Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

Old New Media: Closed-circuit Television and the Classroom

This article explores closed-circuit television (CCTV) and its ‘bright promise stage’, as it was contemplated, marketed, and implemented as a low-cost classroom tool. After the Federal Communications Commission issued the 1952 Sixth Report and Order, many schools and communities sought to bring educational television to the classroom. However, this model was financially out of reach for most. CCTV was a more affordable version of educational television that could cater to specific classroom needs and allow schools to create their own in-house network. CCTV represents just one of many new technologies that have been promoted as ideal for classroom instruction over the last century. Using articles and advertisements from popular press magazines, educational journals, books, and archival materials, this article seeks to illuminate the ‘social practices and conflicts’ that contributed to the conversations around CCTV’s classroom utility. It concludes by connecting CCTV’s promotion in the 1950s to more recent new media technologies

Developing a Mini Smart House model

The work is devoted to designing a smart home educational model. The authors analyzed the literature in the field of the Internet of Things and identified the basic requirements for the training model. It contains the following levels: command, communication, management. The authors identify the main subsystems of the training model: communication, signaling, control of lighting, temperature, filling of the garbage container, monitoring of sensor data. The proposed smart home educational model takes into account the economic indicators of resource utilization, which gives the opportunity to save on payment for their consumption. The hardware components for the implementation of the Mini Smart House were selected in the article. It uses a variety of technologies to conveniently manage it and use renewable energy to power it. The model was produced in-dependently by students involved in the STEM project. Research includes sketching, making construction parts, sensor assembly and Arduino boards, programming in the Arduino IDE environment, testing the functioning of the system. Research includes sketching, making some parts, assembly sensor and Arduino boards, programming in the Arduino IDE environment, testing the functioning of the system. Approbation Mini Smart House researches were conducted within activity the STEM-center of Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University, in particular during the educational process and during numerous trainings and seminars for pupils and teachers of computer science

The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation in America

As the United States slowly emerges from the great recession, a remarkable shify is occurring in the spatial geogrpahy of innovation. For the past 50 years, the landscape of innovation has been dominated by places like Silicon Valley - suburban corridors of spatially isolated corporate campuses, accessible only by car, with little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing, and recreation. A new complementary urban model is now emerging, giving rise to what we and others are calling "innovation districts." These districts, by our definition, are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. They are also physically compact, transit-accessible, and technicall

Introducing Preservice STEM Teachers to Computer Science: A Narrative of Theoretically Oriented Design

This paper narrates the process of designing a curricular unit that serves to introduce preservice science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers to computer science (CS) education. Unlike most literature that focuses on results and findings, this paper explains how a justice-centered approach to CS education informed decisions about the theoretical underpinnings of curricular design choices. Situated in issues related to the gentrification of Austin, Texas, the described curricular unit explores how the increased use of CS and growth of the technology sector are having a direct impact on the historically marginalized residents of East Austin. Connected by a theme that maps are both a form of data visualization and political artifact, the described curricular unit uses CS as a tool to: critique the macro-ethics of politics and society; provide a CS learning environment that can be responsive to the multiple social identities of students; and connect CS to larger struggles for justice and liberation.Educatio

Empire State\u27s Cultural Capital at Risk? Assessing Challenges to the Workforce and Educational Infrastructure of Arts and Entertainment in New York

New York State is a world center for the arts and entertainment industry and its vast and uniquely diversified workforce is its main competitive advantage. Commissioned by the New York Empire State Development Corporation, this report examines the strengths and the challenges facing this industry and its workforce in the state, providing an assessment of the education and training infrastructure that supports this vital industry, and identifying issues that offer a potential role for public and private policy

A double-edged sword: Use of computer algebra systems in first-year Engineering Mathematics and Mechanics courses

Many secondary-level mathematics students have experience with graphical calculators from high school. For the purposes of this paper we define graphical calculators as those able to perform rudimentary symbolic manipulation and solve complicated equations requiring very modest user knowledge. The use of more advanced computer algebra systems e.g. Maple, Mathematica, Mathcad, Matlab/MuPad is becoming more prevalent in tertiary-level courses. This paper explores our students’ experience using one such system (MuPad) in first-year tertiary Engineering Mathematics and Mechanics courses. The effectiveness of graphical calculators and computer algebra systems in mathematical pedagogy has been investigated by a multitude of educational researchers (e.g. Ravaglia et al. 1998). Most of these studies found very small or no correlation between student use of graphical calculators or exposure to computer algebra systems with future achievement in mathematics courses (Buteau et al. 2010). In this paper we focus instead on students’ attitude towards a more advanced standalone computer algebra system (MuPad), and whether students’ inclination to use the system is indicative of their mathematical understanding. Paper describing some preliminary research into use of computer algebra systems for teaching engineering mathematics