Cartoon planet: Micro-reflection through digital cartoons - a case study on teaching and learning with young people

The young learners of today tend to show little enthusiasm for formal schooling. This does not necessarily mean pupils are not interested in learning or developing new skills and competences. In fact, the opposite often happens in the informal settings they belong to. Finding ways of transferring pupil’s informal learning to the school setting is therefore important. This paper gives a brief overview on the development of informal learning activities to encourage young people’s active reflection on their informally acquired competencies through the use of web technologies. The researchers also explore the role of the teacher, and the need of a participatory learning environment in a less formal classroom. Reflections on the experiences and recommendations are also provided

In-medium formation of quarkonium

We confront preliminary RHIC data on J/Psi production in nuclear interactions with expectations which follow in scenarios involving charm quark recombination in a region of color deconfinement. The focus is on transverse momentum and rapidity spectra of the J/Psi, which carry a memory of the spectra of the charm quarks. In such a scenario, one predicts that both spectra will be narrower than those expected without recombination. Preliminary results for the transverse momentum spectra point toward a preference for the recombination picture, while the rapidity spectra do not exhibit any narrowing within present large uncertainties. We present new calculations in the recombination model for the centrality behavior of these signals, which map out the necessary experimental precision required for a definitive test.Comment: Based on invited talk at Strangeness in Quark Matter 2006, UCLA, March 26-31, 2006. Clarifying remarks added in published journal versio