A technological proposal using virtual worlds to support entrepreneurship education for primary school children

The importance of entrepreneurship education from elementary school through college is now recognized as an important aspect of children’s education. At the level of basic education, the development of entrepreneurial activities using Information and Communication Technologies, specifically three-dimensional virtual worlds, is seen as an area with potential for exploration. The research presented herein is a model that allows the development of entrepreneurial activities in virtual worlds with children attending primary education. This model allows the preparation, monitoring and development of entrepreneurship education activities in virtual worlds, including safe interaction in virtual worlds between the children and the community. For this, we identified a set of requirements that would allow the teaching and learning of entrepreneurship in virtual worlds, from which a technological model was implemented through an application, EMVKids (after the Portuguese expression “Empreendedorismo em Mundos Virtuais com Crianças”, entrepreneurship with children in virtual worlds).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Utility of a thematic network in primary health care: a controlled interventional study in a rural area

BACKGROUND: UniNet is an Internet-based thematic network for a virtual community of users (VCU). It supports a virtual multidisciplinary community for physicians, focused on the improvement of clinical practice. This is a study of the effects of a thematic network such as UniNet on primary care medicine in a rural area, specifically as a platform of communication between specialists at the hospital and doctors in the rural area. METHODS: In order to study the effects of a thematic network such as UniNet on primary care medicine in a rural area, we designed an interventional study that included a control group. The measurements included the number of patient displacements due to disease, number of patient hospital stays and the number of prescriptions of drugs of low therapeutic utility and generic drug prescriptions by doctors. These data were analysed and compared with those of the control center. RESULTS: Our study showed positive changes in medical practice, reflected in the improvement of the evaluated parameters in the rural health area where the interventional study was carried out, compared with the control area. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of UniNet as a potential medium to improve the quality of medical care in rural areas. CONCLUSION: The rural doctors had an effective, useful, user-friendly and cheap source of medical information that may have contributed to the improvement observed in the medical quality indices

Reconciling the professional and student identities of clinical psychology trainees

The study explored the ways in which qualified and trainee clinical psychologists perceived professional behaviour, as illustrated in a series of short vignettes, in student and clinical practice contexts. Comparisons were made to identify the extent to which ideas of professionalism differed across different learning contexts and between qualified and unqualified staff, with the aim of adding to the literature on which factors influence the development of professional identity in health professionals. An online questionnaire depicting a range of potentially unprofessional behaviours was completed by 265 clinical psychology trainees and 106 qualified clinical psychologists. The data were analysed using a general linear model with simultaneous entry in which rater (trainee vs qualified clinical psychologist), setting (student vs placement) and their interaction predicted acceptability ratings. We found that, in general, trainees and qualified staff agreed on those behaviours that were potentially unprofessional, although where significant differences were found, these were due to trainees rating the same behaviours as more professionally acceptable than qualified clinical psychologists. Despite trainees identifying a range of behaviours as professionally unacceptable, some percentage reported having engaged in a similar behaviour in the past. Irrespective of the status of the rater, the same behaviours tended to be viewed as more professionally unacceptable when in a placement (clinical) setting than in a student (university) setting. Generally, no support was found for a rater by setting interaction. The study suggests that trainee clinical psychologists are generally successful at identifying professional norms, although they do not always act in accordance with these. Conflicting student and professional norms may result in trainees viewing some potentially unprofessional behaviour as less severe than qualified staff. Health professional educators should be aware of this fact and take steps to shape trainee norms to be consistent with that of the professional group

Tangible interaction and learning: the case for a hybrid approach

Research involving tangible interaction and children has often focused on how tangibles might sup- port or improve learning compared to more traditional methods. In this paper, we review three of our research studies involving tangible computer programming that have addressed this question in a variety of learning environments with a diverse population of children. Through these studies, we identify situations in which tangible interaction seems to offer advantages for learning; how- ever, we have also identify situations in which tangible interaction proves less useful and an alternative interaction style provides a more appropriate medium for learning. Thus, we advocate for a hybrid approach—one that offers teachers and learners the flexibility to select the most appropriate interaction style to meet the needs of a specific situation

Systems thinking approach to robotics curriculum in schools

This chapter presents a systems thinking approach for the conceptualization, design, and implementation of robotics curriculum to scaffold students’ learning of important Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) concepts and processes. This approach perceives the curriculum as a system of integrated elements and allows for the investigation of the interdependencies amongst the elements and the dynamics of the curriculum as a whole. Through this approach, we believe that students can be provided with robotics curriculum units that facilitate the learning of STEM “Big Ideas” of and about STEM. A STEM “Big Idea” is central to the understanding and application of STEM across a wide range of fields, one that links numerous STEM discipline understandings. Robotics is a rich context in which students can establish deep knowledge and robust understanding of STEM “Big Ideas”. Curriculum units based on this systems thinking approach can do much to ensure that students engaged in robotics activities focus not only on the completion of robotics tasks but also on the social construction of integrated networks of authentic STEM knowledge centred around “Big Ideas” of and about STEM