Use interactive multimedia to improve your programming course

This paper reports first year students’ experiences with multimedia-based learning for programming and its influence on students obtained from two case studies at Napier and Brunel universities. Engineering students at the universities have taken programming courses from their first year and many have showed difficulties in their learning. The main reason is that it is a very abstract domain, which means that both lecturers and students can have difficulties in explaining and understanding abstract concepts verbally. Considering the strengths of Interactive Multimedia(IMM), i.e. interactivity and visualisation, we decided to use it to improve students’ learning. An empirical study was planned and IMM materials were designed for this. A trial and two case studies were carried out from December 2000 to June 2001. The designed materials were integrated into the curriculum as a teaching aid and self-guided learning materials. The data gathered from the case studies indicated that many students felt the multimedia-based learning helped their understanding of the programming concepts, and some became very motivated in programming. Also, using the interactive multimedia materials for both teaching and learning enhanced students’ learning experience. At last, we found educating both lecturers and students on what is multimedia-based learning prior to a course can increase its effectiveness

Health and sustainable development

If sustainable development is to mean anything, people must be healthy enough to benefit from it and not have their lives cut off prematurely. Development without health is meaningless. But the processes which are likely to occur in a world undergoing globalisation, climate change, urbanisation, population increase and many other changes, will impact upon human health in complex ways. Some of them will benefit us, others will create new or augmented threats to survival and health, while many others will have a complex mixture of effects

The polymerisation of hydrocarbons in the liquid phase at high pressure

Imperial Users onl

Proper 3-colorings of cycles and hypercubes

In this paper, we look at two families of graphs, cycles and hypercubes, and compare how their sets of proper 3-colorings differ as the graphs get arbitrarily large. In particular, we find the probability of pairs of vertices at various distances being the same color in order to understand the range and scale of interactions between them. As we look at larger and larger cycles, larger and larger hypercubes, patterns begin to emerge. While the colors of vertices fixed fractions of the cycle away from each other are independent, a random 3-coloring of the hypercube is essentially a 2-coloring. This models how local constraints can propagate very differently through different kinds of networks

The death of distance: how the communications revolution will change our lives

One of the World\u27s Most Insightful Journalists writes eloquently and convincingly about the ways the communications revolution will tilt the balance between large and small, rich and poor, as it transforms many business and government decisions. This "death of distance" will be the single most important economic force shaping society over the next half century. Describing the electronic miracles of our age in the old – fashioned format of ink on wood pulp may strike you as ironic. Put it down to the fact that, for the moment, the printed and bound book remains the most convenient way to introduce new ideas to the word. The new ideas in this book are about the many ways in which the most significant technological changes of our time will affect the next century – and your life. You will find a preview of the most important in “The Trendspotter”s Guide to New Communication” that immediately follow this preface; the rest of the book sets out to interpret and elaborate these core points

The effects of an Internet-delivered mindfulness-based intervention on perceived stress, psychological symptoms, and emotion regulation

The aim of this dissertation was to assess the impacts of a novel Internet-delivered mindfulness-based intervention (ID-MBI) for emotional distress and emotion regulation in a university sample in three related studies. The first study assessed participants’ engagement with the intervention by self-reported compliance and a novel computer-timed measure of compliance (i.e., time spent using guided mindfulness exercises). The second study examined the impact of personality factors and compliance on the effectiveness of the intervention. The third study assessed the impact of the intervention on emotion regulation, emotional distress, perceived stress, and mindfulness, and identified potential mechanisms of change. This study implemented a randomized waitlist control design, with participants assigned to either the four-week ID-MBI group or a four-week waitlist group (N = 84). Participants completed baseline and follow-up assessments in person. Results of the first study demonstrated an excellent degree of reliability between self-reported retrospective and daily report of time spent practicing mindfulness (ICC = .729, F(36, 36) = 6.639, p \u3c .001) and a fair degree of reliability between the retrospective and the objective computer-timed compliance measure (ICC = .407, F(36,36)= 2.49, p =.004). A multiple regression analysis using group membership, personality factors, and preintervention mindfulness was conducted to assess the factors that predict postintervention mindfulness. The model was statistically significant, F(4,66) = 25.587, p \u3c .001, with group membership (B = -7.977, SE = 2.754, t = -2.897, p = .005), neuroticism (B = -0.604, SE = .279, t = -2.168, p = 0.034), and preintervention mindfulness (B = 0.505, SE = .110, t = 4.611, p \u3c.001) significantly predicting postintervention mindfulness. Finally, a series of 2 (group) x 2 (time) ANOVAs demonstrated that compared to the waitlist group, the intervention group showed significant improvements on emotion regulation (F(1, 36) = 29.082, p \u3c .001, partial η2 = .447), reductions in perceived stress (F(1, 36) = 6.805, p = .013, partial η2 = .159), and reductions in negative affect (F(1, 36) = 10.748, p = .002, partial η2 = .230). Of note, both groups reported higher levels of mindfulness at postintervention; however, the effect size was larger for the mindfulness group (F(1, 36) = 24.875, p \u3c .001, partial η2 = .409). No changes were seen for emotional distress. Overall, the results of the study suggest that a brief Internet-delivered MBI may be effective in higher education settings for improving general well-being in students