Designing for Flipped Teaching and Learning: leveraging the potential of learning analytics and gamification

Workshop presentatio

HMGB1-Induced Cross Talk between PTEN and miRs 221/222 in Thyroid Cancer

High mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is an ubiquitous protein that plays different roles in the nucleus, cytoplasm and extra-cellular space. It is an important DAMP molecule that allows communication between damaged or tumor cells and the immune system. Tumor cells exploit HMGB1’s ability to activate intracellular pathways that lead to cell growth and migration. Papillary thyroid cancer is a well differentiated tumor and is often used to study relationships between cells and the inflammatory microenvironment as the latter is characterized by high levels of inflammatory cells and cytokines. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is one of the most lethal human cancers in which many microRNAs and tumor suppressor genes are de-regulated. Up-regulation of microRNAs 221 and 222 has been shown to induce the malignant phenotype in many human cancers via inhibition of PTEN expression. In this study we suggest that extracellular HMGB1 interaction with RAGE enhances expression of oncogenic cluster miR221/222 that in turn inhibits tumor suppressor gene PTEN in two cell lines derived from human thyroid anaplastic and papillary cancers. The newly identified pathway HMGB1/RAGE/miR 221/222 may represent an effective way of tumor escape from immune surveillance that could be used to develop new therapeutic strategies against anaplastic tumors

Gamification to Empower Information Security Education

47% of the world population uses the internet daily, and access is growing also in less developed countries (LDCs). As a consequence, a total of almost 1 billion households in the world have internet access, of which 48 million belong from LDCs (ITU, 2016). A large proportion of internet users are teenagers, who often are not aware of all the risks related to sharing private information through the Internet using for instance social networks. This paper summarizes how much time students pass online, in what activities they prefer to be involved, which risks they are confronted with, and what can be done to reduce them. The solution we propose isan investment on the teacher level, recognized here as a key figure to be trained to become I (information) Secure Agent via an online course. The course will follow a gamified approach for empowering information security education. Our assumption is that gamification will have positive effects on participants’ engagement and goal achievemen

Effects of the Manufacturing Methods on the Mechanical Properties of a Medical-Grade Copolymer Poly(L-Lactide-co-D,L-Lactide) and Poly(L-Lactide-co-ɛ-Caprolactone) Blend

11openopenMariana Rodriguez Reinoso; Marco Civera; Vito Burgio; Annalisa Chiappone; Oliver Grimaldo Ruiz; Alessandra D'Anna; Carmela Riccio; Ignazio Roppolo; Alberto Frache; Paola Antonaci; Cecilia SuraceRODRIGUEZ REINOSO, Mariana; Civera, Marco; Burgio, Vito; Chiappone, Annalisa; GRIMALDO RUIZ, Oliver; D'Anna, Alessandra; Riccio, Carmela; Roppolo, Ignazio; Frache, Alberto; Antonaci, Paola; Surace, Cecili

“Materiale edilizio ottenuto da attivazione alcalina di minerali contenuti in prodotti e residui da attività estrattiva e lavorativa e processo di produzione di un tale materiale edilizio"

L'invenzione si riferisce a un materiale edilizio ottenuto da attivazione alcalina di minerali contenuti in prodotti e residui da attività estrattiva e lavorativa. La presente invenzione si riferisce altresì a un processo di produzione di tale materiale edilizio. In particolare, la presente invenzione si riferisce ai minerali presenti nei fanghi provenienti dal taglio di materiali lapidei ricchi di silicati o dall’impiego di altri prodotti di lavorazione ed estrazione da cava, quali ad esempio le cosiddette materie prime secondarie “MPS” costituite da scarti di lavorazione delle materie prime o dal recupero e dal riciclaggio dei rifiuti

Setup of Extruded Cementitious Hollow Tubes as Containing/Releasing Devices in Self-Healing Systems

