Beyond ANT and Sociomateriality: Explore Symbolic Power to Information System Adoption

IS adoption is inherently a social practice shaped by the immediate social context but capital power does not have a stronger presence in ANT and sociomateriality. The paper describes Bourdieu’s practice theory and suggests that by this lens we can better understand IS adoption (e.g., implementation of MRP II/ERP/ERP II) as symbolic capital changing power relations in an adopted organization. Such shift of power relations is viewed as accepting relation thinking mode and critical realism in IS adoption. From symbolic power perspective, character status and role prestige is ascribed to IS. Implementation of an IS are configuration of power relation designed by IS software vendors. By exploring IS as social inclusion and distinction, we review Ivy University’s Oracle ERP case beyond ANT and Social-materiality theory. We also applied symbolic capital of Bourdieu’s theory to explain“ERP adoption means find dying”by Liu Chuanzhi in Chinese Legend Company

Making machinima: animation, games, and multimodal participation in the media arts

In the project discussed in this article, 30 11-year olds made an animated film in the machinima style, influenced by both film and game culture, and using a 3-D animation software tool, Moviestorm. The processes and products of the project will be analysed using a social semiotic/multimodal approach, exploring the social interests behind the integration of visual design, music, voice acting, story-writing, and animation which characterise the project. The outcomes suggest a need to move beyond established thinking and practice in media literacy practice and research in three ways. Firstly, we need to develop moving image education to recognise new genres and cultures. Secondly, we need to recognise that such productions are intensely multimodal, involving music, drama, story-writing, and visual design. Thirdly, such projects demand connected pedagogy across media, literacy, music, drama, computer science, and art

Algorithms for journalism : The future of news work

Software-generated news, sometimes called “robot journalism,” has recently given rise to concerns that the automation of news will make journalists redundant. These arguments follow a deterministic line of thinking. Algorithms choose information for users but are also the construct of social process and practice. The aim of this essay is to explore “the algorithmic turn” (Napoli, 2014a) in news production. Based on case studies from three separate news outlets it is found that the impact of automated news is, first, increased efficiency and job satisfaction with automation of monotonous and error-prone routine tasks; second, automation of journalism routine tasks resulting in losses of journalist jobs; and third, new forms of work that require computational thinkingPeer reviewe

Effects of an Advanced Mathematics Education Graduate Program on Teacher Practice

Public concern over the mathematical incompetence of students and adults is longstanding and justified. The No Child Left Behind act has affected the nation’s teachers, their school systems, and their communities. The act required all classrooms have a “highly-qualified teacher” by June, 2006 (United States Department of Education, 2002). Thus, the purpose of this evaluative case study was to understand if the unique National Board Certification (NBC) focused Educational Specialist (EdS) program was effective in creating change in teacher practice of six high school mathematics teachers in a suburban Georgia county. The learning outcomes of the program and perceptions of self-efficacy were evaluated and used as guidelines for the effectiveness of the program. The study was grounded in theories of metacognition, social constructivism, and self-efficacy. Metacognition provided the basis for “thinking about thinking” (McApline, Weston, et al, 1999) but reflection expanded the thought process to thinking about thinking or actions. Reflections were an integral for each of the constructs of the EdS program and this dissertation. Data for the study included written teacher reflections, action research projects, and mentoring manuals; in addition to interviews three years after the program. Data were coded and analyzed through a process of constant comparison using the NVivo 7 software. The findings at each stage of analysis, which were halfway through the program, end of the program, and three years after the program, indicate the five constructs metacognition, social constructivism, self-efficacy, community of learners, and action research were common across data sets. Four of the five constructs became more prevalent at each stage of analysis with only action research peaking prior to the third stage. The patterns developed during the study indicated long-term change in teacher practice and these constructs solidified as part of their teaching philosophy

