Optical monitoring system

Instrument can measure optical transmission, reflectance, and scattering. This information can be used to identify changes in optical properties or deviations from required optical standards. Device consists of monochromatic source, photo detector, transfer mirror, and hemiellipsoid. System might be used to measure optical properties of thin film

Developing Cloud Chambers with High School Students

The result and outcome of the \textit{cloud chamber project}, which aims to develop a cloud chamber useful for science education is reported in detail. A project includes both three high school students and a teacher as a part of Super Science High School (SSH) program in our school. We develop a dry-ice-free cloud chamber using salt and ice (or snow). Technical details of the chamber are described. We also argue how the project have affected student's cognition, motivation, academic skills and behavior. The research project has taken steps of professional researchers, i.e., in planning research, applying fund, writing a paper and giving a talk in conferences. From interviews with students, we have learnt that such style of scientific activity is very effective in promoting student's motivation for learning science.Comment: 9 pages, accepted to the proceedings of APPC12 - the 12th Asia Pacific Physics Conferenc

An empirical study of the “prototype walkthrough”: a studio-based activity for HCI education

For over a century, studio-based instruction has served as an effective pedagogical model in architecture and fine arts education. Because of its design orientation, human-computer interaction (HCI) education is an excellent venue for studio-based instruction. In an HCI course, we have been exploring a studio-based learning activity called the prototype walkthrough, in which a student project team simulates its evolving user interface prototype while a student audience member acts as a test user. The audience is encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback. We have observed that prototype walkthroughs create excellent conditions for learning about user interface design. In order to better understand the educational value of the activity, we performed a content analysis of a video corpus of 16 prototype walkthroughs held in two HCI courses. We found that the prototype walkthrough discussions were dominated by relevant design issues. Moreover, mirroring the justification behavior of the expert instructor, students justified over 80 percent of their design statements and critiques, with nearly one-quarter of those justifications having a theoretical or empirical basis. Our findings suggest that PWs provide valuable opportunities for students to actively learn HCI design by participating in authentic practice, and provide insight into how such opportunities can be best promoted

Digital Natives and Educational Traditions. What Changes When Exchanging Textbook Content with Internet Search?

Use of technology challenge traditional concepts of learning in school. But what is actually changing? The paper shows result from a study that finds that the shift from textbook to internet content implicates significant changes. Textbooks present qualified content that is well adapted to the cognitive development of students of certain ages. Using internet content gives no such guarantees. The content validation has to be taken care of by the students. The internet search demands more complex skills than accessing content through the textbook. The students have to find relevant search terms, review and validate the results they find, select relevant content, use relevant strategies for storing and retrieving content and having the ability to present abstracts of their findings that are adapted to their learning purpose. Collaboration works well for searching for content online because the students can benefit from each other’s prior knowledge when discussing and reflecting during the learning work. Communicative and collaborative skills are important. So are good relations, to able students to work through obstacles and keep focus on the task even when internet searching takes them everywhere. Internet content has a flexibility that makes it easy adaptable to all students’ learning prerequisites. Student collaboration between heterogeneous peers can work well because the complexity of the task involves a lot of different tasks to manage and are easy to distribute. It also makes possible for high performing students to find engaging content that will motivate and nourish the learning motivation

Review of Engaging Education: Developing Emotional Literacy, Equity and Co-education. Brian Matthews. (Book Review)

The book is only about a fraction of its title Engaging Education. His section on ‘engaging the emotions’ sums this up: whereas the book is largely about engaging the emotions positively, the definition of ‘Engaging’ is more far reaching: “that pupils should be involved in their learning; be active and absorbed and not just passive recipients of a set curriculum. Additionally, they should feel engaged in the processes of education and have some input into creating their own agendas for learning” (p.2). Exploring the full impact of this statement across the curriculum really needs a different book

Innovating a new knowledge base for water justice studies:hydrosocial, sociohydrology, and beyond

