Crowdsourcing as part of producing content for a critical reading comprehension game

Abstract. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how crowdsourcing can be used to create and validate data on a topic, misleading graphs, that are difficult for people to interpret. In crowdsourcing tasks, the worker is shown a graph that is intentionally designed to be misleading, from which the worker is supposed to create four headline options that are used as content of a critical reading comprehension game. To ensure the quality of the headlines, they are validated using crowdsourcing and two expert evaluators. As a result of the thesis, a graphical user interface was created from which crowdsourcing projects could be managed. The major challenge of crowdsourcing is quality control when unknown people from different backgrounds perform tasks on a different basis. The tasks were formed around a tricky topic, in which case it is difficult to keep the amount of usable data high in relation to the total amount of gathered data. The topics of the graphs and the task interface were intentionally designed to be simple so as not to take too much focus from the context of the misleading graph. The results show that there is a lot of variation in the quality of the responses although an effort was made to select the best among the workers. It was noticeable that misleading graphs or assignments were often misinterpreted in the task of creating headlines. A small part of the responses was completely in accordance with the assignment. In the task of validating headlines, the worker’s task was to choose one of the three options, which was used to determine how well the headline formed in the previous task corresponded to the assignment. The results show that it was too easy for the worker to click and move on to the next task without proper consideration

Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen lapsille

Tiivistelmä. Tämä kandidaatin tutkielma käsittelee ohjelmoinnin opettamista lapsille. Tutkielmassa perehdytään kysymyksiin miksi ja miten ohjelmointia tulisi opettaa. Lisäksi käsitellään lapsen kehityksen vaikutusta ohjelmoinnin opettamistavan valintaan. Valitsin tämän aiheen mielenkiinnon ja ajankohtaisuuden vuoksi. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen on ajankohtaista, koska sitä tullaan opettamaan osana matematiikkaa syksyllä 2016 peruskoulun opetussuunnitelmassa. Tällä hetkellä on tärkeää pohtia keinoja, miten ohjelmoinnin opettamisen sisällyttäminen on järkevää ja kannattavaa. Tutkielma käsittelee vaihtoehtoja tavalliselle tekstipohjaiselle ohjelmoinnille, joiden tarkoituksena on helpottaa lasta oppimaan ohjelmointia. Näitä ovat ToonTalk, Scratch, ScratchJr, elektroniset palikat, Stagecast Creator, Blockly, LaPlaya, Logo, TangibleK ja Alice. Nämä kaikki käsitellään tutkielmassa pääpiirteittäin ja esitellään, minkä ikäisille ne ovat suunnattu. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen on haastavaa, minkä vuoksi myös näitä haasteita on käsitelty tutkielmassa ja näihin on pyritty löytämään ratkaisuja ja apukeinoja. Tutkielmassa korostuu ohjelmoinnin opettamisen tärkeys muunkin kuin ohjelmointitaitojen kehittämismielessä. Opettamalla ohjelmointia opetetaan myös ajattelua, jolloin lasten ongelmanratkaisukyky ja luovuus kehittyvät. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen auttaa myös muiden oppiaineiden opettelua ja sitä voidaankin käyttää osana muiden oppiaineiden opetusta

Backbone Dynamics of a Symmetric Calmodulin Dimer in Complex with the Calmodulin-Binding Domain of the Basic-Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factor SEF2-1/E2-2: A Highly Dynamic Complex

Calmodulin (CaM) interacts specifically as a dimer with some dimeric basic-Helix-Loop-Helix (bHLH) transcription factors via a novel high affinity binding mode. Here we report a study of the backbone dynamics by (15)N-spin relaxation on the CaM dimer in complex with a dimeric peptide that mimics the CaM binding region of the bHLH transcription factor SEF2-1. The relaxation data were measured at multiple magnetic fields, and analyzed in a model-free manner using in-house written software designed to detect nanosecond internal motion. Besides picosecond motions, all residues also experience internal motion with an effective correlation time of ∼2.5 ns with squared order parameter (S(2)) of ∼0.75. Hydrodynamic calculations suggest that this can be attributed to motions of the N- and C-terminal domains of the CaM dimer in the complex. Moreover, residues with significant exchange broadening are found. They are clustered in the CaM:SEF2-1mp binding interface, the CaM:CaM dimer interface, and in the flexible helix connecting the CaM N- and C-terminal domains, and have similar exchange times (∼50 μs), suggesting a cooperative mechanism probably caused by protein:protein interactions. The dynamic features presented here support the conclusion that the conformationally heterogeneous bHLH mimicking peptide trapped inside the CaM dimer exchanges between different binding sites on both nanosecond and microsecond timescales. Nature has thus found a way to specifically recognize a relatively ill-fitting target. This novel mode of target-specific binding, which neither belongs to lock-and-key nor induced-fit binding, is characterized by dimerization and continuous exchange between multiple flexible binding alternatives