art education program in which undergraduate majors teach art to incarcerated youth. It addresses and goes beyond the editor\u27s question, What imagery lies \u27outside\u27 art educators\u27 accepted sphere? Not only is the imagery of these populations out of sight, but so are the sites of incarceration themselves, they exist not only outside the purview of the art education field, but of nearly every sector of society except the police. Even their families are often out of sight. The readable, conversational format is a political choice. I offer an alternative to the jargon-heavy, objective voice of traditional scholarship. My target audience is not only university faculty, but also students and classroom teachers who will read this article because they want to rather than simply because it was assigned. Perhaps these conversations will remove stereotypes in some readers\u27 minds or even pave the way for them to become involved with incarcerated populations

When Conciliation Frustrates the Epistemic Priorities of Groups

Our aim in this chapter is to draw attention to what we see as a disturbing feature of conciliationist views of disagreement. Roughly put, the trouble is that conciliatory responses to in-group disagreement can lead to the frustration of a group's epistemic priorities: that is, the group's favoured trade-off between the "Jamesian goals" of truth-seeking and error-avoidance. We show how this problem can arise within a simple belief aggregation framework, and draw some general lessons about when the problem is most pronounced. We close with a tentative proposal for how to solve the problem raised without rejecting conciliationism

Drawing Mama, a Practical Drawing Tutorial Book for Parents

Parents need to be closer to their children, especially when they are in early years. The process of the approach can be done in some creative way, one example is drawing together with children. But apparently many parents claim that they cannot draw. Indeed, parents do not need to be able to draw perfectly, but it will be more valuable if parents can draw properly, because it can make the interaction process between parents and children become more meaningful and memorable for both. For this reason, efforts have been made to provide basic insights and practical drawing techniques for parents. Actually, there are already many materials how to draw for children and adolescents, therefore this practical drawing tech-niques are packaged in the form of a book are intended specifically for parents, especially in Indonesia. The drawing method used in this book is observation and imitation of images. The results of this study are three books learning practical drawing for parents that can be used to support interaction with children at home. Keywords drawing technique, book, parentin

How we draw texts: a review of approaches to text visualization and exploration

This paper presents a review of approaches to text visualization and exploration. Text visualization and exploration, we argue, constitute a subfield of data visualization, and are fuelled by the advances being made in text analysis research and by the growing amount of accessible data in text format. We propose an original classification for a total of 49 cases based on the visual features of the approaches adopted, identified using an inductive process of analysis. We group the cases (published between 1994 and 2013) in two categories: single-text visualizations and text-collection visualizations, both of which can be explored and compared online

High altitude climbers as ethnomethodologists making sense of cognitive dissonance: ethnographic insights from an attempt to scale Mt Everest

This ethnographic study examined how a group of high altitude climbers (N = 6)drew on ethnomethodological principles (the documentary method of interpretation, reflexivity, indexicality, and membership) to interpret their experiences of cognitive dissonance during an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Data were collected via participant observation, interviews, and a field diary. Each data source was subjected to a content mode of analysis. Results revealed how cognitive dissonance reduction is accomplished from within the interaction between a pattern of self-justification and self-inconsistencies; how the reflexive nature of cognitive dissonance is experienced; how specific features of the setting are inextricably linked to the cognitive dissonance experience; and how climbers draw upon a shared stock of knowledge in their experiences with cognitive dissonance

How to produce an access agreement for 2012-13

"Following changes to graduate contributions, all publicly funded institutions wishing to charge fees of more than £6,000 for new full‐time undergraduate entrants in 2012‐13 must have a new access agreement approved by OFFA. Access agreements set out how institutions will sustain or improve access and student retention. This document sets out our [OFFA] guidance on how to draw up an access agreement, what you need to include in your agreement and what we will be looking for as regulators." - Page 5

