The impact of digital technology on design students; the changing learning journey and the emergence of a learner interface

The session reflects on the research conducted in the investigation of fashion design students’ learner journey and the pedagogical impact of digital technologies on their research behaviour. The internet has dramatically changed teaching environments and it is inconceivable to expect students to operate without it. Our observations in controlled experiments with and without internet access identify that fashion design student research pathways rely heavily on digital information and digitising physical experiences thus compromising tacit knowledge and experiential learning through the integration of multiple senses. They use digital information to validate research enquiries appearing to give secondary digitised information importance over original material. The session presents the digital interface that has been developed as a direct consequence of the learner journey research conducted. The aim of the interface is to facilitate an enhanced integration of the digital and physical learning opportunities, thus encouraging physical object research enquiries, collaboration and engagement in a familiar supportive digital environment. The interface is in its first phase having been presented to a panel of students, teaching staff and technicians with encouraging feedback and welcome suggestions for content. The VLE has emerged from the research and evaluation of the changing needs of fashion design students. Fashion design teaching is very much a practice-based discipline. Fabrics, technology and silhouettes may alter, but the key skills that are imparted on practical fashion courses remain constant and require an integrated approach. Research is fundamental to the fashion design process however digital information through the internet has opened up new alternative routes for discovery and shifted the balance of their learning practice in particular their engagement with physical properties. The use of the internet by students, when conducting such research is therefore a central issue for practice based educators

Emerging patterns of leadership: co-location, continuity and community

"Local leaders have taken hold of the opportunity created by co-location not just to deal with an immediate problem, but also to transcend that with an even better offer to children and their families." - Page 1

Gardner-Webb Honors Students Participate in cleanup of New River in West Jefferson, N.C.

This semester marked the return of the “Big Sweep,” an annual camping and retreat trip held by the Gardner-Webb University Honors Student Association (HSA) reminiscent of the national Beach Sweep. For more than two decades, Honors Students have partnered with organizations such as New River Conservancy in West Jefferson, N.C., New River State Park, Zaloo’s Canoes, Ashe County Administration, and New River Outfitters to cleanup local waterways.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/3291/thumbnail.jp

Last Show for GWU Fall Theatre Season, ‘The Last Five Years,’ Presented in Millennium Playhouse

Gardner-Webb University’s Department of Theatre Arts presents the final show of the 2021 Fall Season—”The Last Five Years”—a musical written by Jason Robert Brown and first performed in Chicago in 2001. In the words of the show’s director, Dr. Chris Nelson, assistant professor of theatre arts, this year is the “small musical year.” As such, it will be performed in the smaller Millennium Playhouse, located at 141 S. Main St., Boiling Springs.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/3318/thumbnail.jp

Eight GWU Students Attend Fall Honors Conference

Led by Honors Program Director and Professor of biology Dr. Tom Jones, eight Gardner-Webb University students from the Honors Student Association recently attended the National Collegiate Honors Council’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. Students presented Honors Thesis work, Summer Scholars research, and select special projects. Between presentations, they shared ideas about Gardner-Webb’s close ties to the surrounding community in an Idea Exchange.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/3334/thumbnail.jp

GWU Honors Student Association Adjusts to New Protocols for Fall Semester

As Covid-19 remains, clubs and organizations on campus continue to be affected in unexpected ways. The Honors Student Association is no exception.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gwu-today/1604/thumbnail.jp

Pathogenesis of feline enteric coronavirus infection.

Fifty-one specific pathogen-free (SPF) cats 10 weeks to 13 years of age were infected with a cat-to-cat fecal-oral passed strain of feline enteric coronavirus (FECV). Clinical signs ranged from unapparent to a mild and self-limiting diarrhea. Twenty-nine of these cats were FECV naïve before infection and followed sequentially for fecal virus shedding and antibody responses over a period of 8-48 months. Fecal shedding, as determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from rectal swabs, appeared within a week and was significantly higher in kittens than older cats. FECV shedding remained at high levels for 2-10 months before eventually evolving into one of three excretion patterns. Eleven cats shed the virus persistently at varying levels over an observation period of 9-24 months. Eleven cats appeared to have periods of virus shedding interlaced with periods of non-shedding (intermittent or recurrent shedders), and seven cats ceased shedding after 5-19 months (average 12 months). There was no change in the patterns of virus shedding among cats that were excreting FECV at the time of a secondary challenge exposure. Four cats, which had ceased shedding, re-manifested a primary type infection when secondarily infected. Cats with higher feline coronavirus (FCoV) antibody titers were significantly more likely to shed virus, while cats with lower titers were significantly less likely to be shedding. Twenty-two kittens born to experimentally infected project queens began shedding virus spontaneously, but never before 9-10 weeks of age. Natural kittenhood infections appeared to be low grade and abortive. However, a characteristic primary type infection occurred following experimental infection with FECV at 12-15 weeks of age. Pregnancy, parturition and lactation had no influence on fecal shedding by queens. Methylprednisolone acetate treatment did not induce non-shedders to shed and shedders to increase shedding

Pattern-Related Visual Stress, Chromaticity, and Accommodation

PURPOSE. To investigate the impact of colored overlays on the accommodative response of individuals, with and without pattern- related visual stress (PRVS), a condition in which individuals manifest symptoms of perceptual distortion and discomfort when viewing a 3-cyc/deg square-wave grating. METHODS. Under double-masked conditions, 11 individuals who reported PRVS selected an overlay with a color individually chosen to reduce perceptual distortion of text and maximize comfort (PRVS group). Two groups of control subjects individually matched for age, sex, and refractive error were recruited. Control group 1 similarly chose an overlay to maximize comfort. Control group 2 used the same overlays as the paired PRVS participant. The overlay improved reading speed by 10% (P < 0.001), but only in the PRVS group. A remote eccentric photorefractor was used to record accommodative lag while participants viewed a cross on a background. The background was uniform or contained a grating and was either gray or had a chromaticity identical with that of the chosen overlay. There were therefore four backgrounds in all. RESULTS. Overall, the accommodative lag was 0.44 D greater in the participants with PRVS. When the background had the chosen chromaticity, the accommodative lag was reduced by an average of 0.16 D (P = 0.03) in the PRVS group, but not in the symptom-free groups: in control group 2 the colored background slightly increased the accommodative lag. CONCLUSIONS. Accommodative lag was greater in individuals susceptible to pattern-related visual stress and was reduced by a colored background. © Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology