Mixing and Matching Learning Design and Learning Analytics

In the last five years, learning analytics has proved its potential in predicting academic performance based on trace data of learning activities. However, the role of pedagogical context in learning analytics has not been fully understood. To date, it has been difficult to quantify learning in a way that can be measured and compared. By coding the design of e-learning courses, this study demonstrates how learning design is being implemented on a large scale at the Open University UK, and how learning analytics could support as well as benefit from learning design. Building on our previous work, our analysis was conducted longitudinally on 23 undergraduate distance learning modules and their 40,083 students. The innovative aspect of this study is the availability of fine-grained learning design data at individual task level, which allows us to consider the connections between learning activities, and the media used to produce the activities. Using a combination of visualizations and social network analysis, our findings revealed a diversity in how learning activities were designed within and between disciplines as well as individual learning activities. By reflecting on the learning design in an explicit manner, educators are empowered to compare and contrast their design using their own institutional data

Vortex-ring-induced stratified mixing

There is tantalizing evidence that some mechanically driven stratified flows tend towards a state of constant mixing efficiency. We provide insight into the energy balance leading to the constant mixing efficiency and isolate the responsible mechanism. The work presented demonstrates an important mixing efficiency regime for periodically forced externally driven stratified flows. Externally forced stratified turbulent mixing is often characterized by the associated eddies within the flow, which are the dominant mixing mechanism (Turner, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 173, 1986, pp. 431–471). Here, we study mixing induced by vortex rings in order to characterize the mixing induced by an individual eddy. By generating a long sequence of independent vortex-ring mixing events in a density-stratified fluid with a sharp interface, we determine the mixing efficiency of each ring. After an initial adjustment phase, we find that the mixing efficiency of each vortex ring is independent of the Richardson number. By studying the mixing mechanism here, we demonstrate consistent features of a volumetrically confined, periodically forced external mixing regime.This work was funded through the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The experimental data associated with this study is made available at https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/249285.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2015.49

Modeling and developing a learning design system based on graphic organizers

Nowadays we assist to a significant innovation of the teaching practises due to the crisis of the classical teaching approach, the availability of low cost mobile technology and the easy access to global knowledge and information. Learning Design systems represent valuable tools to support teachers in the delicate task of organizing the teaching-learning activities in active student-centered approaches. There are many active projects in this field, but the available tools do not always fulfill the expectations. Furthermore, there is a rapid growth of Web 2.0 apps to create digital artefacts with a strong potential impact in learning activities, but current LD platforms don't guide teachers and students in choosing best apps to carry on a specific task. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art LD tools and developing perspective in this area

The status of traditional Scottish animal breeds and plant varieties and the implications for biodiversity

The aim of this scoping study was to evaluate the effects on Scottish biodiversity of changes in the use of traditional breeds and varieties. The overall objectives were: a) The evaluation of the importance of genetic loss from the reduction in use of these breeds and varieties, for example, the loss of unusual characteristics that might have been of particular local use. b) An assessment of the impacts of reduction in the ability to conduct further breeding or research on rare and traditional varieties and breeds. c) Identification of the loss of certain farming techniques associated with particular varieties and breeds. d) An assessment of possible losses of biodiversity associated with reduction in the use of these breeds and varieties and the farming systems associated with them

Quantum correlations of light due to a room temperature mechanical oscillator for force metrology

The coupling of laser light to a mechanical oscillator via radiation pressure leads to the emergence of quantum mechanical correlations between the amplitude and phase quadrature of the laser beam. These correlations form a generic non-classical resource which can be employed for quantum-enhanced force metrology, and give rise to ponderomotive squeezing in the limit of strong correlations. To date, this resource has only been observed in a handful of cryogenic cavity optomechanical experiments. Here, we demonstrate the ability to efficiently resolve optomechanical quantum correlations imprinted on an optical laser field interacting with a room temperature nanomechanical oscillator. Direct measurement of the optical field in a detuned homodyne detector ("variational measurement") at frequencies far from the resonance frequency of the oscillator reveal quantum correlations at the few percent level. We demonstrate how the absolute visibility of these correlations can be used for a quantum-enhanced estimation of the quantum back-action force acting on the oscillator, and provides for an enhancement in the relative signal-to-noise ratio for the estimation of an off-resonant external force, even at room temperature