Proceedings of the second "international Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST'14)

The implicit objective of the biennial "international - Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST) is to foster collaboration between international scientific teams by disseminating ideas through both specific oral/poster presentations and free discussions. For its second edition, the iTWIST workshop took place in the medieval and picturesque town of Namur in Belgium, from Wednesday August 27th till Friday August 29th, 2014. The workshop was conveniently located in "The Arsenal" building within walking distance of both hotels and town center. iTWIST'14 has gathered about 70 international participants and has featured 9 invited talks, 10 oral presentations, and 14 posters on the following themes, all related to the theory, application and generalization of the "sparsity paradigm": Sparsity-driven data sensing and processing; Union of low dimensional subspaces; Beyond linear and convex inverse problem; Matrix/manifold/graph sensing/processing; Blind inverse problems and dictionary learning; Sparsity and computational neuroscience; Information theory, geometry and randomness; Complexity/accuracy tradeoffs in numerical methods; Sparsity? What's next?; Sparse machine learning and inference.Comment: 69 pages, 24 extended abstracts, iTWIST'14 website: http://sites.google.com/site/itwist1

CASE STUDY ON TEACHERS’ IN-SERVICE TRAINING NEEDS RELATED TO ACTIVITY-BASED LEARNING IN DISTANCE TEACHING

In this study, I investigated what kind of in-service training needs teachers have related to activity-based learning in distance teaching; and what distance teaching experts and commencing distance teachers view being important in activity-based learning in distance teaching. Distance teaching is an important way to provide equal educational opportunities in the sparsely populated are-as. Activity-based learning is frequently mentioned in the latest Finnish Na-tional Core Curriculum 2014, and thus its combability to distance teaching must be researched. This research has been executed as a case study and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Most of the data are related to a workshop that was held at the teacher training school of the University of Lapland on 25th April 2019. I do not study the workshop per se, but it works as a dividing point for my data. The data set includes meeting memos, e-mail chains, Power Point presentation, comments about the themes that were covered in the workshop, e-mail interviews and phone interviews. One notable result of this study was how much distance teaching experts’ and commencing distance teachers’ views differ on certain topics of activity-based distance teaching. Secondly, relying solely on workshops is not a sufficient way for in-service training related to activity-based learning in distance teach-ing. Tutoring could be implemented in teachers’ in-service training, since it would support shared knowledge between teachers and other experts on the field

A Central American Success Story: Innovation in International Distance Education

Based on actual workshop experiences, faculty at the Honduran Zamorano University in Central America created an effective, size-neutral, world-class distance education (e-learning) program for serving learners throughout Latin America through online and distance learning technology. The program is known as PAC @ D (Programa de Aprendizaje Continuo a Distancia or Life Long Learning Program at a Distance). It is administered by Zamorano’s global center for distance learning. The establishment of PAC @ D in 2010 was preceded by workshop efforts begun in 2004 by the authors. The workshop efforts focused on bridging the cultural uniqueness of educational programs in Latin America and the United States. The goal was to assist local faculty and staff at Zamorano University to build their own digital platform effectively and extend academic and outreach programs through that digital platform. The use of online and distance learning technologies can help extend intellectual capital beyond the limits of the physical campus in fulfilling the teaching, outreach/extension, and, to a limited extent, research missions. However, as we shall see in this professional paper, distance learning is more than turning on the technology with a click and a keystroke. At Zamorano, the development of PAC @ D required many hours of a full range of pedagogical and technological training, spread over 18 months. This professional development paper provides the rationale for PAC @ D, outlines its development, and provides suggestions for enhancing the educational experiences of distance learners

Effective usage of Learning Analytics: What do practitioners want and where should distance learning institutions be going?

The implementation of learning analytics may empower distance learning institutions to provide real-time feedback to students and teachers. Given the leading role of the Open University UK (OU) in research and application of learning analytics, this study aims to share the lessons learned from the experiences of 42 participants from a range of faculty, academic and professional positions, and expertise with learning analytics. Furthermore, we explored where distance learning institutions should be going next in terms of learning analytics adoption. The findings from the Learning Analytics User Stories (LAUS) workshop indicated that four key areas where more work is needed: communication, personalisation, integrated design, and development of an evidence-base. The workshop outputs signalled the aspiration for an integrated analytics system transcending the entire student experience, from initial student inquiry right through to qualification completion and into life-long learning. We hope that our study will spark discussion on whether (or not) distance learning institutions should pursue the dream of an integrated, personalised, and evidence-based learning analytics system that clearly communicates useful feedback to staff and students, or whether this will become an Orwellian nightmare