48,960 research outputs found

    Re-designing an MA module to foster agency, engagement and production in online social software

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    This article describes the process of re-designing a module on the MA in Media, Culture and Communication at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London. This process took place as part of the “Pedagogic Research to Embedded E-Learning” (PREEL) project at the IOE and involved moving a module largely concerned with offline production of teaching resources into online engagement with Internet culture. Course participants were encouraged to think about issues around production in social software in ways which were relevant to their professional and personal activity online. The early stages of the re-design process were recorded in a course tutor blog and there were further attempts to reflect on the process using two evaluations, one in the middle of a pilot version of the course and the other at the end. The article concludes with a series of lessons learned which can be taken forward during the revalidation process

    Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA)

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    We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA are to explore the utility of the emerging VR and VWs technologies for scientific and scholarly work in general, and to facilitate and accelerate their adoption by the scientific research community. MICA itself is an experiment in academic and scientific practices enabled by the immersive VR technologies. We describe the current and planned activities and research directions of MICA, and offer some thoughts as to what the future developments in this arena may be.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in the refereed proceedings of "Facets of Virtual Environments" (FaVE 2009), eds. F. Lehmann-Grube, J. Sablating, et al., ICST Lecture Notes Ser., Berlin: Springer Verlag (2009); version with full resolution color figures is available at http://www.mica-vw.org/wiki/index.php/Publication

    Rethinking Knowledge and Pedagogy in Dental Education

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    Dentistry as a profession has often been considered both art and science. Traditional dental education has attempted to address both; however, in many places only the science of dentistry is emphasized. The move toward competency-based curricula in dental education requires an expansion of what constitutes meaningful knowledge in the curriculum and what pedagogies best support that curriculum. The scientific and technical knowledge considered foundational to clinical practice is not sufficient to teach competencies associated with the art of dentistry. Habermas, a social scientist, offers a way of looking beyond technical knowledge to consider two other forms of knowledge: practical and emancipatory. Pedagogy that supports development of practical and emancipatory knowledge includes problem-based learning and case methods, heuristics, reflective practica, journals, storytelling, and performance-based assessment methods. These important teaching strategies are being integrated into various dental curricula including a new competency-based dental curriculum at Marquette University\u27s School of Dentistry. It will be critical for dental educators to continue developing these methods to provide efficient and effective education for future practitioners in both the art and science of dentistry

    Heparinization of beta tricalcium phosphate: osteo-immunomodulatory effects

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    "This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: A. Diez-Escudero, M. Espanol, M. Bonany, X. Lu, C. Persson, M.-P. Ginebra, Adv. Healthcare Mater. 2018, 7, 1700867, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.201700867. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."Immune cells play a vital role in regulating bone dynamics. This has boosted the interest in developing biomaterials that can modulate both the immune and skeletal systems. In this study, calcium phosphates discs (i.e., beta-tricalcium phosphate, ß-TCP) are functionalized with heparin to investigate the effects on immune and stem cell responses. The results show that the functionalized surfaces downregulate the release of hydrogen peroxide and proinflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 1 beta) from human monocytes and neutrophils, compared to nonfunctionalized discs. The macrophages show both elongated and round shapes on the two ceramic substrates, but the morphology of cells on heparinized ß-TCP tends toward a higher elongation after 72 h. The heparinized substrates support rat mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) adhesion and proliferation, and anticipate the differentiation toward the osteoblastic lineage as compared to ß-TCP and control. The coupling between the inflammatory response and osteogenesis is assessed by culturing MSCs with the macrophage supernatants. The downregulation of inflammation in contact with the heparinized substrates induces higher expression of bone-related markers by MSCsPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

    Mobile forms of communication and the transformation of relations between the public and private spheres

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    Stress is placed upon contextual issues and for this reason we will theoretically consider aspects of the modern society that are working in conjunction with the mobile phone to alter the public/private dichotomy. The article focuses upon the themes of: emergent practices, community, authority, domestication and etiquette, and notions of space. Rather than focusing solely on perceived change we shall also consider continuities and adaptation in social action, drawing on a range of ethnographic research

    Longing for the light: darkness, dislocation and spaces of exile

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    There have been many studies of light and this paper acknowledges all of the scholarship that goes before, however, this is not a study of light but a study of how light defines perceived identity and how our relationship to it in turn defines our own sense of self. I shall be examining work from different areas of the arts, literature, photography and film to develop my argument, showing how writers and artists have located both the subject and the reader/viewer to exploit this dynamic. Light, as Foucault reminds us, became the most visible symbol of those that, during the Enlightenment, sought to banish darkened spaces and create a visible society. This led eventually to Bentham’s design for the Panopticon which became a model of “‘power through transparency’, [and] subjection through ‘illumination’” which, as Foucault points out, could serve as a template for other areas of society where visibility was a necessary adjunct to other forms of more physical control (the police or the army). Light itself, defines space, sets its visible limits, reveals, creates and, as I shall show, establishes identities. Where one positions oneself, in relation to the light, depends on a number of factors and determines the limits of inclusion into what we may term civilized society. This paper sets out to look at instances where both spatial and individual identity is established through the position in which the subject is placed in relation to the light and its source

    Identifying immersive environments’ most relevant research topics: an instrument to query researchers and practitioners

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    This paper provides an instrument for ascertaining researchers’ perspectives on the relative relevance of technological challenges facing immersive environments in view of their adoption in learning contexts, along three dimensions: access, content production, and deployment. It described its theoretical grounding and expert-review process, from a set of previously-identified challenges and expert feedback cycles. The paper details the motivation, setup, and methods employed, as well as the issues detected in the cycles and how they were addressed while developing the instrument. As a research instrument, it aims to be employed across diverse communities of research and practice, helping direct research efforts and hence contribute to wider use of immersive environments in learning, and possibly contribute towards the development of news and more adequate systems.The work presented herein has been partially funded under the European H2020 program H2020-ICT-2015, BEACONING project, grant agreement nr. 687676.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Embodiment and embodied design

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    Picture this. A preverbal infant straddles the center of a seesaw. She gently tilts her weight back and forth from one side to the other, sensing as each side tips downward and then back up again. This child cannot articulate her observations in simple words, let alone in scientific jargon. Can she learn anything from this experience? If so, what is she learning, and what role might such learning play in her future interactions in the world? Of course, this is a nonverbal bodily experience, and any learning that occurs must be bodily, physical learning. But does this nonverbal bodily experience have anything to do with the sort of learning that takes place in schools - learning verbal and abstract concepts? In this chapter, we argue that the body has everything to do with learning, even learning of abstract concepts. Take mathematics, for example. Mathematical practice is thought to be about producing and manipulating arbitrary symbolic inscriptions that bear abstract, universal truisms untainted by human corporeality. Mathematics is thought to epitomize our species’ collective historical achievement of transcending and, perhaps, escaping the mundane, material condition of having a body governed by haphazard terrestrial circumstance. Surely mathematics is disembodied
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