Los medios como medio de educación en Colombia: cómo los medios y las TICs estan cambiando la comunicación y el currículo escolar

We describe how secondary school students are engaged in designing school newspapers, broadcasting radio shows and using ICT in classrooms as opportunities for communication and learning. The central goal in this project was to set up the school dynamics where radio, newspaper, television, video, images and ICT´s play the role of additional inputs and increase the community interest in literacy. We present some practical initiatives that demonstrate the possibilities of media literacy based activities in a public school in Bogota, ColombiaDescribimos cómo los estudiantes de escuela secundaria se motivaron a diseñar el periódico escolar, a emitir desde la radio en la escuela y a usar las nuevas tecnologías en el aula de clase como oportunidades para la comunicación y el aprendizaje. El objetivo central en este proyecto fue establecer dinámicas en la escuela donde la radio, el periódico, la televisión, el video, las imágenes y las TIC desempeñaran el papel de recursos adicionales para aumentar el interés de la comunidad por la educación. Finalmente presentamos algunas iniciativas prácticas para demostrar posibles actividades de aprendizaje basadas en alfabetización en medios en una escuela pública en Bogotá, Colombi

Media as Medium in Colombian Education: How Media and ICT are Changing Communication and the Curriculum in the School

Describimos cómo los estudiantes de escuela secundaria se motivaron a diseñar el periódico escolar, a emitir desde la radio en la escuela y a usar las nuevas tecnologías en el aula de clase como oportunidades para la comunicación y el aprendizaje. El objetivo central en este proyecto fue establecer dinámicas en la escuela donde la radio, el periódico, la televisión, el video, las imágenes y las TIC desempeñaran el papel de recursos adicionales para aumentar el interés de la comunidad por la educación. Finalmente presentamos algunas iniciativas prácticas para demostrar posibles actividades de aprendizaje basadas en alfabetización en medios en una escuela pública en Bogotá, Colombia

The virtual forum as an alternative way to enhance foreign language learning

A web-based story sharing forum has been established to provide students in Bogotá, Colombia, New Brunswick, Canada and Dundee, Scotland with the opportunity to exchange cross-cultural stories as a complement to the regular ELT Curriculum. This paper will describe the process through which the exchange experience was established and the progress achieved by the group of Colombian students in their regular interaction through blogs, theme-based wikis, social forums and online debates. The teaching practices utilized in the forum have fostered the creation of communities of interest and practice among teachers and students in the forum. Early results suggest that this innovative way of implementing the ELT curriculum has promoted student involvement and language development through the use of ICTs. Key words: EFL learning mediated by ICTs, learning communities, blogs as tools for language learning El propósito de este artículo es compartir las experiencias de intercambio lingüístico y cultural que a través de un foro virtual (www.ourdigitalculture.net) se realizaron entre un grupo de estudiantes colombianos aprendiendo inglés como lengua extranjera y un grupo de estudiantes de New Brunswick, Canadá y Escocia a través de interacción regular con el uso de blogs, wikis, foros sociales y debates. El objetivo es mostrar el proceso de intercambio y los beneficios en el aprendizaje del grupo de estudiantes Colombianos. Las prácticas de enseñanza utilizadas en el foro han promovido la creación de comunidades de interés y comunidades de práctica entre los profesores y los estudiantes del foro. Los resultados preliminares sugieren que esta forma alternativa de implementar el currículo de inglés como lengua extranjera ha fomentado la participación activa de los estudiantes y el desarrollo de lengua extranjera mediante el uso de las TICs. Palabras clave: Aprendizaje de inglés como lengua extranjera mediado por las TICs, comunidades de aprendizaje, blogs como herramientas para el aprendizaje de lengu