N.M.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant Ideas 2011 BIHSNAM No. 279985 on ‘Bio-inspired hierarchical supernanomaterials’, ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) 2013-1 REPLICA2 No. 619448 on ‘Large-area replication of biological anti-adhesive nanosurfaces’, ERC PoC 2013-2 KNOTOUGH no. 632277 on ‘Super-tough knotted fibres’), by the European Commission under the Graphene Flagship (WP10 ‘Nanocomposites’, No. 604391) and by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (‘Graphene nanocomposites’, No. S116/2012-242637 and regional deliberation No. 2266)

Experimental analysis of self-healing cement-based materials incorporating extruded cementitious hollow tubes

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: N.M.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant Ideas 2011 BIHSNAM No. 279985 on ‘‘Bio-inspired hierarchical supernanomaterials,’’ ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) 2013-1 REPLICA2 No. 619448 on ‘‘Large-area replication of biological anti-adhesive nanosurfaces,’’ ERC PoC 2013-2 KNOTOUGH no. 632277 on ‘‘Super-tough knotted fibres’’), by the European Commission under the Graphene Flagship (WP10 ‘‘Nanocomposites,’’ No. 604391), and by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (‘‘Graphene nanocomposites,’’ No. S116/2012-242637 and regional deliberation No. 2266)

The Common Microcredentials Framework for MOOCs and Short Learning Programmes

In today’s society, both employees and job seekers have to keep their knowledge and skills up to date, without investing too much time in doing so. The traditional offer of European higher education institutions does not meet this need, as continuing education programs are not flexibly organised, and most people cannot invest years in a bachelor’s or master’s degree. As a consequence, to meet these learners’ needs, universities are required to provide more compact qualifications. Online micro-credentials and short learning programmes are formats that respond to this need. After defining both the terms microcredentials and short learning programmes, this paper introduces a framework developed within the European MOOCs Consortium: the Common Microcredentials Framework- CMF, whose final aim is, from one side of facilitating the development of these types of programmes among traditional institutions and MOOC providers, and, from the other side, their recognition among European higher education institutions

The Flipped MOOC: Using Gamification and Learning Analytics in MOOC Design: A Conceptual Approach

Recently, research has highlighted the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for education, as well as their drawbacks, which are well known. Several studies state that the main limitations of the MOOCs are low completion and high dropout rates of participants. However, MOOCs suffer also from the lack of participant engagement, personalization, and despite the fact that several formats and types of MOOCs are reported in the literature, the majority of them contain a considerable amount of content that is mainly presented in a video format. This is in contrast to the results reported in other educational settings, where engagement and active participation are identified as success factors. We present the results of a study that involved educational experts and learning scientists giving new and interesting insights towards the conceptualization of a new design approach, the flipped MOOC, applying the flipped classroom approach to the MOOCs’ design and making use of gamification and learning analytics. We found important indications, applicable to the concept of a flipped MOOC, which entails turning MOOCs from mainly content-oriented delivery machines into personalized, interactive, and engaging learning environments. Our findings support the idea that MOOCs can be enriched by the orchestration of a flipped classroom approach in combination with the support of gamification and learning analytics

Designing and Implementing Gamification:GaDeP, Gamifire, and applied Case Studies

Gamification aims at addressing problems in various fields such as the high dropout rates, the lack of engagement, isolation, or the lack of personalisation faced by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Even though gamification is widely applied, not only in MOOCs, only few cases are meaningfully designed and empirically tested. The Gamification Design Process (GaDeP) aims to cover this gap. This article first briefly introduces GaDeP, presents the concept of meaningful gamification, and derives how it motivates the need for the Gamifire platform (as a scalable and platform-independent reference infrastructure for MOOC). Secondly, it defines the requirements for platformindependent gamification and describes the development of the Gamifire infrastructure. Thirdly we describe how Gamifire was successfully applied in four different cases. Finally, the applicability of GaDeP beyond MOOC is presented by reporting on a case study where GaDeP has been successfully applied by four student research and development projects. From both, the Gamifire cases and the GaDeP cases we derive the key contribution of this article: insights in the strengths and weaknesses of the Gamifire infrastructure as well as lessons learned about the applicability and limitations of the GaDeP framework. The paper ends detailing our future works and planned development activities