244 research outputs found

    World through the Eyes of Children: A Qualitative Study of Preschool Children’s Understanding of the World

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    In recent years, the dominant discourses on child-centered individualistic pedagogy representing Eurocentric models and grounded in developmental psychology have been increasingly challenged. Critics pointing to the diverse contexts of childhood, and the impact of globalization and technological advancement, have questioned the universal application of the developmental paradigms. Responding to a rapidly changing post-modern world, scholars have offered alternative narratives drawing on the scholarship in various disciplines like sociology, anthropology, human geography, science studies, postmodernist, and post-structural feminist studies. Pointing to the increasingly complex and ecologically challenging world of the 21st century, these scholars propose the concepts of “common worlds” and “nature-cultures” to re-conceptualize childhood within a broader context of a world that expands beyond the human/social dimensions to include other life forms and nature such as the natural environment, human made environments, and other life worlds. This ethnographic case study used participant observation with preschool children as co-researchers in the study design. It examined how preschool children described and expressed their knowledge and understanding about their world as well as their place in it through their experiences in both concrete and virtual ways. The findings demonstrate that children’s world is without any boundaries spanning over the physical, spatial and virtual worlds. Children traverse these worlds as nomads forming multitude of relationships with family, pets, animals, nature, places, and material objects both far and near. Technology and media expand children’s reach to cross boundaries and connect to human, non-human, and other co-inhabitants of their worlds. Their world is a common world shared by all, open to all, in its current form and all is future imaginings

    Where is cognition? Towards an embodied, situated, and distributed interactionist theory of cognitive activity

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    In recent years researchers from a variety of cognitive science disciplines have begun to challenge some of the core assumptions of the dominant theoretical framework of cognitivism including the representation-computational view of cognition, the sense-model-plan-act understanding of cognitive architecture, and the use of a formal task description strategy for investigating the organisation of internal mental processes. Challenges to these assumptions are illustrated using empirical findings and theoretical arguments from the fields such as situated robotics, dynamical systems approaches to cognition, situated action and distributed cognition research, and sociohistorical studies of cognitive development. Several shared themes are extracted from the findings in these research programmes including: a focus on agent-environment systems as the primary unit of analysis; an attention to agent-environment interaction dynamics; a vision of the cognizer's internal mechanisms as essentially reactive and decentralised in nature; and a tendency for mutual definitions of agent, environment, and activity. It is argued that, taken together, these themes signal the emergence of a new approach to cognition called embodied, situated, and distributed interactionism. This interactionist alternative has many resonances with the dynamical systems approach to cognition. However, this approach does not provide a theory of the implementing substrate sufficient for an interactionist theoretical framework. It is suggested that such a theory can be found in a view of animals as autonomous systems coupled with a portrayal of the nervous system as a regulatory, coordinative, and integrative bodily subsystem. Although a number of recent simulations show connectionism's promise as a computational technique in simulating the role of the nervous system from an interactionist perspective, this embodied connectionist framework does not lend itself to understanding the advanced 'representation hungry' cognition we witness in much human behaviour. It is argued that this problem can be solved by understanding advanced cognition as the re-use of basic perception-action skills and structures that this feat is enabled by a general education within a social symbol-using environment

    Computers for learning : an empirical modelling perspective

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    In this thesis, we explore the extent to which computers can provide support for domain learning. Computer support for domain learning is prominent in two main areas: in education, through model building and the use of educational software; and in the workplace, where models such as spreadsheets and prototypes are constructed. We shall argue that computerbased learning has only realised a fraction of its full potential due to the limited scope for combining domain learning with conventional computer programming. In this thesis, we identify some of the limitations in the current support that computers offer for learning, and propose Empirical Modelling (EM) as a way of overcoming them. We shall argue that, if computers are to be successfully used for learning, they must support the widest possible range of learning activities. We introduce an Experiential Framework for Learning (EFL) within which to characterise learning activities that range from the private to the public, from the empirical to the theoretical, and from the concrete to the abstract. The term ‘experiential’ reflects a view of knowledge as rooted in personal experience. We discuss the merits of computer-based modelling methods with reference to a broad constructionist perspective on learning that encompasses bricolage and situated learning. We conclude that traditional programming practice is not well-suited to supporting bricolage and situated learning since the principles of program development inhibit the essential cognitive model building activity that informs domain learning. In contrast, the EM approach to model construction directly targets the semantic relation between the computer model and its domain referent and exploits principles that are closely related to the modeller’s emerging understanding or construal. In this way, EM serves as a uniform modelling approach to support and integrate learning activities across the entire spectrum of the EFL. This quality makes EM a particularly suitable approach for computer-based model construction to support domain learning. In the concluding chapters of the thesis, we demonstrate the qualities of EM for educational technology with reference to practical case studies. These include: a range of EM models that have advantages over conventional educational software due to their particularly open-ended and adaptable nature and that serve to illustrate a variety of ways in which learning activities across the EFL can be supported and scaffolded