Editorial: Household transport costs, economic stress and energy vulnerability

International audienceSince the early 2000s issues of transport poverty and social exclusion have received increasing attention in transport studies (Dodson et al., 2004; Hine and Mitchell, 2001; Lucas et al., 2001). Although much of this research has focused on low-mobility and/or carless individuals, there has been growing awareness that the costs of daily mobility can have important economic stress impacts. In developed countries with high levels of car dependence, the costs of motoring can be burdensome, raising questions of affordability for households with limited economic resources.A number of developments in the first two decades of this century have contributed to raise the profile of household transport costs as a research topic and a policy concern. First, and more obviously, increasing and increasingly volatile global oil prices have raised concerns for the vulnerability of households to fuel price increases (Dodson and Sipe, 2007). Second, the rise of the climate change agenda has led to consider pricing measures as a key component of sustainable transport policy. Implementation of such measures however, has often been hampered by concerns for the distributional impacts of increasing transport costs faced by households. Third, the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and its aftermath have highlighted broader issues of living standards, economic stress and affordability, which go beyond the specific case of transport.In this context, a further reason to investigate household transport costs has to do with other competing pressures on household budgets

Transport poverty and fuel poverty in the UK: From analogy to comparison

The notion of ’fuel poverty’, referring to affordable warmth, underpins established research and policy agendas in the UK and has been extremely influential worldwide. In this context, British researchers, official policymaking bodies and NGOs have put forward the notion of ’transport poverty’, building on an implicit analogy between (recognised) fuel poverty and (neglected) transport affordability issues. However, the conceptual similarities and differences between ’fuel’ and ’transport’ poverty remain largely unaddressed in the UK. This paper systematically compares and contrasts the two concepts, examining critically the assumption of a simple equivalence between them. We illustrate similarities and differences under four headings: (i) negative consequences of lack of warmth and lack of access; (ii) drivers of fuel and transport poverty; (iii) definition and measurement; (iv) policy interventions. Our review suggests that there are important conceptual and practical differences between transport and domestic energy consumption, with crucial consequences for how affordability problems amongst households are to be conceptualised and addressed. In a context where transport and energy exhibit two parallel policy worlds, the analysis in the paper and these conclusions reinforce how and why these differences matter. As we embark on an ever closer union between our domestic energy and transport energy systems the importance of these contradictions will become increasingly evident and problematic. This work contributes to the long-term debate about how best to manage these issues in a radical energy transition that properly pays attention to issues of equity and affordability

Toxin-Based Therapeutic Approaches

Protein toxins confer a defense against predation/grazing or a superior pathogenic competence upon the producing organism. Such toxins have been perfected through evolution in poisonous animals/plants and pathogenic bacteria. Over the past five decades, a lot of effort has been invested in studying their mechanism of action, the way they contribute to pathogenicity and in the development of antidotes that neutralize their action. In parallel, many research groups turned to explore the pharmaceutical potential of such toxins when they are used to efficiently impair essential cellular processes and/or damage the integrity of their target cells. The following review summarizes major advances in the field of toxin based therapeutics and offers a comprehensive description of the mode of action of each applied toxin

Margarita de Sossa, Sixteenth-Century Puebla de los Ángeles, New Spain (Mexico)

Margarita de Sossa’s freedom journey was defiant and entrepreneurial. In her early twenties, still enslaved in Portugal, she took possession of her body; after refusing to endure her owner’s sexual demands, he sold her, and she was transported to Mexico. There, she purchased her freedom with money earned as a healer and then conducted an enviable business as an innkeeper. Sossa’s biography provides striking insights into how she conceptualized freedom in terms that included – but was not limited to – legal manumission. Her transatlantic biography offers a rare insight into the life of a free black woman (and former slave) in late sixteenth-century Puebla, who sought to establish various degrees of freedom for herself. Whether she was refusing to acquiesce to an abusive owner, embracing entrepreneurship, marrying, purchasing her own slave property, or later using the courts to petition for divorce. Sossa continued to advocate on her own behalf. Her biography shows that obtaining legal manumission was not always equivalent to independence and autonomy, particularly if married to an abusive husband, or if financial successes inspired the envy of neighbors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p