Microcomputer laboratories in mathematics education

AbstractThis article discusses the mathematical-educational potential of a computational laboratory at the pre-calculus and co-calculus levels. The laboratory envisaged is based on a set of microcomputers, whose use plays a central role in the teaching process, with particular emphasis on algorithmization. A new role for the mathematics teacher and professor is layed out, augmenting the “chalk and talk” methods by active participation as a laboratory instructor. Following a brief description of the integration of such a laboratory into the mathematical education, seven appropriate subjects are discussed, including some new relevant elementary proofs and worked out examples. Emphasis is placed upon the mathematical-educational byproducts (such as error bounds, ill-conditioning, complexity, rate of convergence, etc.) accompanying the implementation of these seven modules. Special attention is given to the removal of “black box” procedures and to the construction of “numerical methods that work”. Extensions and generalizations to more advanced topics are indicated, especially where the results in our modules may serve as points of departure in that direction

Conserved Quantities and Electroweak Phase Transitions

Some cosmological consequences of including the adequate conserved quantities in the density matrix of the electroweak theory are investigated. Several arguments against including the charges associated to the spontaneously broken symmetry are presented. Special attention is focused on the phenomenon of $W$-boson condensation and its interplay with the phase transition for the symmetry restoration is considered. The emerging cosmological implications, such as on the baryon and lepton number densities, are of interest.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, HU-SEFT R 1994-0

A university-based model for supporting computer science curriculum reform

Computer science curriculum reform in the United Kingdom has been subject to substantial scrutiny—as it has in many other countries around the world—with England introducing a radical new computing curriculum from September 2014. However, in Wales—a devolved nation within the UK—political, geographical and socio-cultural issues have to date hindered any substantive educational policy or curriculum reform for computer science. In this paper, we present the activities of Technocamps, a national university-based schools outreach programme founded in 2003, and consider its wider impact on computer science education, schools, pupils and teachers in Wales. In contrast to successful interventions elsewhere in the UK in building and sustaining communities of practice, certain political and cultural challenges in Wales have largely prevented these successful models from being adopted. Through the consideration of the national case study presented in this paper, we demonstrate the necessity of the nation-wide school- and student-focused Technocamps model in building resilient and scalable practitioner-led support networks. Furthermore, with emerging curriculum reform in Wales, we frame the wider opportunity for computer science education and sustainably embedding cross-curricular digital competencies—along with changing the wider public perception and perceived value of computer science as an academic discipline—as a prospective replicable case study of a national engagement model for nations with similar aspirations of developing digitally confident and capable citizens. To this end, we conclude by drawing out the important lessons learnt for consideration when embarking on a programme of national curriculum reform and associated professional development

From "silent generation" to cyber-psy-site, story and history: The 14th Tank Brigade battles on public collective memory and official recognition

This audience research case study focuses on the Israeli 14th Tank Brigade veterans, who were involved in the 1973 Yom Kippur War horrific battles against the Egyptians in the Sinai Desert. In 2007, this offline traumatised remembrance community constructed an online commemorative and historical website to advance their unrelenting struggle on public recognition in the Israeli national collective memory and military history. The theoretical framework combines diverse perspectives: the Yom Kippur War and its consequences on Israeli society; theories of generations and media generations, war and trauma, war and remembrance; and Israel's collective memory and culture of remembrance. An integrated methodology offline and online was conducted: multi-sited and multimodal "Thick Description" ethnography and netnography; critical discourse analysis and semiotics of texts and artifacts; and in-depth interviews with veterans and historians. Findings are constructed on three levels: first - analysis of veterans’ interrelations with common Israeli culture of memory, and their active participation as a "remembrance community" in creating cultural artifacts offline and online; second – interpretation of Israeli cultural codes in battlefield "actuality", even under the most traumatic conditions; and third - the universal state level, analysis of the deep conflict impelling the remembrance community to write the Yom Kippur War battles also as history in their cybersite, thus attaining public recognition. This case study demonstrates the war veterans’ ability of "Breaking the Silence", empowering their traumatised community by bridging the "generation gap" of their "actual" "media generation", by merging their comradeship and high cultural capital, towards official affirmation within Israeli military history