Next Generation User Skills

The world is awash with statistics on the impact of the web on 21st century living, learning and working. They are accompanied by the pronouncements and predictions of experts from every camp, from those heralding a new brave new world of co-creation and choice, to warnings from the dark side in terms of ethics and educational standards, tempered by increasing recognition that ‘we’ may no longer be in control of such matters. Meanwhile, surveys report that around 80% of businesses have invested in IT and 60% have websites. Whilst the extent and value of adoption differs significantly across businesses and sectors, the foundations for new ways of working and doing business are broadly in place, with older and static businesses typifying the laggards. It would not be unsafe to project that, by 2013, even more people will be required to use ICT in the workplace and in their everyday lives, increasingly involving online communication and web-based applications. This represents a scenario to which those responsible for developing curricula and awards must respond – in the primary and secondary phases, vocational and applied learning, work based and adult community provision and higher education. To ensure the relevance of and to influence the ongoing enhancement of user ICT provision and the associated awards, Digital 2020 and the Scottish Qualifications Authority jointly commissioned Sero Consulting to develop a vision for ICT user skills in 2013 – ‘Next Generation User Skills’ – taking account of: • Skills that all employers will need, which they may not currently recognise. • Skills that people (especially young people) will already have, but which may not be accredited. • Essential skills for living and learning in a digital age. This paper is drawn from the resulting public report, ‘Next Generation User Skills – Working, Learning & Living Online in 2013’ (September 2008), which provides: • An overview of the current ICT user skills landscape. • A model representing digital activities and competencies that might constitute the ‘Next Generation User Skillscape’. • A mapping of that activity space onto tools and awards, with a gap analysis identifying weaknesses in provision. • An overview of the recommendations to the report sponsors

Web Living Case: A Web Based Business Case Delivery System for Collaborative Work

This paper describes the Web Living Case (WLC), a Web based business case delivery system that incorporates support for collaborative work. WLC provides a more interesting environment for case presentation than do traditional written cases. To facilitate effective collaboration, WLC provides shared workspaces for students working on common tasks, bulletin boards, and real-time conversation support, and a consistent and friendly user-interface

Pilot Study of a Web-Delivered Multicomponent Intervention for Rural Teens with Poorly Controlled Type 1 Diabetes

Objective. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of a web-delivered multicomponent behavioral and family-based intervention targeting self-regulation and self-monitoring of blood glucose levels (SMBG) and glycemic control (HbA1c) in teens with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) living in rural US. Methods. 15 teens with poorly controlled T1DM participated in a 25-week web-delivered intervention with two phases, active treatment (weekly treatment sessions and working memory training program) and maintenance treatment (fading of treatment sessions). Results. Almost all (13 of 15) participants completed at least 14 of 15 treatment sessions and at least 20 of 25 working memory training sessions. SMBG was increased significantly at end of active and maintenance treatment, and HbA1c was decreased at end of active treatment (’s ≤ 0.05). Executive functioning improved at end of maintenance treatment: performance on working memory and inhibitory control tasks significantly improved (’s ≤ 0.02) and parents reported fewer problems with executive functioning (). Improvement in inhibitory control was correlated with increases in SMBG and decreases in HbA1c. Conclusions. An innovative web-delivered and multicomponent intervention was feasible for teens with poorly controlled T1DM and their families living in rural US and associated with significant improvements in SMBG and HbA1c

Collaborative social learning: rewards and challenges in mainstream higher education

This paper introduces the theoretical framework and design rationale for an innovative undergraduate module entitled “Living and Working on the Web” at the University of Southampton. The module design is based on the principles of collaborative social learning and the co-construction of knowledge. At the workshop a model of best practice will be presented, featuring a ‘blog-comment-reflect-feedback’ cycle, which has derived from the synthesis of relevant literature and which will be reflected upon through an informal content analysis of the students’ blogs

Injuries among youth on farms, 2001

"Agriculture continues to rank as one of the most hazardous industries. Youth are exposed to hazards while living, working on, or visiting farms. In 2001, there were approximately 1.9 million farms in the U.S., with an estimated 1,075,759 youth living in these farm households. Between 1995 and 2000, the annual injury fatality rate for youth on farm operations was 9.3 fatalities per 100,000 youth. In 2001, the non-fatal injury rate for youth who reside on or are hired to work on U.S. farms was 1,270 injuries per 100,000 farm youth. Household farm youth comprise all youth 0-19 years of age who live on Us. farms and include working and non-working youth. An estimated 1,075,759 youth lived on u.S. farm operations in 2001: 16,851 were injured (16 injuries per 1,000 household youth); 10-15 year olds had the highest injury rate (21 injuries per 1,000 household youth); 5,807 injuries occurred while working on the farm (10 injuries per 1,000 working household. youth); 10-15 year olds experienced the highest rate of injury while doing farm work (11 injuries per 1,000 household youth)." --NIOSHTIC-2Title from PDF title screen (CDC, viewed July 8, 2010)."December 2004."Also available on the World Wide Web