Designing of a TEACCH-based Software Prototype for Assisting in Literacy of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Literacy is a crucial element for the conscious practice of sociability and development of a country. However, some individuals have difficulties in learning with conventional learning and need a methodology adapted to their reality in order to develop the ability for abstract thinking and thus assimilate the knowledge imparted. Autistic Children are examples of individuals with learning disabilities, presenting impairment of social and communicative skills such as hyperactivity, lack of concentration and cognitive deficits. An approach that has been used worldwide to facilitate the literacy of children with autism is the Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication handicapped Children (TEACCH), which consists in structuring a visual environment, materials and activities for these children. The purpose of this work is to present the creation process of the first modules of a software for literacy of autistic children, based on the principles of TEACCH. The software requirements were collected in collaboration with Friends of Autistic People Association of Alagoas (AMA-AL)

Teaching programming with computational and informational thinking

Computers are the dominant technology of the early 21st century: pretty well all aspects of economic, social and personal life are now unthinkable without them. In turn, computer hardware is controlled by software, that is, codes written in programming languages. Programming, the construction of software, is thus a fundamental activity, in which millions of people are engaged worldwide, and the teaching of programming is long established in international secondary and higher education. Yet, going on 70 years after the first computers were built, there is no well-established pedagogy for teaching programming. There has certainly been no shortage of approaches. However, these have often been driven by fashion, an enthusiastic amateurism or a wish to follow best industrial practice, which, while appropriate for mature professionals, is poorly suited to novice programmers. Much of the difficulty lies in the very close relationship between problem solving and programming. Once a problem is well characterised it is relatively straightforward to realise a solution in software. However, teaching problem solving is, if anything, less well understood than teaching programming. Problem solving seems to be a creative, holistic, dialectical, multi-dimensional, iterative process. While there are well established techniques for analysing problems, arbitrary problems cannot be solved by rote, by mechanically applying techniques in some prescribed linear order. Furthermore, historically, approaches to teaching programming have failed to account for this complexity in problem solving, focusing strongly on programming itself and, if at all, only partially and superficially exploring problem solving. Recently, an integrated approach to problem solving and programming called Computational Thinking (CT) (Wing, 2006) has gained considerable currency. CT has the enormous advantage over prior approaches of strongly emphasising problem solving and of making explicit core techniques. Nonetheless, there is still a tendency to view CT as prescriptive rather than creative, engendering scholastic arguments about the nature and status of CT techniques. Programming at heart is concerned with processing information but many accounts of CT emphasise processing over information rather than seeing then as intimately related. In this paper, while acknowledging and building on the strengths of CT, I argue that understanding the form and structure of information should be primary in any pedagogy of programming

Developing research-informed practice in child care social work teams

The thesis centres on a two-year project with childcare teams in a local authority social services department encouraging the use of research materials to inform social workers' day-to-day practice. The intervention was intended to encourage research-mindedness in social workers in order to develop research-informed practice, describe its implementation and evaluate its outcomes. The thesis first considers various strategies for the improvement of professional practice found mostly in the health field, whilst also looking at educational aspects of adult learning theory allied to problem solving and peer group learning. The development and evaluation of an intervention project is then described. The project was delivered by organising and setting up practice development groups (PDGs) in each of the teams, which were facilitated for a period of six to nine months. Group meetings were held fortnightly during this time and lasted two hours. Within the PDGs, social workers' live cases were used during group discussions to arrive at a request for research information relating to the case in order to generate "research informed practice". Data for the evaluation were collected by means of participant observation, the administration of standardised measures of team functioning and follow-up interviews. In the course of the intervention some essential features that were found to assist with the project's success were built into the design. These included the introduction of training sessions in critical thinking skills that were needed to enable social workers to evaluate their cases to see what research information might be useful. The project also identified the need for basic IT skills training and updated software packages together with a requirement for access to electronic journals. There was a high level of commitment to the project by the social workers and evidence that they were able to utilise research information in ways that sometimes changed the direction of their cases and often empowered both the social worker and the client. However, learning at the individual level was not reflected at the organisational level of the employing department

Fostering reflection in the training of speech-receptive action

Dieser Aufsatz erörtert Möglichkeiten und Probleme der Förderung kommunikativer Fertigkeiten durch die Unterstützung der Reflexion eigenen sprachrezeptiven Handelns und des Einsatzes von computerunterstützten Lernumgebungen für dessen Förderung. Kommunikationstrainings widmen sich meistens der Förderung des beobachtbaren sprachproduktiven Handelns (Sprechen). Die individuellen kognitiven Prozesse, die dem sprachrezeptiven Handeln (Hören und Verstehen) zugrunde liegen, werden häufig vernachlässigt. Dies wird dadurch begründet, dass sprachrezeptives Handeln in einer kommunikativen Situation nur schwer zugänglich und die Förderung der individuellen Prozesse sprachrezeptiven Handelns sehr zeitaufwändig ist. Das zentrale Lernprinzip - die Reflexion des eigenen sprachlich-kommunikativen Handelns - wird aus verschiedenen Perspektiven diskutiert. Vor dem Hintergrund der Reflexionsmodelle wird die computerunterstützte Lernumgebung CaiMan© vorgestellt und beschrieben. Daran anschließend werden sieben Erfolgsfaktoren aus der empirischen Forschung zur Lernumgebung CaiMan© abgeleitet. Der Artikel endet mit der Vorstellung von zwei empirischen Studien, die Möglichkeiten der Reflexionsunterstützung untersucheThis article discusses the training of communicative skills by fostering the reflection of speech-receptive action and the opportunities for using software for this purpose. Most frameworks for the training of communicative behavior focus on fostering the observable speech-productive action (i.e. speaking); the individual cognitive processes underlying speech-receptive action (hearing and understanding utterances) are often neglected. Computer-supported learning environments employed as cognitive tools can help to foster speech-receptive action. Seven success factors for the integration of software into the training of soft skills have been derived from empirical research. The computer-supported learning environment CaiMan© based on these ideas is presented. One central learning principle in this learning environment reflection of one's own action will be discussed from different perspectives. The article concludes with two empirical studies examining opportunities to foster reflecti

Foreign objects? Web content management systems, journalistic cultures and the ontology of software

Research on ‘digital’ journalism has focused largely on online news, with comparatively less interest in the longer-term implications of software and computational technologies. Drawing upon a six-year study of the Toronto Star, this paper provides an account of TOPS, an in-house web content management system (CMS) which served as the backbone of thestar.com for six years. For some, TOPS was a successful software innovation, while for others, a strategic digital ‘property’. But for most journalists, it was slow, deficient in functionality, aesthetically unappealing and cumbersome. Although several organizational factors can explain TOPS’ obstinacy, I argue for particular attention to the complex ontology of software. Based on an outline of this ontology, I suggest software be taken seriously as an object of journalism, which implies: acknowledging its partial autonomy from human use or authorization; accounting for its ability to mutate indefinitely; and analyzing its capacity to encourage forms of ‘computational thinking

HOW DO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS SELECT AND USE THEIR LEARNING TOOLS? A MIXED-METHOD STUDY ON PERSONALISED LEARNING (21)

Universities often blend traditional learning and e-learning by providing software licenses, electronic learning materials, and access to Learning Management Systems. Following the idea of personalised learning in higher education, students are free to choose between a wide range of learning tools constructing their Personalised Learning Environment. However, the characteristics of the chosen tools need to match the characteristics of the learning tasks to support students adequately. In the present paper, a mixed-method approach is used to analyse which types of tools are used in practice and which types of learning tasks are performed using these learning tools. Furthermore, important factors influencing the decision to select learning tools are identified. This study shows that a wide array of learning tools is used in practice. Although students consider individual factors (such as perceived ease of use and task-technology fit) to be most important when selecting their tools, several exogenous factors such as the lecturers’ targeted pedagogy, social norm and the occurrence of higher order thinking skills limit the range of adequate learning tools