A Visual Literacy Strategy - Why not?

The paper asserts that the National Curriculum subjects of 'art and design' and 'design and technology' have a fundamental connection that has not been fully recognised or exploited in primary schools. The two subjects help children to develop important skills of aesthetic awareness, discrimination and critical thinking and that they could do this through a common rationale and approach to the development of visual literacy. The paper goes on to review the term 'visual literacy'. A new term - 'visual field' is offered as a way of connecting objects and artefacts of both broadly functional and broadly aesthetic natures. Pedagogic frameworks in current use by primary teachers intended to promote critical discussion are analysed with reference to the visual field. It is concluded that each framework has a different emphasis yet each is concerned with and therefore connected by the visual field. The paper concludes that a coherent strategy to ensure all children have the opportunity to become visually literate should be developed

Extra-curriculum activities in the high schools of Massachusetts

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University, 1935. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Protein Kinase A in cellular migration—Niche signaling of a ubiquitous kinase

Cell migration requires establishment and maintenance of directional polarity, which in turn requires spatial heterogeneity in the regulation of protrusion, retraction, and adhesion. Thus, the signaling proteins that regulate these various structural processes must also be distinctly regulated in subcellular space. Protein Kinase A (PKA) is a ubiquitous serine/threonine kinase involved in innumerable cellular processes. In the context of cell migration, it has a paradoxical role in that global inhibition or activation of PKA inhibits migration. It follows, then, that the subcellular regulation of PKA is key to bringing its proper permissive and restrictive functions to the correct parts of the cell. Proper subcellular regulation of PKA controls not only when and where it is active but also specifies the targets for that activity, allowing the cell to use a single, promiscuous kinase to exert distinct functions within different subcellular niches to facilitate cell movement. In this way, understanding PKA signaling in migration is a study in context and in the elegant coordination of distinct functions of a single protein in a complex cellular process

Spatial restriction of alpha4 integrin phosphorylation regulates lamellipodial stability and alpha4beta1-dependent cell migration.

Integrins coordinate spatial signaling events essential for cell polarity and directed migration. Such signals from alpha4 integrins regulate cell migration in development and in leukocyte trafficking. Here, we report that efficient alpha4-mediated migration requires spatial control of alpha4 phosphorylation by protein kinase A, and hence localized inhibition of binding of the signaling adaptor, paxillin, to the integrin. In migrating cells, phosphorylated alpha4 accumulated along the leading edge. Blocking alpha4 phosphorylation by mutagenesis or by inhibition of protein kinase A drastically reduced alpha4-dependent migration and lamellipodial stability. alpha4 phosphorylation blocks paxillin binding in vitro; we now find that paxillin and phospho-alpha4 were in distinct clusters at the leading edge of migrating cells, whereas unphosphorylated alpha4 and paxillin colocalized along the lateral edges of those cells. Furthermore, enforced paxillin association with alpha4 inhibits migration and reduced lamellipodial stability. These results show that topographically specific integrin phosphorylation can control cell migration and polarization by spatial segregation of adaptor protein binding

Creativity, culture and citizenship in primary design and technology

This paper draws upon research undertaken in response to three themes that have assumed a growing importance in curriculum debate and official documentation in recent years. The publication of All Our Futures - Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE, 1999) was hailed as a reaction against an increasingly narrow, subject-bound curriculum, and the inclusion of Citizenship within Curriculum 2000 (DfEE/QCA, 1999) signalled the UK government's commitment to a broader educational agenda. The meanings of these terms and the political agenda driving the change are, of course, open to question. Yet, we argue, their relevance to primary design and technology is considerable, though as yet largely unexplored. Using case studies of typical design and technology projects gathered over the past year, we draw out significant strands of creativity, culture and citizenship that have hitherto been implicit in primary practice