Debating whether Dinosaurs Should be "Cloned" from Ancient DNA to Promote Cooperative Learning in an Introductory Evolution Course

This interactive internet exercise engages students in cooperative library and web research on a controversial topic in science (and ethics), specifically the cloning of extinct forms of life. To debate the many complex issues embedded in this topic, students have to apply knowledge acquired from a variety of sources about dinosaurs, their evolutionary history, diversity, distribution, physiology, behavior, environmental requirements, and extinction. They must achieve a general understanding of the techniques used to discover and retrieve ancient DNA and to produce a clone from a living adult animal. During an in-class "trial," two teams of students representing six types of specialists argue cases for and against dinosaur cloning. Student "judges" hear testimony, pose questions to the specialists, and render their verdict about whether dinosaur cloning should be allowed. Working cooperatively in small groups and arguing a position in an authoritative fashion requires students to exercise their communication (written and oral), collaborative, and critical thinking skills. This exercise creates a dynamic learning environment in a moderately large introductory geology course and demonstrates the importance of scientific literacy in the contemporary experience. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

family members and health-related behaviors

The aim of this study was to clarify the associations of family members living together with health-related behaviors in Japanese young workers. The participants were 300 men and women aged 20-39 years in 2015 who had a job. A web-based self-administered questionnaire on status of partnering and parenting, number of family members living together, dietary habits, drinking habit, smoking habit, self-rated health, employment status, working time and commuting time was conducted through Internet. Multiple logistic regression analysis and general linear models were used to assess the association of family members living together with health-related behaviors. The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval, p-value) for current drinking in unmarried participants living with their parents compared to unmarried participants living alone was 0.35 (0.13-0.93, p=0.036). The adjusted means of frequency of breakfast skipping and frequency of eating out showed a trend for inverse associations with the presence of a partner and children. However, those associations disappeared after adjustment for age of youngest child. The findings suggest that the presence of parents might affect drinking behavior and that age of youngest child living together might affect the frequency of breakfast skipping in young Japanese workers

TurkScanner: Predicting the Hourly Wage of Microtasks

Workers in crowd markets struggle to earn a living. One reason for this is that it is difficult for workers to accurately gauge the hourly wages of microtasks, and they consequently end up performing labor with little pay. In general, workers are provided with little information about tasks, and are left to rely on noisy signals, such as textual description of the task or rating of the requester. This study explores various computational methods for predicting the working times (and thus hourly wages) required for tasks based on data collected from other workers completing crowd work. We provide the following contributions. (i) A data collection method for gathering real-world training data on crowd-work tasks and the times required for workers to complete them; (ii) TurkScanner: a machine learning approach that predicts the necessary working time to complete a task (and can thus implicitly provide the expected hourly wage). We collected 9,155 data records using a web browser extension installed by 84 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and explored the challenge of accurately recording working times both automatically and by asking workers. TurkScanner was created using ~150 derived features, and was able to predict the hourly wages of 69.6% of all the tested microtasks within a 75% error. Directions for future research include observing the effects of tools on people's working practices, adapting this approach to a requester tool for better price setting, and predicting other elements of work (e.g., the acceptance likelihood and worker task preferences.)Comment: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW '19), San Francisco, CA, USA, May 13-17, 201

Revisão sistemática de ensaios clínicos randomizados: Intervenções não-farmacológicas com objetivo de reduzir a fragilidade em idosos

Frailty is a well-known and accepted term by professionals working with older people in recent years for its associations with multiple adverse outcomes. The purpose of this systematic review of randomized controlled trials was to examine non-pharmacological interventions that allows reversing or reducing frailty, and its adverse outcomes, such as disability in activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, lower quality of life and falls in older adults. Systematic review of literature was performed in PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Knowledge and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. This systematic review concluded that, apart from the lack of consensus on how to evaluate the frailty, there is also a lack of evidence regarding the effect of non-pharmacological interventions on frailty. The heterogeneity of interventions proposed in the literature highlights that future research should focus on determining the best way to prevent and reduce frailty.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio