Letting Go and Letting the Angels Grow: Using Etienne Wenger's Community of Practice Theory to Facilitate Teacher Education

This paper describes a small-scale qualitative research study conducted within a community of English Language teachers, and explores how teacher development workshops can be used to foster or cultivate Communities of Practice. The study was situated in a Language Centre within the domain of UK Higher Education where there was an institutional drive to better integrate the use of new technologies with traditional approaches to pedagogy. Data was collected through focus group sessions with a team of English Language teachers before, during and after a series of teacher development workshops on the use of technology in the English for Academic Purposes classroom. These focus group sessions were then followed up with individual interviews, drawing on a framework of stimulated recall. The data was then analysed through an established discourse analysis framework in the early stages, followed by a more inductive approach of thematic analysis in the later stages; triangulated by classroom observations of all participants. The purpose of the paper is to understand the functioning of a Community of Practice in terms of its contribution to teacher development The core argument within this paper is that Communities of Practice theory can contribute much to the fields of EAP (English for Academic Purposes), and teacher development in both theoretical and practical terms. It advocates a loosening of the reins on the part of organisations so that teachers are allowed to develop at their own pace and in a manner that is self-directed and tailored to their individual needs. It draws on Vygotskian-based theories of teacher cognition which suggest that in order for development to occur in a teacher education programme, participants need some form of prompting to move from within their "zone of proximal development" (Manning & Payne, 1993, p. 361). This prompting or scaffolding, as described in Vygotsky's own work (1934), generally takes place through a combination of support from more experienced practitioners in the first instance and then "situated engagement and negotiation" with peers and practitioners within a teaching community (Samaras & Gismondi, 1998, pp. 715-733)

Promoting Andean children's learning of science through cultural and digital tools

Conference Theme: To see the world and a grain of sand: Learning across levels of space, time, and scaleIn Peru, there is a large achievement gap in rural schools. In order to overcome this problem, the study aims to design environments that enhance science learning through the integration of ICT with cultural artifacts, respecting the Andean culture and empower rural children to pursue lifelong learning. This investigation employs the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework, and the Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology using an iterative process of design, implementation and evaluation of the innovative practice.published_or_final_versio

Investigating the implementation of blended provisions for an introductory computer module

This thesis describes a qualitative single exploratory case study whose purpose was to explore the potential transition of an introductory computer module of College X to a blended learning mode; this was implemented by investigating the perceptions of instructors and students regarding this potential transition, analysing these perceptions using thematic analysis, and framing these within the conceptual framework suggested by Passey (2019). In this respect, integrating ‘new’ ways of teaching and learning for implementing blended learning provision for higher education followed the steps suggested by Passey (2019). The process involved: (1) identifying the elements of the module under investigation that need to remain on-site; (2) associate the remaining elements to suitable ‘new’ ways of learning; (3) associate these elements to appropriate forms of interaction; (4) match these elements to relevant educator modes; and (5) identify the appropriate technology resources to support these elements. This process produced a set of tools that may serve as conceptual frameworks related to the relationships between online elements, educator modes, ‘new’ ways of learning, and interaction forms. Finally, the study’s findings include identified benefits and challenges related to blended learning provisions, as perceived by this study’s participants, aligned with evidence from the prevailing literature. The findings will be used to inform the eventual implementation of a blended learning provision for the said module

Multimedia Development of English Vocabulary Learning in Primary School

In this paper, we describe a prototype of web-based intelligent handwriting education system for autonomous learning of Bengali characters. Bengali language is used by more than 211 million people of India and Bangladesh. Due to the socio-economical limitation, all of the population does not have the chance to go to school. This research project was aimed to develop an intelligent Bengali handwriting education system. As an intelligent tutor, the system can automatically check the handwriting errors, such as stroke production errors, stroke sequence errors, stroke relationship errors and immediately provide a feedback to the students to correct themselves. Our proposed system can be accessed from smartphone or iPhone that allows students to do practice their Bengali handwriting at anytime and anywhere. Bengali is a multi-stroke input characters with extremely long cursive shaped where it has stroke order variability and stroke direction variability. Due to this structural limitation, recognition speed is a crucial issue to apply traditional online handwriting recognition algorithm for Bengali language learning. In this work, we have adopted hierarchical recognition approach to improve the recognition speed that makes our system adaptable for web-based language learning. We applied writing speed free recognition methodology together with hierarchical recognition algorithm. It ensured the learning of all aged population, especially for children and older national. The experimental results showed that our proposed hierarchical recognition algorithm can provide higher accuracy than traditional multi-stroke recognition algorithm with more writing variability

Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Live Coding

Open Access peer reviewed papers on live coding published at the 1st International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC) in Leeds

Auf dem Weg zur Cyberpolis: Neue Formen von Gemeinschaft, Selbst und Bildung

Der soziale, kulturelle und politische Prozess der Digitalisierung hat neue Gemeinschafts- und Bildungsformen denkbar werden lassen, die u.a. durch drei Szenen entscheidend geprägt wurden: die kybernetisch-künstlerischen Hintergründe der PC-Kultur als Basis des Silicon Valley, die Popularisierung des Internets in den 1990er Jahren und aktuelle Entwicklungen, die unter dem Begriff des digitalen Nomadentums gefasst werden. Die Autor*innen fragen vor dem Hintergrund der damit verbundenen Verschiebungen der Gemeinschaftsverständnisse nach praxistauglichen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten der digitalen Gesellschaft

Auf dem Weg zur Cyberpolis

Der soziale, kulturelle und politische Prozess der Digitalisierung hat neue Gemeinschafts- und Bildungsformen denkbar werden lassen, die u.a. durch drei Szenen entscheidend geprägt wurden: die kybernetisch-künstlerischen Hintergründe der PC-Kultur als Basis des Silicon Valley, die Popularisierung des Internets in den 1990er Jahren und aktuelle Entwicklungen, die unter dem Begriff des digitalen Nomadentums gefasst werden. Martin Donner und Heidrun Allert fragen vor dem Hintergrund der damit verbundenen Verschiebungen der Gemeinschaftsverständnisse nach praxistauglichen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten der digitalen Gesellschaft

The Art of Dialogue : Religion, Communication and Global Media Culture

zie bijlage Nederlandse samenvattingHamelink, C.J. [Promotor