Technology as a Medium for Applying Constructivist Teaching Methods and Inspiring Kids

AbstractConstructivist teaching is based on constructivist learning theory. This theoretical framework is based on the belief that learning occurs through what a student already knows; this prior knowledge is called a schema. Because all learning should pass through the filter of the pre-existing schemata, constructivists suggest that learning is best accomplished when a student gets actively engaged in the learning process rather than attempting to receive knowledge passively with the teacher avoiding most direct instruction and attempting to lead the student through questions and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate and verbalize the new knowledge (Richards et.al., 2001).Technology is increasingly gaining attention of those who are obsessed with improving teaching and learning. In this research attempts has been made to describe and analyze elementary teachers’ perceptions of using technology as a means for implementing classroom constructivist activities. Doing this, private schools were chosen were every classroom was equipped with a PC for the teacher as well as students. The PCs were networked so that all students could interact with the teacher and other students independently or as a group. Data was gathered through questionnaires from both teachers and students. Findings of the study show that teachers intend to look at the technology provided as an effective tools for developing constructivist practices and for gaining students’ interest. Students are given free rein to be in charge of learning experiences. This method initiates an active and positive learning environment that is technology based, including teamwork while maintaining independence where necessary, which is safe and avoids the anti-motivation effects of being judged. The results show that teachers reported an increase of test scores

Language Stress And Anxiety Among The English Language Learners

AbstractLanguage learners usually express anxiety, apprehension and nervousness when learning a new language. Language anxiety can originate from learners’ own sense of ‘self’, their self-related cognitions, language learning difficulties, differences in learners’ and target language cultures, differences in social status of the speakers and interlocutors, and from the fear of losing self-identity. Consideration of language learners’ anxiety reactions by a language teacher is deemed highly important in order to assist them to achieve the intended performance goals in the target language(Tanveer, 2007). Language anxiety may also be a result as well as a cause of insufficient command of the target language (Sparks and Ganschow; cited in Horwitz, 2001: 118). It may be experienced due to linguistic difficulties L2/FL learners face in learning and using the target language. Within social contexts, language anxiety may be experienced due to extrinsic motivators (Schwartz, 1972; cited in Scovel, 1991: 16), such as different social and cultural environments, particularly the environments where L1 and L2/FL learning takes place. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus-group discussion technique,this study tried to investigate the factors behind language anxiety among the Iranian language learners both within the classroom and in the social context, and has suggested a variety of strategies to cope with it. The findings suggested that language anxiety can originate from learners’ own sense of ‘self’, their selfrelated cognitions, language learning difficulties, differences in learners’ and target language cultures, differences in social status of the speakers and interlocutors, and from the fear of losing self-identity. Furthermore, considering the crucial role of teachers in second or foreign language pedagogy, a need was felt to investigate the beliefs and perceptions of language teachers about learning and teaching a second or a foreign language

Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing Analysis and Performance Evaluation

Distributing the system workload and balancing all incoming requests among all processing nodes in cloud computing environments is one of the important challenges in today cloud computing world. Many load balancing algorithms and approaches have been proposed for distributed and cloud computing systems. In addition the broker policy for distributing the workload among different datacenters in a cloud environment is one of the important factors for improving the system performance. In this paper we present an analytical comparison for the combinations of VM load balancing algorithms and different broker policies. We evaluate these approaches by simulating on CloudAnalyst simulator and the final results are presented based on different parameters. The results of this research specify the best possible combinations

The Impact/s of Music on Language Learners’ Performance

Abstract“In every part of the ancient world, music and musical instruments served magical or therapeutic’ purposes rather than aesthetic ones” (Bancroft 4). Plato believed that “musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten... making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful” (Jowett 271). Meaningful communication is a multimodal construct, a large part of which is musical. Spanish music therapist Patxi Del Campo (1997) asserts, “In any oral interaction only 15% of the information corresponds to verbal language, while 70% of the message is performed through body language; the final 15% belongs to intonation, the musical character of language” (as cited in Mora, p.147). Mora asserts that a child can imitate the rhythm and musical contours of the language long before he can say the words, and caretakers of young children will agree. She says that musical aspects of language, tone, pauses, stress, and timbre are sonorous units into which phonemes, the consonant and vowel sounds of language, are later placed (Mora 149). A significant amount of work is still being done regarding areas of the brain, but most teachers use the terms right brain and left-brain informally to describe a continuum between tasks perceived as feeling and artistic and those that seem thinking and scientific. For example, Regina Richards claims, “music, rhythm, and movement… create a link between the right brain”s processing of music and rhythm and the left brain”s processing of verbal information” (Richards 109)

Retained Jailed Wire: A Case Report and Literature Review

Side branch wiring is not infrequently used to protect side branch flow after main vessel stenting. Rarely, it becomes difficult to retrieve the jailed wire behind the stent and therefore it may even be detached and remained in the circulation. This article presents a report of such a case and reviews treatment options

Optimal Configuration of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces with Arbitrary Discrete Phase Shifts

We address the reflection optimization problem for a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), where the RIS elements feature a set of non-uniformly spaced discrete phase shifts. This is motivated by the actual behavior of practical RIS elements, where it is shown that a uniform phase shift assumption is not realistic. A problem is formulated to find the optimal refection amplitudes and reflection phase shifts of the RIS elements such that the channel capacity of the target user is maximized. We first prove that in the optimal configuration, each RIS element is either turned off or operates at maximum amplitude. We then develop a method that finds the optimal reflection amplitudes and phases with complexity linear in the number of RIS elements. Some new and interesting insight into the reflection optimization problem is also provided