Electronic portfoilios for design and technology

This paper concentrates on the work of students studying design and technology education (DTE) in initial teacher education (ITE) at Sheffield Hallam University. As an early part of their course they study a module that develops their ability to design and manufacture products using a range of skills and processes. This involves the origination, collation and presentation of a portfolio of evidence to support a number of physical product outcomes design and manufactured during the semester. The submission requirements associated with this course component raise a number of teaching and learning issues relating to the generation and use of portfolios of evidence, commonly associated with the assessment of design and technology activity. These issues include: • the use of reflective processes by students in the evaluation of their own outcomes and learning is underdeveloped both specifically within DTE • submissions do not necessarily encourage active student reflection or the articulation of thought processes • the contents tend to be entirely two dimensional and do not encourage recording of three dimensional development work undertaken • they are bulky and do not easily lend themselves to display, storage and handling • maintaining the order of contents is difficult and liable to change when accessed • for security reasons, general availability and access to their contents is restricted to a few (usually only tutors) and does not easily facilitate peer scrutiny • presentation can often incur unnecessary cost for students. Electronic portfolios are becoming common in the commercial world and in some areas of education. This project examines the potential enhancement of the teaching and learning opportunities brought about by the use of elearning in ITE as an instrument for developing student capability. This small-scale study attempts to evaluate the experiences of a group of 41 students in their first year of a two year route into teaching. They were required to submit for assessment an electronic record of their design work. This made use of commonly available software uploaded to their Blackboard e-learning ‘site’. Minimum support was given to students in the use of the technology for e-portfolio production. Subsequently the project seeks to examine the contribution to the learning process of students completing this module. The methodology used by the researcher to collect data includes the use of observation, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire. Evidence is examined to identify occurrence and use of the following: • simple annotation of media to improve clarity and emphasis thus enabling reflection • generation of critical dialogue recording the iterative process between thinking and doing associated with designing and making • distillation of thinking and its affect on refining decision making • inclusion of animation techniques • opportunity taken by students to view the work of others made available through the associated Blackboard course • streamlining of submissions alleviating the need for the generation and storage of paper based portfolios

Universality of Entanglement and Quantum Computation Complexity

We study the universality of scaling of entanglement in Shor's factoring algorithm and in adiabatic quantum algorithms across a quantum phase transition for both the NP-complete Exact Cover problem as well as the Grover's problem. The analytic result for Shor's algorithm shows a linear scaling of the entropy in terms of the number of qubits, therefore difficulting the possibility of an efficient classical simulation protocol. A similar result is obtained numerically for the quantum adiabatic evolution Exact Cover algorithm, which also shows universality of the quantum phase transition the system evolves nearby. On the other hand, entanglement in Grover's adiabatic algorithm remains a bounded quantity even at the critical point. A classification of scaling of entanglement appears as a natural grading of the computational complexity of simulating quantum phase transitions.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in PR

The Technology Enhancement Programme (TEP) millennium research - a positive intervention to change the D&T curriculum

OfSTED reports published at the start of the millennium indicated significant weaknesses in the Key Stage 3 design and technology (D&T) curriculum. In 2002 HMI said: '- - the choice of project, with contexts that are pertinent to pupils’ experience, is crucial to successful learning in design and technology. Far too many projects are based on contexts that are seen as irrelevant or boring by pupils. Tasks need to encourage creative and innovative responses.' (OfSTED 2002b 7) The previous year's report highlighted possible reasons for this weakness. HMI said: ' - - many teachers are failing to keep up with new developments in the subject because there are few opportunities for appropriate INSET - - .' (OfSTED 2001c 5) The Technology Enhancement Programme (TEP) has a remit to develop the D&T curriculum therefore it was appropriate they instigated a development programme to facilitate change in the Key Stage 3 curriculum. This became known as the TEP Millennium Project

Approaches to teaching pupils with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in design and technology

The DfES defines pupils with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESDs) as people who are: ‘Withdrawn or isolated, disruptive and disturbing, hyperactive and lack concentration; those with immature social skills; and those presenting challenging behaviours arising from other complex special needs.’ (DfES 2001: 58). This definition encompasses a very broad range of children with diverse needs. However, there are common approaches that can be used to meet the needs of these children in design and technology (D&T). Traditionally design and technology has been a particularly popular subject for pupils displaying BESDs. There has been little research as to why this should be. This paper explores practice in D&T by making reference to case study material collected from four schools. The case studies were commissioned by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) for dissemination via the NCaction website (a searchable resource for schools that illustrates how the National Curriculum works in practice). The case studies considered activity undertaken by pupils working in resistant materials, food technology and CAD/CAM. The case studies highlighted the use, by teachers of pupils with BESDs, of common approaches including group work, raising self esteem, the use of rewards and challenge, relevance and using IC

Cyclic networks of quantum gates

In this article initial steps in an analysis of cyclic networks of quantum logic gates is given. Cyclic networks are those in which the qubit lines are loops. Here we have studied one and two qubit systems plus two qubit cyclic systems connected to another qubit on an acyclic line. The analysis includes the group classification of networks and studies of the dynamics of the qubits in the cyclic network and of the perturbation effects of an acyclic qubit acting on a cyclic network. This is followed by a discussion of quantum algorithms and quantum information processing with cyclic networks of quantum gates, and a novel implementation of a cyclic network quantum memory. Quantum sensors via cyclic networks are also discussed.Comment: 14 pages including 11 figures, References adde

QuickSNP: an automated web server for selection of tagSNPs

Although large-scale genetic association studies involving hundreds to thousands of SNPs have become feasible, the associated cost is substantial. Even with the increased efficiency introduced by the use of tagSNPs, researchers are often seeking ways to maximize resource utilization given a set of SNP-based gene-mapping goals. We have developed a web server named QuickSNP in order to provide cost-effective selection of SNPs, and to fill in some of the gaps in existing SNP selection tools. One useful feature of QuickSNP is the option to select only gene-centric SNPs from a chromosomal region in an automated fashion. Other useful features include automated selection of coding non-synonymous SNPs, SNP filtering based on inter-SNP distances and information regarding the availability of genotyping assays for SNPs and whether they are present on whole genome chips. The program produces user-friendly summary tables and results, and a link to a UCSC Genome Browser track illustrating the position of the selected tagSNPs in relation to genes and other genomic features. We hope the unique combination of features of this server will be useful for researchers aiming to select markers for their genotyping studies. The server is freely available and can be accessed at the URL http://bioinformoodics.jhmi.edu/quickSNP.pl