Review of Marcus Bowles, 'Relearning to E-Learn: Strategies for Electronic Learning and Knowledge', 2004

Dr Marcus Bowles is well known to those interested in E-Learning. The emphasis of his latest work is not on academic based training but rather on corporate training. The corporate training market has been plagued by a failure to apply teaching pedagogy in favour of simply delivering content on-line. Bowles encourages corporations to invest in e-learning on the basis that communication, information transfer and knowledge-based attributes are the key to financial success for modern corporations. Content and technology, the foundations of e-learning can be enhanced by full recognition of people and process. Each of the twelve chapters of the book concludes with a summary principle

Review of 'Relearning to E-Learn: Strategies for Electronic Learning and Knowledge': Dr. Marcus Bowles, Melbourne University Press, ISBN 0522851266

Dr Marcus Bowles is well known to those interested in E-Learning. The emphasis of his latest work is not on academic based training but rather on corporate training. The corporate training market has been plagued by a failure to apply teaching pedagogy in favour of simply delivering content on-line. Bowles encourages corporations to invest in e-learning on the basis that communication, information transfer and knowledge-based attributes are the key to financial success for modern corporations. Content and technology, the foundations of e-learning can be enhanced by full recognition of 'people' and 'process'

Exploring EFL Students Difficulties and Strategies in Learning TOEFL ITP of Structure and Written Expression

Nowadays the TOEFL test is very important. The TOEFL test is not only to measure English proficiency, but also for the sake of scholarship requirements, and as a requirement to graduate from college. This study explores the difficulties of EFL students in learning the TOEFL ITP of Structure and Written Expression (SWE) and how EFL students overcome difficulties in learning the TOEFL ITP of SWE. This study uses a narrative inquiry design. The data used in this study is qualitative data obtained from information provided by students through questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study show that there are several difficulties for students in learning TOEFL ITP, namely sentences with multiple clauses, sentences with inverted subjects and verbs, problems with prepositions, problems with the form of the verb, sentences with one clause, problems with subject/verb agreement. The way students overcome difficulties in the TOEFL ITP of SWE is to re-learn what has been taught by the tutor, reopen the module, learn from several other references besides the reference given by the tutor, learn from youtube, re-learn with classmates who have mastered the material. , do the practice questions independently. The findings in this research are expected to give an empirical contribution to TOEFL teachers to pay attention to students' difficulties in learning TOEFL ITP, especially SWE

Do students and lecturers actively use collaboration tools in learning management systems?

In recent years there has been a large emphasis placed on the need to use Learning Management Systems (LMS) in the field of higher education, with many universities mandating their use. An important aspect of these systems is their ability to offer collaboration tools to build a community of learners. This paper reports on a study of the effectiveness of an LMS (Blackboard©) in a higher education setting and whether both lecturers and students voluntarily use collaborative tools for teaching and learning. Interviews were conducted with participants (N=67) from the faculties of Science and Technology, Business, Health and Law. Results from this study indicated that participants often use Blackboard© as an online repository of learning materials and that the collaboration tools of Blackboard© are often not utilised. The study also found that several factors have inhibited the use and uptake of the collaboration tools within Blackboard©. These have included structure and user experience, pedagogical practice, response time and a preference for other tools

Early development of abstract language knowledge: evidence from perception-production transfer of birth-language memory

Children adopted early in life into another linguistic community typically forget their birth language but retain, unaware, relevant linguistic knowledge that may facilitate (re) learning of birth-language patterns. Understanding the nature of this knowledge can shed light on how language is acquired. Here, international adoptees from Korea with Dutch as their current language, and matched Dutch-native controls, provided speech production data on a Korean consonantal distinction unlike any Dutch distinctions, at the outset and end of an intensive perceptual training. The productions, elicited in a repetition task, were identified and rated by Korean listeners. Adoptees' production scores improved significantly more across the training period than control participants' scores, and, for adoptees only, relative production success correlated significantly with the rate of learning in perception (which had, as predicted, also surpassed that of the controls). Of the adoptee group, half had been adopted at 17 months or older (when talking would have begun), while half had been prelinguistic (under six months). The former group, with production experience, showed no advantage over the group without. Thus the adoptees' retained knowledge of Korean transferred from perception to production and appears to be abstract in nature rather than dependent on the amount of experience.The research was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Max Planck Society (J.C.), with additional support from NWO-Veni (M.B.) and NWO-Spinoza (A.C.). Further support during preparation of the manuscript is acknowledged from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (A.C., J.C.), NWO-Vidi (M.B.) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (J.C.)

