Deep Learning Design for Social Innovation: Participatory Radio for Developing 21C Skills with Disenfranchised Learners

Deep Learning Design has been proposed as an approach to Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) that foregrounds principles of learning and con-text over simply extrapolating the affordances of new technologies. An original application of this approach has been within contexts necessitating social innovation to promote the inclusion, non-formal learning and employability of disenfranchised learners across Europe – RadioActive101. This approach has actively developed, implemented and evaluated five radio hubs with at-risk young people and other disenfranchised groups to develop digital competencies and employability skills for the 21st Century. This Learning Design and associated competencies are mapped to a progression and accreditation model linking EU key competencies to RadioActive101 activities and performances that are recognised through open electronic 'badges'. Evaluation findings showed particularly positive results, and impact and value beyond the non-formal learning of technical and employability skills, such as improvements in confidence, self-esteem and general self-efficacy of individuals and organisational learning and development. We conclude this article by asking how and whether current approaches to learning design can accommodate such essential psychosocial dimensions of learning

RadioActive101: Using internet radio to break-down the boundaries for inclusion into smart cities

Although ‘Smart Cities’ is an enticing and progressive concept and metaphor for conceiving and designing socio-technical educational systems in the 21C, clear examples of how this might be realised in practice are only just emerging. Similarly, although few would disagree with the desire to incorporate into our ‘learning designs’ notions such as ‘person in place’, ‘smartness and well-being of communities’ and the need for 21C thinking and literacy skills, where these concepts are located and where they are actualised is often opaque. This article presents a clear and somewhat radical example of how ‘smart city’ notions can be articulated and also used to challenge conventional norms about ‘who is smart’. It does this through describing the implementation and evaluation of RadioActive101, an international internet radio hub that is an educational intervention which gives a voice to disenfranchised groups in mostly urban areas throughout Europe, with a particular focus on at-risk and unemployed young people. This paper will describe this project along with its strikingly positive evaluation so far, which questions, in our digital age, some of the tenets of traditional education, and the boundaries for who can become agents of positive social change within our developing smart cities

Metodologias Participativas: Os media e a educação Participatory Methodologies: Media and education

RadioActive101: Adapting the ‘space’ of radio as participatory media to promote inclusion, informal learning and employability. This chapter describes how the ‘whole space’ of the radio production process has been adapted, following a participatory media approach, to function as a motivating and innovative pedagogy that promotes the informal learning of 21st century skills. This has been achieved with the help of two Community Action Research projects, namely RadioActive UK and RadioActive Europe, that have been funded by the Nominet Trust in the UK and the EC Lifelong Learning Programme, respectively

The eventization of leisure and the strange death of alternative Leeds

The communicative potential of city spaces as leisure spaces is a central assumption of political activism and the creation of alternative, counter-cultural and subcultural scenes. However, such potential for city spaces is limited by the gentrification, privatization and eventization of city centres in the wake of wider societal and cultural struggles over leisure, work and identity formation. In this paper, we present research on alternative scenes in the city of Leeds to argue that the eventization of the city centre has led to a marginalization and of alternative scenes on the fringes of the city. Such marginalization has not caused the death of alternative Leeds or political activism associated with those scenes—but it has changed the leisure spaces (physical, political and social) in which alternative scenes contest the mainstream

Cost-effectiveness of topical pharmacological, oral pharmacological, physical and combined treatments for acne vulgaris

Background. Acne vulgaris is a common skin condition that may cause psychoso-cial distress. There is evidence that topical treatment combinations, chemical peels and photochemical therapy (combined blue/red light) are effective for mild-to-moderate acne, while topical treatment combinations, oral antibiotics combined with topical treatments, oral isotretinoin and photodynamic therapy are most effective for moderate-to-severe acne. Effective treatments have varying costs. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England considers cost-effectiveness when producing national clinical, public health and social care guidance.Aim: To assess the cost-effectiveness of treatments for mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe acne to inform relevant NICE guidance.Methods: A decision–analytical model compared costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) of effective topical pharmacological, oral pharmacological, physical and combined treatments for mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe acne, from the perspective of the National Health Service in England. Effectiveness data were derived from a network meta-analysis. Other model input parameters were based on published sources, supplemented by expert opinion.Results: All of the assessed treatments were more cost-effective than treatment with placebo (general practitioner visits without active treatment). For mild-to-moderate acne, topical treatment combinations and photochemical therapy (com-bined blue/red light) were most cost-effective. For moderate-to-severe acne, topical treatment combinations, oral antibiotics combined with topical treatments, and oral isotretinoin were the most cost-effective. Results showed uncertainty, as reflected in the wide confidence intervals around mean treatment rankings.Conclusion: A range of treatments are cost-effective for the management of acne. Well-conducted studies are needed to examine the long-term clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the full range of acne treatments

Reflections on the acceptance and success of RadioActive101: Motivation through problematisation, improved well-being,emancipation and extreme learning

One way to tackle the often neglected and also ‘slippery’ and complex concept of motivation in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is to reflect on what motivational and affective factors led, or may have led, to the acceptance and success of a TEL innovation. This article does this, through presenting the implementation and evaluation of a ‘radical’ TEL intervention, called RadioActive101, an active international internet radio hub that is an educational intervention which promotes inclusion and informal learning through giving a voice to disenfranchised groups in mostly urban areas throughout Europe, with a particular focus on at-risk and unemployed young people. This paper will: contextualize RadioActive101 from a motivation perspective; describe this project along with its strikingly positive evaluation so far; and reflect on the motivational and affective factors that are implicated. These motivational factors and forces, as our title indicates, are linked to our design approach (the problematisation), improvements in confidence and well-being, the perceived and actual value of the learning (as emancipation) and the motivation bought about through ‘extreme’ learning

What are shared and social values of ecosystems?

The theoretical framework outlined in this paper was developed initially through a series of expert workshops as part of the Valuing Nature Network — BRIDGE: From Values to Decisions project, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). It was developed further through the follow-on phase of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (Work Package 6: Shared, Plural and Cultural Values) funded by the UK Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Welsh Government, NERC, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Gramene: a growing plant comparative genomics resource

Gramene (www.gramene.org) is a curated resource for genetic, genomic and comparative genomics data for the major crop species, including rice, maize, wheat and many other plant (mainly grass) species. Gramene is an open-source project. All data and software are freely downloadable through the ftp site (ftp.gramene.org/pub/gramene) and available for use without restriction. Gramene's core data types include genome assembly and annotations, other DNA/mRNA sequences, genetic and physical maps/markers, genes, quantitative trait loci (QTLs), proteins, ontologies, literature and comparative mappings. Since our last NAR publication 2 years ago, we have updated these data types to include new datasets and new connections among them. Completely new features include rice pathways for functional annotation of rice genes; genetic diversity data from rice, maize and wheat to show genetic variations among different germplasms; large-scale genome comparisons among Oryza sativa and its wild relatives for evolutionary studies; and the creation of orthologous gene sets and phylogenetic trees among rice, Arabidopsis thaliana, maize, poplar and several animal species (for reference purpose). We have significantly improved the web interface in order to provide a more user-friendly browsing experience, including a dropdown navigation menu system, unified web page for markers, genes, QTLs and proteins, and enhanced quick search functions

Material matters for learning in virtual networks : A case study of a professional learning programme hosted in a Google+ online community

Date of Acceptance: 13/07/2015Peer reviewedPublisher PD