Teachers' classroom feedback: still trying to get it right

This article examines feedback traditionally given by teachers in schools. Such feedback tends to focus on children's acquisition and retrieval of externally prescribed knowledge which is then assessed against mandated tests. It suggests that, from a sociocultural learning perspective, feedback directed towards such objectives may limit children's social development. In this article, I draw on observation and interview data gathered from a group of 27 9- to 10-year olds in a UK primary school. These data illustrate the children's perceived need to conform to, rather than negotiate, the teacher's feedback comments. They highlight the children's sense that the teacher's feedback relates to school learning but not to their own interests. The article also includes alternative examples of feedback which draw on children's own inquiries and which relate to the social contexts within which, and for whom, they act. It concludes by suggesting that instead of looking for the right answer to the question of what makes teachers' feedback effective in our current classrooms, a more productive question might be how a negotiation can be opened up among teachers and learners themselves, about how teachers' feedback could support children's learning most appropriately

Stereoscopic Sketchpad: 3D Digital Ink

--Context-- This project looked at the development of a stereoscopic 3D environment in which a user is able to draw freely in all three dimensions. The main focus was on the storage and manipulation of the ‘digital ink’ with which the user draws. For a drawing and sketching package to be effective it must not only have an easy to use user interface, it must be able to handle all input data quickly and efficiently so that the user is able to focus fully on their drawing. --Background-- When it comes to sketching in three dimensions the majority of applications currently available rely on vector based drawing methods. This is primarily because the applications are designed to take a users two dimensional input and transform this into a three dimensional model. Having the sketch represented as vectors makes it simpler for the program to act upon its geometry and thus convert it to a model. There are a number of methods to achieve this aim including Gesture Based Modelling, Reconstruction and Blobby Inflation. Other vector based applications focus on the creation of curves allowing the user to draw within or on existing 3D models. They also allow the user to create wire frame type models. These stroke based applications bring the user closer to traditional sketching rather than the more structured modelling methods detailed. While at present the field is inundated with vector based applications mainly focused upon sketch-based modelling there are significantly less voxel based applications. The majority of these applications focus on the deformation and sculpting of voxmaps, almost the opposite of drawing and sketching, and the creation of three dimensional voxmaps from standard two dimensional pixmaps. How to actually sketch freely within a scene represented by a voxmap has rarely been explored. This comes as a surprise when so many of the standard 2D drawing programs in use today are pixel based. --Method-- As part of this project a simple three dimensional drawing program was designed and implemented using C and C++. This tool is known as Sketch3D and was created using a Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. Due to the modular nature of Sketch3Ds system architecture it is possible to plug a range of different data structures into the program to represent the ink in a variety of ways. A series of data structures have been implemented and were tested for efficiency. These structures were a simple list, a 3D array, and an octree. They have been tested for: the time it takes to insert or remove points from the structure; how easy it is to manipulate points once they are stored; and also how the number of points stored effects the draw and rendering times. One of the key issues brought up by this project was devising a means by which a user is able to draw in three dimensions while using only two dimensional input devices. The method settled upon and implemented involves using the mouse or a digital pen to sketch as one would in a standard 2D drawing package but also linking the up and down keyboard keys to the current depth. This allows the user to move in and out of the scene as they draw. A couple of user interface tools were also developed to assist the user. A 3D cursor was implemented and also a toggle, which when on, highlights all of the points intersecting the depth plane on which the cursor currently resides. These tools allow the user to see exactly where they are drawing in relation to previously drawn lines. --Results-- The tests conducted on the data structures clearly revealed that the octree was the most effective data structure. While not the most efficient in every area, it manages to avoid the major pitfalls of the other structures. The list was extremely quick to render and draw to the screen but suffered severely when it comes to finding and manipulating points already stored. In contrast the three dimensional array was able to erase or manipulate points effectively while the draw time rendered the structure effectively useless, taking huge amounts of time to draw each frame. The focus of this research was on how a 3D sketching package would go about storing and accessing the digital ink. This is just a basis for further research in this area and many issues touched upon in this paper will require a more in depth analysis. The primary area of this future research would be the creation of an effective user interface and the introduction of regular sketching package features such as the saving and loading of images

Using SPARQL – the practitioners’ viewpoint

A number of studies have analyzed SPARQL log data to draw conclusions about how SPARQL is being used. To complement this work, a survey of SPARQL users has been undertaken. Whilst confirming some of the conclusions of the previous studies, the current work is able to provide additional insight into how users create SPARQL queries, the difficulties they encounter, and the features they would like to see included in the language. Based on this insight, a number of recommendations are presented to the community. These relate to predicting and avoiding computationally expensive queries; extensions to the language; and extending the search paradigm