AI for in-line vehicle sequence controlling: development and evaluation of an adaptive machine learning artifact to predict sequence deviations in a mixed-model production line

Customers in the manufacturing sector, especially in the automotive industry, have a high demand for individualized products at price levels comparable to traditional mass production. The contrary objectives of providing a variety of products and operating at minimum costs have introduced a high degree of production planning and control mechanisms based on a stable order sequence for mixed-model assembly lines. A major threat to this development is sequence scrambling, triggered by both operational and product-related root causes. Despite the introduction of just-in-time and fixed production times, the problem of sequence scrambling remains partially unresolved in the automotive industry. Negative downstream effects range from disruptions in the just-in-sequence supply chain to a stop of the production process. A precise prediction of sequence deviations at an early stage allows the introduction of counteractions to stabilize the sequence before disorder emerges. While procedural causes are widely addressed in research, the work at hand requires a different perspective involving a product-related view. Built on unique data from a real-world global automotive manufacturer, a supervised classification model is trained and evaluated. This includes all the necessary steps to design, implement, and assess an AI artifact, as well as data gathering, preprocessing, algorithm selection, and evaluation. To ensure long-term prediction stability, we include a continuous learning module to counter data drifts. We show that up to 50% of the major deviations can be predicted in advance. However, we do not consider any process-related information, such as machine conditions and shift plans, but solely focus on the exploitation of product features like body type, powertrain, color, and special equipment

Connected Learning Journeys in Music Production Education

The field of music production education is a challenging one, exploring multiple creative, technical and entrepreneurial disciplines, including music composition, performance electronics, acoustics, musicology, project management and psychology. As a result, students take multiple ‘learning journeys’ on their pathway towards becoming autonomous learners. This paper uniquely evaluates the journey of climbing Bloom’s cognitive domain in the field of music production and gives specific examples that validate teaching music production in higher education through multiple, connected ascents of the framework. Owing to the practical nature of music production, Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model is also considered as a recurring function that is necessary for climbing Bloom’s domain, in order to ensure that learners are equipped for employability and entrepreneurship on graduation. The authors’ own experiences of higher education course delivery, design and development are also reflected upon with reference to Music Production pathways at both the University of Westminster (London, UK) and York St John University (York, UK)

Integrating Cognitive Science with Innovative Teaching in STEM Disciplines

This volume collects the ideas and insights discussed at a novel conference, the Integrating Cognitive Science with Innovative Teaching in STEM Disciplines Conference, which was held September 27-28, 2012 at Washington University in St. Louis. With funding from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the conference was hosted by Washington University’s Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE), a center established in 2011. Available for download as a PDF. Titles of individual chapters can be found at http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/circle_book/.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/books/1009/thumbnail.jp

E-Learning: Implications for Mathematics Educators

The search for knowledge is an everyday thing amongst humans. This has resulted in the enrolment of people into different institutions of learning. The development of technology and the discovery of the internet resulted in their usage for learning. Several institutions have implemented this in their programmes over the years. This paper examined the concept of e-learning; how it works, it benefits to learners, educators and the society and some challenges it faces. Consequently, its workability for mathematics educators was deduced

Knowledge management : Emerging roles and challenges of library and information professionals

With globalization the credibility of the workforce is determined by how best they can accommodate themselves in the growing challenges of k-economy. Knowledge Management (KM) has been in operation for quite some time. Its close affinity to library and information management is undeniable. Library has not relinquished its role and interest as information and knowledge providers. It is fitting then to recognize that a well planned strategy, involving the library and the management of the institution could provide significant influence to achieve the KM objectives. Librarians and information professionals (IPs) should be dedicated to fulfilling the varied information needs of the users, amidst the k-economy by providing accurate and relevant bibliographic and physical access and offer referral to the multidimensional range of information within the library premise and outside. KM is a challenge to the information professionals and for the fields of librarianship and information science and needs to be taken seriously to leverage the intellectual assets and to facilitate knowledge utilization and creation