Opening doors: a collective case study of integrating technology in the preschool through 3rd grade classroom in a developmentally appropriate way

Children today are growing up in a technology-saturated world and yet early childhood teachers do not typically include technology in their classrooms, or if they do, they include it inappropriately. The literature states that integrating technology in early education can yield many benefits, but many teachers of young children avoid using technology because they do not know how to incorporate it appropriately. This dissertation is an exploratory observational study of early childhood teachers (preschool through third grade) who integrate technology in their programs in developmentally appropriate ways. This study involved three classroom teachers who were identified as model teachers at integrating technology in their classrooms: a preschool teacher and two kindergarten teachers. The study was guided by the recommendations from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children\u27s Media at Saint Vincent College (2012) position statement for early childhood teachers in the appropriate use of technology and digital media in the early childhood classroom. In this exploratory collective case study, visits to the classrooms were conducted several times and observations were performed. Checklists and field notes were used to record the findings. The teachers were interviewed before and after the observations to create a clearer picture of the classroom practices. This resulted in three cases that can serve as examples for teachers on how to integrate technology in the early childhood classroom in a developmentally appropriately way for young children. This study also provides recommendations for teachers who want to provide children with digital learning tools that can extend, enrich, and scaffold their learning. This study contributes four conclusions and five recommendations to guide teachers in integrating technology in a developmentally appropriate way for young children

It is not good to talk : conversation has a fixed interference cost on attention regardless of difficulty

It is well-documented that telephone conversations lead to impaired driving performance. Kunar et al. (Psychon Bull Rev 15:1135–1140, 2008) showed that this deficit was, in part, due to a dual-task cost of conversation on sustained visual attention. Using a multiple object tracking (MOT) task they found that the act of conversing on a hands-free telephone resulted in slower response times and increased errors compared to when participants performed the MOT task alone. The current study investigates whether the dual-task impairment of conversation on sustained attention is affected by conversation difficulty or task difficulty, and whether there was a dual-task deficit on attention when participants overheard half a conversation. Experiment 1 manipulated conversation difficulty by asking participants to discuss either easy questions or difficult questions. The results showed that there was no difference in the dual-task cost depending on conversation difficulty. Experiment 2 showed a similar dual-task deficit of attention in both an easy and a difficult visual search task. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that in contrast to work using a dot tracking and choice reaction time task (Emberson et al., Psychol Sci 21:1383–1388, 2010), there was little deficit on MOT performance of hearing half a conversation, provided people heard the conversations in their native language. The results are discussed in terms of a resource-depleted account of attentional resources showing a fixed conversational-interference cost on attention

Color Connotations and Self-Concept in Black Preschoolers

Psycholog

Molecular mechanism and inhibition of human ATIC

ATIC is a dimeric bifunctional protein, with two distinct catalytic domains located on each monomer. These catalyse the penultimate and final steps of the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway. It has been extensively studied as a target for chemotherapeutics and anti-viral inhibitors, but the enzyme has not been fully characterized. An ordered binding model for AICAR transformylase has been deduced using a new two-dimensional high-throughput assay; from this the true KM for substrate and cofactor have been measured. The binding affinities for various ligands and small molecules were determined by ITC. Isolation of the IMPCH domain was achieved to analyse binding to a single active site and elucidate the binding parameters observed for both ATIC domains. The potassium dependence has been defined for the first time as Ka = 796 ± 48μM. The role of the potassium ion has been investigated through the characterization of site directed mutants of the potassium binding site. The thermal stability of ATIC was investigated with DSC and DSF, which suggest that the unfolding landscape of ATIC proceeds initially through the separation of the dimer, and then the IMPCH domain or monomer unfolds at a higher temperature. AICAR, PteGlu4 and KCl all enhance protein stability. The dimerisation of ATIC was investigated by ITC dilution, dimerisation inhibitors, and fluorescent techniques. Unfortunately, none of these techniques were capable of detecting the monomer-dimer equilibrium. However, the dimerisation of ATIC appears to be an entropically-driven event

Zvjezdača Tethyaster subinermis (Philippi, 1837) (Asteroidea; Astropectinidae): Nova vrsta u fauni britanskih bodljikaša

The starfish Tethyaster subinermis is documented from the south-western parts of British waters, with one specimen caught by trawl at 48° 27.5’N, 009° 35.3’W (208–250 m depth) in 2001 and a further two specimens caught by trawl at 48° 28.32’N, 009° 33.23’W (189–217 m depth) in 2020.Autori iznose novi nalaz morske zvijezdače Tethyaster subinermis iz jugozapadnih dijelova britanskih voda, s jednim primjerkom ulovljenim koćom na 48 ° 27,5 ‘N, 009 ° 35,3’ W (dubine 208–250 m) 2001. godine i dva primjerka koja su ulovljena povlačnom mrežom na 48 ° 28,32’N, 009 ° 33,23’W (dubina 189–217 m) u 2020. godini

Body composition of elite Olympic combat sport athletes

Physique traits of a range of elite athletes have been identified; however, few detailed investigations of Olympic combat sports (judo, wrestling, taekwondo and boxing) exist. This is surprising given the importance of body composition in weight category sports. We sought to develop a descriptive database of Olympic combat sport athletes, compare variables relative to weight division and examine differences within and between sports. Additionally, we investigated the appropriateness of athletes’ self-selected weight classes compared to an internationally recognised classification system (the NCAA minimum wrestling weight scheme used to identify minimum ‘safe’ weight). Olympic combat sport athletes (56♂, 38♀) had body mass (BM), stretch stature and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry derived body composition assessed within 7–21 days of competition. Most athletes were heavier than their weight division. Sport had an effect (p  0.6) with; fat free mass, fat mass and body fat percentage, however, was not predictive of total mass/weight division. The Olympic combat sports differ in competitive format and physiological requirements, which is partly reflected in athletes’ physique traits. We provide reference ranges for lean and fat mass across a range of BM. Lighter athletes likely must utilise acute weight loss in order to make weight, whereas heavier athletes can potentially reduce fat mass

African Americans\u27 Views on Access to Healthy Foods: What a Farmers\u27 Market Provides

The study reported here assessed African Americans\u27 perceptions of a local farmers\u27 market and access to healthy produce in their community. The majority of respondents were satisfied with several dimensions of the farmers\u27 market, including location, cleanliness, variety, price, and quality of produce. Comparing the farmers\u27 market to the local stores in terms of access to fresh produce, about twice the number of residents was satisfied with the farmers\u27 market than with the local stores. This study has implications for Extension in terms of promoting farmers\u27 markets in low-income minority communities