    Befriending through online gaming

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    Peer reviewe

    Computers for learning : an empirical modelling perspective

    Get PDF
    In this thesis, we explore the extent to which computers can provide support for domain learning. Computer support for domain learning is prominent in two main areas: in education, through model building and the use of educational software; and in the workplace, where models such as spreadsheets and prototypes are constructed. We shall argue that computerbased learning has only realised a fraction of its full potential due to the limited scope for combining domain learning with conventional computer programming. In this thesis, we identify some of the limitations in the current support that computers offer for learning, and propose Empirical Modelling (EM) as a way of overcoming them. We shall argue that, if computers are to be successfully used for learning, they must support the widest possible range of learning activities. We introduce an Experiential Framework for Learning (EFL) within which to characterise learning activities that range from the private to the public, from the empirical to the theoretical, and from the concrete to the abstract. The term ‘experiential’ reflects a view of knowledge as rooted in personal experience. We discuss the merits of computer-based modelling methods with reference to a broad constructionist perspective on learning that encompasses bricolage and situated learning. We conclude that traditional programming practice is not well-suited to supporting bricolage and situated learning since the principles of program development inhibit the essential cognitive model building activity that informs domain learning. In contrast, the EM approach to model construction directly targets the semantic relation between the computer model and its domain referent and exploits principles that are closely related to the modeller’s emerging understanding or construal. In this way, EM serves as a uniform modelling approach to support and integrate learning activities across the entire spectrum of the EFL. This quality makes EM a particularly suitable approach for computer-based model construction to support domain learning. In the concluding chapters of the thesis, we demonstrate the qualities of EM for educational technology with reference to practical case studies. These include: a range of EM models that have advantages over conventional educational software due to their particularly open-ended and adaptable nature and that serve to illustrate a variety of ways in which learning activities across the EFL can be supported and scaffolded.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

    Through the Looking Glass: An Analysis of the Portrayals of Child Soldiers through the Lenses of Community Members and Key Stakeholders

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    This thesis explores the construction and deployment of global representations of child soldiers. The main argument is that understanding the representation of child soldiers by unravelling the way it is constructed has an important impact on policy applications when addressing child soldiers. In broadening the theoretical, conceptual and practical interpretations of the concept of ‘child soldier’, this thesis demonstrates some of the political effects of these portrayals. Given the multidimensional and multifaceted nature of the child soldier phenomenon, a cross-disciplinary approach is employed. Considering the relationship context in which child soldiers exist, this thesis argues that the child soldiers’ identity is a complex one that cannot be considered in isolation from the external stakeholders who contribute to its creation. Nor can the representation of child soldiers be dissociated from environmental, structural and cultural factors. Politically and materially, the identity ‘child soldier’ carries a range of meanings and implications in the process of post-war rehabilitation and reintegration of child ex-combatants into society. In these contexts, new meanings of childhood and of youth as a political identity emerge — meanings influenced by international discourse around children’s rights. The main hypothesis of my thesis is that the representation of child soldiers cannot escape the institutional, political and social positioning of the stakeholders. It is not possible to represent or act from the ‘outside’, since everyone is always already situated inside discourse, culture, institutions and geopolitics. Consequently, portrayals are always mediated by a confluence of diverse institutional interests and other identifiable externalities; in this regard, representation serves a utilitarian purpose

    Fiction and video games:towards a ludonarrative model

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    Abstract. This thesis presents an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) step towards a more holistic understanding of narrative meaningfulness in the medium commonly known as video games, based on the intrinsic semiotics of interactivity. The aim of the thesis is to highlight the narrative meaningfulness of not just the written or scripted content of a work, but also the emergent qualities, which may offer the player a serious tool for self-expression and co-authoring the experience. The concepts of coherence and cohesion are also discussed as they pertain to interactive mixed-media experiences. These concepts form the basis for a ludonarrative model that is intended for the examination, analysis and critique of narrative video games. The model is then further explicated by applying it to the examination of the commercially successful The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.TiivistelmÀ. TÀmÀ tutkielma esittelee pienehkön kehitysaskeleen kohti tarinallisuuden kokonaisvaltaisempaa ymmÀrtÀmistÀ videopeleiksi kutsumassamme mediaformaatissa. Sen pohjana toimii videopeleille luontainen, vuorovaikutuspohjainen semiotiikan teoria. Tutkielman tarkoitus on korostaa pelien tarinallista merkittÀvyyttÀ kirjoitettujen ja kÀsikirjoitettujen sisÀltöjen lisÀksi myös emergenteissÀ eli pelaamalla syntyvissÀ kokemuksissa, jotka voivat mahdollistaa laajankin itseilmaisun ja kanssakirjoittamisen muodon pelaajalle. Tutkielmassa kÀsitellÀÀn myös koheesiota ja koherenssia, sikÀli kun ne koskettavat mediaa, joka yhdistelee erilaisia ilmaisun muotoja. NÀmÀ konseptit muodostavat pohjan ludonarratiiviselle mallille, jonka tarkoituksena on mahdollistaa tarinallisten videopelien tarkastelu, analysointi ja kritisointi. Lopuksi mallia avataan soveltamalla sitÀ kaupallisestikin menestyneen The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -videopelin tarkasteluun

    'Coming into Being'- The Process of Developmental Growth in A Severely Deprived Child in Intensive Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

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    This thesis is a study of recovery, reparation and developmental progress in a severely deprived child in intensive psychoanalytic treatment. The methodology involved the detailed analysis of a single case study, using grounded theory. The study was designed to analyse the process of treatment and discover how the child made developmental progress. Implications for psychoanalytic technique in working with children who have endured severe deprivation is examined. Some of the key findings add to existing knowledge about psychotherapeutic theory and practice, particularly in relation to reverie, attunement and containment in the context of the child's experience of gaps and breaks in treatment

    ‘Coming into being’: The process of developmental growth in a severely deprived child in intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy

    Get PDF
    This thesis is a study of recovery, reparation and developmental progress in a severely deprived child in intensive psychoanalytic treatment. The methodology involved the detailed analysis of a single case study, using grounded theory. The study was designed to analyse the process of treatment and discover how the child made developmental progress. Implications for psychoanalytic technique in working with children who have endured severe deprivation is examined. Some of the key findings add to existing knowledge about psychotherapeutic theory and practice, particularly in relation to reverie, attunement and containment in the context of the child's experience of gaps and breaks in treatment
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