Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

Exploring the quality of multimodal student dialogue using social virtual reality technology in an online course

Online courses include the design for student interaction to support effective learning. Studies have shown that online discussion boards are a useful option to engage students. However, with new emerging digital technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), the question remains to what extent or in what ways these immersive technologies can be used for synchronous online dialogue to get sufficient quality of student dialogue. Hence, the alignment of online synchronous discussion using Social VR combined with an instructional dialogic strategy conceptual framework was investigated to explore to what extent Social VR is as an effective support in learning design. The Instructional Dialogic Strategy (IDS) from dialogic theory has been used to study the three activities of articulation, collaboration/social negotiation and reflection. A qualitative case study was conducted within a sixteen-week online course for graduate students in 2022. More specifically, the Tech-SEDA (Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis) coding scheme was applied to measure the quality of student digital dialogue. Data shows that Social VR is an effective support within this learning design to provide quality dialogue for articulation, collaboration and social negotiation but lacks considerably in reflection, even when discussion board reflections were added to the assignments. Similar dialogic patterns emerged between two groups concluding that the learning design presented for framing the dialogic assignment using Socratic questioning techniques, exploratory talk and ground rules affect the dialogic outcomes for IDS activities, sub-categories and criteria. Following this learning design model promotes quality dialogue with Social VR as an effective support if all the components are included and adhered. Future research may study reflective learning with Social VR.Includes bibliographical references

Resilient Pedagogy: Practical Teaching Strategies to Overcome Distance, Disruption, and Distraction

Resilient Pedagogy offers a comprehensive collection on the topics and issues surrounding resilient pedagogy framed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social justice movements that have swept the globe. As a collection, Resilient Pedagogy is a multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective response to actions taken in different classrooms, across different institution types, and from individuals in different institutional roles with the purpose of allowing readers to explore the topics to improve their own teaching practice and support their own students through distance, disruption, and distraction

USABILITY EVALUATON OF USERS’ EXPERIENCE ON SOME EXISTING E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS

Internet has become increasingly popular nowadays. Several million of websites have been built and used for electronic buying and selling. Many designers have begun to focus their attention on whether these platforms can really be used to the satisfaction of users. Hence, the need to evaluate users’ experience on E-Commerce platforms. This research compares five platforms (Jumia, Ali-Express, Konga, Amazon and Jiji) based on users’ review through the use of online questionnaires for evaluating the platforms. From the data retrieved, Jumia, Konga and Ali Express recorded a total number of 105, 67 and 45 respondents representing 47.29%, 31.08% and 20.27% of the used sample population respectively. Amazon and Jiji recorded 2 and 3 respondents respectively accounting for 0.9% and 1.35% of the total population size. Attention should be given to attractive and easy-to-Navigate E-Commerce platform designs for users to have good user experience

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE TRANSITION TO ONLINE INSTRUCTION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The purpose of this study was to explore the unique lived experiences of four middle school science teachers from North Carolina and South Carolina during and following the transition from in-person to online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four predominant themes were identified from individual, semi-structured interviews of the teachers: technology change; organizational change; changes in curricula, delivery, and student interaction; and career and personal changes. The teachers in this study described the challenges and opportunities experienced during the rapid transition in March 2020 to virtual teaching and learning. The teachers’ lived experiences seamlessly aligned with the stages of change discussed by Lewin (1947) and other researchers (Bridges & Bridges, 2017; Kotter, 2012; Lewin, 1947; Page & Schoder, 2019). The teachers’ comments and experiences provided a unique perspective into the technical, personal, psychological, social, and cognitive shifts during unplanned, rapid, and disruptive change. The results of this study provided evidence of the teachers’ resilience and their ability to persevere in times of crisis

Implementing a Digital Sharing Space in Online Studio Coursework in the Field of Landscape Architecture

Landscape architecture education focuses on creating socially-rich environments for learning. Coursework in landscape architecture often is labeled as “studio learning.” These types of classes involve a high degree of collaboration and detailed critique. They create opportunities for students to interact with each other and their professors. When considering the adoption of online learning, a primary concern of landscape architecture professors is to maintain this high degree of social interaction in online classes. This study explores the use of several platforms to facilitate social interaction in online landscape architecture coursework. These platforms include Canvas, Basecamp, and Conceptboard. Canvas is the learning management system used for the course, and work done for this project included interaction on the discussion boards. Basecamp is a collaboration tool that included message boards and check-ins for students. Conceptboard included visual work-sharing on an online whiteboard and was used for scheduled critiques between students and the professor or TA. Over the course of two assignments, students interacted online within these different platforms. To determine the effectiveness of the platforms, data was collected from the content posted to platforms, the grades of students’ assignments, and a survey sent to students. Students that used any platform performed better on their assignments than those who did not. Conceptboard users especially had higher grades than those who did not. Conceptboard was generally used to post work and receive a critique from a professor or TA. When comparing students who used Basecamp and Canvas, there was little difference in students’ performance. Basecamp provided a benefit in more participation, and students who used the platform responded that they were more engaged with their fellow peers. During the study, students did respond that they had opportunities to interact with their peers. This study suggests that using online platforms for student interaction can have a positive benefit for students

Examining Usability, Navigation, and Multimedia Learning Principles in an Intentionally Designed Asynchronous Online College Course: A Usability Study

This qualitative study examines an asynchronous online course from a private university utilizing a template model for all online courses to provide students with consistent navigation and course structure throughout their degree program. The asynchronous online courses are purposely created using three criteria of quality course design: navigation is intuitive, information is chunked, and instructions are written clearly. A two-part usability test was conducted with three internal and three external participants. The two-part usability test focused on course navigation and examined the signaling, segmenting, and coherence principles applied to course content page layouts. Transcripts from the usability tests and observational field notes were coded through an iterative process in Nvivo. Through emic and etic coding, seven main categories were identified: user experience, cognitive load, multimedia learning principles, page design and layout attributes, course navigational attributes, course attributes and information, and participant navigational behavior. The findings for first-day navigation, general navigational behaviors, and perceptions of design elements used to implement the signaling, segmenting, and coherence principle are discussed. Course design recommendations for creating a positive usability experience and suggestions for future research are provided

An evolving approach to learning in problem solving and program development : the distributed learning model

Technological advances are paving the way for improvements in many sectors of society. The US education system needs to undergo a transformation of existing pedagogical methods to maximize utilization of new technologies. Traditional education has primarily been teacher driven, lectured-based in one location. Advances in technology are challenging existing paradigms by developing tools and educational environments that reach diverse learning styles and surpass the boundaries of current teaching methods. Distributed learning is an emerging paradigm today that has promise to contribute significantly to learning and improve overall academic success. This research first explores various systems that provide different modes of learning. The problem domain of this research is the difficulty novice programmers\u27 face when learning to program. This paper proposes how distributed learning can be used in a teaching environment to enrich learning and the impacts for the given problem domain