Creative Arts Students' Use of Social Media: Perspectives of Educators

The emergence of social media has made a tremendous change on lifestyle and communication practices in our society. Majority of the internet users today are hooked with social network sites in staying connected with people around the globe. New digital technologies and the social media also constantly change, changing communication and interaction between educators and learners. Social media enables the students and educators to be connected as it permits them to communicate on social media apart from the classroom setting. This paper explores the connections of educators and their students through social media as well as the perspectives o

Use Of Social Media By Creative Arts Students For Learning And Creative Artwork Development

Social media is nowadays broadly used by young people. Majority of the young people are with social media sites as it enable them to stay connected with people around the globe anywhere and anytime. The features of social media sites where it allows different forms of content to be shared attract young people's attention and transform ways of communication and interaction between their users. Consequently, majority of higher learning institution are starting to use social media for teaching and learning. This paper explores how the creative arts students are engage in the social media for learning and creative artwork development. Using a mixed methodology, this study used a sample of 300 students from public and private universities and colleges through a questionnaire focusing on the use of social media for learning and creative artwork development specifically in communication and collaboration, information management, learning and problem solving as well as meaningful participation. Discussion sessions are also conducted with 10 students to get better insights. The findings of the study reveal that social media plays a role in getting local and international inputs and feedback for developing creative artwork

Perception On Digital Competence In Social Media Practice Among Creative Arts Students In Institutions Of Higher Learning In Penang

Perception on digital competence of creative arts students plays an important role as their social media practices will foster their learning as well as expose them to risks and opportunities. This study aims to identify creative arts students' digital competence focusing on three core components that include perception on (i) instrumental skills and knowledge, (ii) advanced skills and knowledge; and (iii) attitudes for skills and knowledge application. This study employs a mixed methodology which gathered the perceptions of creative arts students, creative arts lecturers and creative industry practitioners on creative arts students' digital competence. Quantitative findings of the study reveal that creative arts students are satisfied with their own digital competence. Meanwhile, the qualitative findings show that creative arts students are very positive about their own instrumental and advanced skills. However, creative arts lecturers and creative industry practitioners perceive differently. While institutions of higher learning have made much effort to assist and guide creative arts students to elevate their digital competence, creative arts lecturers noted that not all students are digitally competent. Meanwhile, creative industry practitioners perceive that creative arts students' digital competence is weak in general and are not competent in the creative industry. In conclusion, this study suggests that the institutions of higher learning engage creative arts students seriously in digital competence by encouraging good practices in social media, and in building links with the creative industry

Digital storytelling: engaging young people to communicate for digital media literacy

Digital stories are powerful forces in the lives of young people as they shape opinions, assumptions, and biases about the knowledge of everyday lives. This paper presents the findings of an exploratory project that saw secondary school students participating in a digital storytelling project. Underpinning this project was an interest in cultivating digital media literacy among young people. Data analysed included a self-assessment questionnaire, focus group discussions with young people and the production of short 1-3 minute digital stories on various issues related to online cultures. The first part of the article looks at the digital competences of young people. The findings of a self-assessment revealed that the respondents felt generally capable when working with information, and moderately capable of communication and safety but had difficulty with content creation and problem-solving skills.The findings of the second part of the study revealed that young people get much enjoyment and feel smart and knowledgeable as they scroll quickly through an online search on information, images, news, and stories. They are content consumers and content creators who enjoy dramatic engagements and can produce stories as communication texts. However, it was also found that the students confronted difficulties in evaluating the relevance and usefulness of information as well as in expressing their ideas through different modes of visual communication. By way of conclusion, this paper calls for the creation of a state-based advisory committee composed of educators, researchers and media practitioners who will work towards building digital media literacy

Developing Creative Artwork Through The Use Of Social Media: A Case Study Of Arts Students In Penang

The use of social media as part of learning and information searching tool is increasing significantly among the students of higher learning institutions. This paper explores how the creative art students engage with the social media for creative purposes and presents selected findings of wider study on creative development in the digital era. Using a sample of 300 students from public and private universities and colleges, the study aims to look at two specific themes: (i) The ways students use social media as a platform for generating information and discussion; (ii) the hopes and fears of creative students in facilitating their ideas and works in this platform. Using a mixed methodology, the study uses questionnaires to unveil the students' knowledge and practices in developing creative artwork. Interviews are also conducted to get rich insights of some of the joy and triumphs as well as challenges and fears they confront when using social media for developing creative artwork. The findings reveal that social media creates a new platform for these students to conduct their discussion; it acts as one of the information resources for developing creative projects at both local and global levels. Further, social media provides a space for interaction in getting comments and feedback especially from people with different backgrounds for a better quality artwork. While social media is also one the new approaches for creative art students to promote and exhibit their artwork to a wider group of audience, they are also fearful of theft of creative ideas and issues of copyright and patent of their ideas. By way of conclusion, this paper discusses some of the opportunities and risks in using social media for students' creative artwork

Full-sky ray-tracing simulation of weak lensing using ELUCID simulations: exploring galaxy intrinsic alignment and cosmic shear correlations

The intrinsic alignment of galaxies is an important systematic effect in weak-lensing surveys, which can affect the derived cosmological parameters. One direct way to distinguish different alignment models and quantify their effects on the measurement is to produce mocked weak-lensing surveys. In this work, we use full-sky ray-tracing technique to produce mock images of galaxies from the ELUCID $N$-body simulation run with the WMAP9 cosmology. In our model we assume that the shape of central elliptical galaxy follows that of the dark matter halo, and spiral galaxy follows the halo spin. Using the mocked galaxy images, a combination of galaxy intrinsic shape and the gravitational shear, we compare the predicted tomographic shear correlations to the results of KiDS and DLS. It is found that our predictions stay between the KiDS and DLS results. We rule out a model in which the satellite galaxies are radially aligned with the center galaxy, otherwise the shear-correlations on small scales are too high. Most important, we find that although the intrinsic alignment of spiral galaxies is very weak, they induce a positive correlation between the gravitational shear signal and the intrinsic galaxy orientation (GI). This is because the spiral galaxy is tangentially aligned with the nearby large-scale overdensity, contrary to the radial alignment of elliptical galaxy. Our results explain the origin of detected positive GI term from the weak-lensing surveys. We conclude that in future analysis, the GI model must include the dependence on galaxy types in more detail.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, published in ApJ. Our mock galaxy catalog is available upon request by email to the author ([email protected], [email protected]

ELUCID IV: Galaxy Quenching and its Relation to Halo Mass, Environment, and Assembly Bias

We examine the quenched fraction of central and satellite galaxies as a function of galaxy stellar mass, halo mass, and the matter density of their large scale environment. Matter densities are inferred from our ELUCID simulation, a constrained simulation of local Universe sampled by SDSS, while halo masses and central/satellite classification are taken from the galaxy group catalog of Yang et al. The quenched fraction for the total population increases systematically with the three quantities. We find that the `environmental quenching efficiency', which quantifies the quenched fraction as function of halo mass, is independent of stellar mass. And this independence is the origin of the stellar mass-independence of density-based quenching efficiency, found in previous studies. Considering centrals and satellites separately, we find that the two populations follow similar correlations of quenching efficiency with halo mass and stellar mass, suggesting that they have experienced similar quenching processes in their host halo. We demonstrate that satellite quenching alone cannot account for the environmental quenching efficiency of the total galaxy population and the difference between the two populations found previously mainly arises from the fact that centrals and satellites of the same stellar mass reside, on average, in halos of different mass. After removing these halo-mass and stellar-mass effects, there remains a weak, but significant, residual dependence on environmental density, which is eliminated when halo assembly bias is taken into account. Our results therefore indicate that halo mass is the prime environmental parameter that regulates the quenching of both centrals and satellites.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap

ELUCID V. Lighting dark matter halos with galaxies

In a recent study, using the distribution of galaxies in the north galactic pole of SDSS DR7 region enclosed in a 500\mpch box, we carried out our ELUCID simulation (Wang et al. 2016, ELUCID III). Here we {\it light} the dark matter halos and subhalos in the reconstructed region in the simulation with galaxies in the SDSS observations using a novel {\it neighborhood} abundance matching method. Before we make use of thus established galaxy-subhalo connections in the ELUCID simulation to evaluate galaxy formation models, we set out to explore the reliability of such a link. For this purpose, we focus on the following a few aspects of galaxies: (1) the central-subhalo luminosity and mass relations; (2) the satellite fraction of galaxies; (3) the conditional luminosity function (CLF) and conditional stellar mass function (CSMF) of galaxies; and (4) the cross correlation functions between galaxies and the dark matter particles, most of which are measured separately for all, red and blue galaxy populations. We find that our neighborhood abundance matching method accurately reproduces the central-subhalo relations, satellite fraction, the CLFs and CSMFs and the biases of galaxies. These features ensure that thus established galaxy-subhalo connections will be very useful in constraining galaxy formation processes. And we provide some suggestions on the three levels of using the galaxy-subhalo pairs for galaxy formation constraints. The galaxy-subhalo links and the subhalo merger trees in the SDSS DR7 region extracted from our ELUCID simulation are available upon request.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, ApJ accepte

Replication and Meta-analysis of the Association between BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Impairment in Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.

Cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) adversely affects cancer patients. We had previously demonstrated that the BDNF Val66Met genetic polymorphism is associated with lower odds of subjective CRCI in the multitasking and verbal ability domains among breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. To further assess our previous findings, we evaluated the association of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism with subjective and objective CRCI in a temporally separate cohort of patients and pooled findings from both the original (n = 145) and current (n = 193) cohorts in a meta-analysis. Subjective CRCI was assessed using FACT-Cog. Objective CRCI was evaluated using computerized neuropsychological tests. Genotyping was carried out using Sanger sequencing. The association of BDNF Val66Met genotypes and CRCI was examined with logistic regression. A fixed-effect meta-analysis was conducted using the inverse variance method. In the meta-analysis (n = 338), significantly lower odds of CRCI were associated with Met allele carriers based on the global FACT-Cog score (OR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.29-0.94). Furthermore, Met allele carriers were at lower odds of developing impairment in the domains of memory (OR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.17-0.70), multitasking (OR = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.18-0.59), and verbal ability (OR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.24-0.88). Consistent with the previous study, lower odds of subjective CRCI among patients with the BDNF Met allele was observed after adjusting for potential confounders in the multitasking (OR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.14-0.67) domain. In conclusion, carriers of the BDNF Met allele were protected against global subjective CRCI, particularly in the domains of memory, multitasking, and verbal ability. Our findings further contribute to the understanding of CRCI pathophysiology