Creating a new knowledge base that centers water justice (Zwarteveen and Boelens, 2014; Sultana, 2018; Wölfle-Hazard, 2022) in hydrosocial and sociohydrology studies involves a broader discussion about why justice matters, how to work toward this goal, and what the implications for research praxis are. The articles in this Research Topic approach different angles of water justice: as law (Fernández and Alba), a social movement (Dame et al.), practice (Pool et al.; Reeves and Bonney), cases of injustice (Caretta et al.), and theory (Krueger and Alba). From this Research Topic, we find that the interrelated concepts of naturecultures and care can be mobilized to create fruitful collaborations between critical social scientists and sociohydrologists

Just picking it up? Young children learning with technology at home

We describe a two-year empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children's uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. Using a sociocultural approach, we discuss the range of technologies children encounter in the home, the different forms their learning takes, the roles of adults and other children, and how family practices support this learning. Many parents believed that they do not teach children how to use technology. We discuss parents' beliefs that their children 'pick up' their competences with technology and identify trial and error, copying and demonstration as typical modes of learning. Parents tend to consider that their children are mainly self-taught and underestimate their own role in supporting learning and the extent to which learning with technology is culturally transmitted within the family

Theorising interprofessional pedagogic evaluation: framework for evaluating the impact of interprofessional CPD on practice change

This paper outlines the development of a conceptual framework to guide the evaluation of the impact of the pedagogy employed in continuing professional development for professionals in education, health and social care. The work is developed as part of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Interprofessional Learning across the Public Sector (CETL: IPPS) at the University of Southampton. The paper briefly outlines the field for pedagogic research and comments on the underpinning theories that have so far been used to guide research into interprofessional learning (IPL). It maps out the development of interprofessional CPD in its specific context as part of the CETL: IPPS with its links to a local authority undergoing service reorganisation and the role of the continuing professional development (CPD) in effecting change. It then brings together a theoretical framework with the potential toexplore, explain and evaluate the essential features of the model of pedagogy used in interprofessional CPD, in which professionals from education have for the first time been included alongside those from health and social care. The framework draws upon elements of situated learning theory, Activity Theory and Dreier’s work (2002, 1999) on trajectories of participation, particularly Personal Action Potency. By combining the resulting analytic framework with an adapted version of an established evaluation model, a theoretically-driven, practicable evaluation matrix is developed. The matrix has potential use in evaluating the impact of pedagogic input on practice change. The paper models a process for developing a conceptual framework to steer pedagogic evaluation. Such a process and the resulting matrix may be of use to other researchers who are similarly developing pedagogic evaluation

A synthetic, spatially decorrelating solar irradiance generator and application to a LV grid model with high PV penetration

Residential photovoltaic (PV) technology is expected to have mass global deployment. With widespread PV in the electricity distribution grids, the variable nature of the solar resource must be understood to facilitate reliable operation. This research demonstrates that synthetic, 1-min resolution irradiance time series that vary on a spatial dimension can be generated based on the following inputs: mean hourly meteorological observations of okta, wind speed, cloud height and atmospheric pressure. The synthetic time series temporally validate against observed 1-min irradiance data for four locations—Cambourne, UK; Lerwick, UK; San Diego, CA USA; and Oahu, HI USA—when analysing 4 metrics of variability indices, ramp-rate size, irradiance magnitude frequency and clear-sky index frequency. Each metric is calculated for the modelled and observed data at each location and CDF profile correlation compared as well as applying the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K–S) test with 99% confidence limits. CDF correlation coefficients of each metric are all above R⩾0.908, and a minimum of 90.96% of daily irradiance time series passed the K–S test. A spatial validation was performed comparing the model outputs to real observation data. The spatial correlation coefficient regression with site separation was successfully recreated with MAPE = 0.865%, RMSE = 0.01 and R=0.955. The spatial instantaneous correlation was shown to behave anisotropically when using fixed cloud direction, with different correlation in along and cross wind directions. Cloud cover states of 40–60% showed the most spatial decorrelation while 0% and 100% had the least. The model outputs are applied to a distribution grid impact model using the IEEE-8500 node test feeder. PV scenarios of 25%,50%, and 75% uptake were modelled across a 1.5×1.5 km grid. The magnitude and frequency of severe tap changing events are found to be significantly higher when using a single irradiance time series for all PV systems versus individually assigning spatially decorrelating time series