Developing an Effective E-Textbook for CS101 Students at UH Hilo: An iBook Instructional Module

Presented at the 18th Annual Technology, Colleges, and Community Worldwide Online Conference.Today’s college students rely on digital devices to socialize, organize, and search for information. Many are opting for digital learning resources in place of print textbooks; therefore, institutions of higher education need to address students’ changing needs. Recent studies have found that the mere transfer of print books to digital format without interactive components does not affect performance or engagement of students (Larson, 2010; Weisberg, 2011). As CS101 instructors at the University of Hawaii at Hilo consider adapting traditional print resources to digital format, this research project aims to determine effective design and implementation strategies. An interactive e-textbook was developed using iBooks Author with a variety of widgets added to maximize interactivity, learning, motivation and engagement. College and pre-college students voluntarily participated by responding to a survey and a test before learning about HTML from a self-instructional e-textbook. After completing the e-textbook, participants responded to a post-survey and a post-test. Seventy-three percent of participants who completed the e-textbook scored better on the post-test than the pre-test. Most found the interactive widgets helpful and see e-textbooks as a viable alternative to print textbooks

An Attempt of School Counseling Practice at an Oral School for the Deaf in Japan: From a Socio-Cultural Point of View

In Japan, the aural-oral approach has long been the dominant educational method in the schools for the deaf. The author worked in an aural-oral school for the deaf for 5 years. This paper examines the psychological problems experienced by deaf children in that oral situation and the role of the counselor from a socio-cultural point of view. Two cases, in which both clients were high school level students who were integrated in to the local primary and middle schools and then returned to the school for the deaf at the high school level will be discussed. During their integrated periods both clients seemed to have little experience of deep communication with \u27language\u27 which would help them develop social skills and to be self-reflective. The failure in developing this \u27language\u27 seemed to have resulted in producing some psychological problems. Through examining the counseling processes, this paper discusses the roles of counselors in such an oral situation for deaf clients

Portuguese Future / Future Preterit and Present / Preterit Indicative: A Collocational Comparison

AbstractThis study examines the collocational similarity between the Future/Future Preterit and the Present/Preterit Indicative in Portuguese. From syntactic approach, Bello (1847) claimed that in nominal completive subordinate clause the Future and the Future Preterit forms collocate with the same matrix verbs which follow the Present and Preterit Indicative tense forms, rather than the Subjunctive verb forms. In, the author attempted to show a corpus-based counterevidence to Bello's intuition-based structural explanation. As the result, he verified the statistical similarity in global collocational tendency between the Future/Future Preterit and the Present/Preterit Indicative. On the other hand, he identified some matrix verb groups that predominantly and significantly collocate with one of the morphological groups in subordinate clause. In the present study, the author discusses further, analyzing the additional corpus data, the Corpus Brasileiro, and comparing with the result of to seek more credible findings. The result suggests that, as in, the global collocational tendency is statistically similar among two morphological groups, as well as there are similar matrix verb groups which predominantly collocate with one another, though there is some minor difference in its lexis

“Places for Hearing” in the City of Edo in 18th Century Japan: A Case Study of an Insect Listening Party on Dokan-Hill

In Japan, the introduction of the soundscape concept since the late 1980s has shed new light on various pre-modern practices in the context of soundscape ecology. For example, in Edo City (present-day Tokyo) in 18th century Japan, there were locations known as "places for Hearing”. Hiroshige's ukiyoe "Insect Listening Party on Dokan-Hill" illustrates the situation at that time. We can use these paintings as "ear witnesses" to understand that an urban sensibility that interacted with the natural world existed in Edo period, and that there was a particular land-based aesthetics that transcended modern Western art. Through these considerations, I am trying to make a new framework for our future and creative activity that goes beyond conventional musicking

Immigration Discourses in the U.S. and in Japan

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how systems of racial inequality and dominance produced at macro-institutional level discourses are reproduced and/or challenged in micro-interpersonal everyday discourses regarding immigration/foreign workers in the U.S. and in Japan. To establish a link between the discourses at these two levels, I employed a combination of critical and interpretive theoretical perspectives, and analyzed how racial ideologies were reproduced and/or challenged through participants\u27 use of various interpretative repertoires (i.e., discursive themes and specific rhetorical moves therein) and positioning of self and Others. Interpretative repertoires and discursive positioning of self and Others are major analytical frameworks of discursive psychology that were developed by Wetherell and Potter (1992), and I employed their discursive psychological analysis as the methodology for this study. The present study included 14 pairs of self-identified white Americans in the U.S. and 17 pairs of self-identified Japanese in Japan. I provided each pair with a discussion guide and asked the participants to record their 30-60 min long private conversations regarding immigration/foreign worker issues using the discussion guide that I provided. The analysis of the participants\u27 interpersonal discourses demonstrated the existence and significance of the dialectical relationship between macro and micro level discourses regarding racial ideologies. In addition, the juxtaposition of discourses of countries with different historical and sociopolitical contexts indicated the importance of taking historical and sociopolitical contexts into account to understand the process of reproducing systems of inequalities and dominance. Although similar discursive patterns were recognized, such as erasure of race and positioning of positive-self and negative-Others, the analysis showed that different backgrounds provide unique kinds of interpretative repertoires as resources to maintain and/or challenge dominant racial ideologies. The present results imply that successive studies on racialized discourses about immigration/foreign workers in the U.S. and Japan are necessary. Given the rapidly changing immigration policies and racial dynamics in the U.S. and Japan, it is important to track the reproduction of systemic racism and changes over time