Digital Games in Primary Education

Digital educational games create a new perspective in learning culture, which go hand in hand with the interests of the pupils. Digital educational games are an innovation in primary education that can enhance children learning and acquiring skills. The integration of digital educational games in the school environment of primary education could effectively contribute to reforming the educational system. Early childhood education and primary education teachers can play a crucial role in supporting children’s digital game-based learning (DGBL). Teachers’ beliefs about using DGBL are important and often limit their efforts to integrate new technologies into the classroom. Positive views can help teachers embody DGBL in their teaching methods more easily. Thus, without the knowledge of teachers’ views and intentions about using DGBL in primary education settings, any potential innovations in this area may lack utility. The scope of this chapter is to investigate the pedagogical dimension of digital educational games as far as the primary education concerns, examine the factors that influence the effectiveness of games in the learning procedure, give valuable information in the designers of digital educational games, and finally examine primary school teachers’ beliefs about DGBL, as well as their confidence in integrating digital educational games in the classroom

Teacheras Role in Educational Changes: Executor or Collaborator? The case of Greece

Nowadays a demand is strongly expressed concerning education s modernization Schools are required to change and adapt to contemporary demands Greek State promotes many changes such as institutional changes in the curriculum s content and structure and other innovations Teachers are the persons asked to implement those changes One aspect of educational changes concerns the methods used mostly by teachers in the implementation of educational changes The main aim of the present study was to investigate the causes that according to teachers opinion many educational changes are annulled A questionnaire was given to teachers who work in State Primary Schools in the city of Patras in the South West of Greec

THE UTILIZATION OF THE FIRST CEMETERY OF ATHENS IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS: PRIMARY EDUCATION’S STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS

The educational use of ancient necropolises is widespread in the western world, examining them in the light of archaeological, historical, artistic and environmental interest. However, western culture does not encourage school visits to modern cemeteries, even though they are historically and artistically important monuments, such as the First Cemetery of Athens. It was founded in the 19th century on the basis of landscape architecture, adopting the aesthetics of Romanticism, as a product of a vision of an upgraded ideology for the realm of the dead and condense a wide field of learning. The educational world expresses strong doubts about the integration of the First Cemetery in the educational process, although it recognizes its multifaceted and multiple educational value. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of students in the 6th grade of Primary School about the Cemetery, to highlight the emotions that were developed and the results of the educational use of the visit to the Cemetery. The group semi-structured interview was used. The results showed the familiarity and the emotional connection that the 6th grade students developed with the First Cemetery, showing their strong desire to visit it again. Thus, the value of using cemeteries in the educational process was highlighted.  Article visualizations

THE PROMOTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: THE CASE OF GREECE

Organizational culture constitutes a fundamental characteristic of the educational organism because, on one hand, it contributes to the shaping of its character and the way of thinking of its members and, on the other hand, it is connected to the productivity of educators and the academic performance of students. Pivotal is the role of the educator in shaping the culture of the educational organism, a culture that moulds the imprint and identity of the school unit and constitutes a criterion for its effectiveness. Culture constitutes a tool in the hands of the leader in order to goad the members of the school community into a developmental trajectory, creating organizational conditions which contribute to learning outcomes and positive change. We conducted a survey using semi-structured interviews on a number of principals of secondary education school units within Attica Prefecture, relative to the way in which they promote organizational culture in their school unit, the role that other stakeholders have, the promotion of cooperative climate and the association of culture and learning outcomes. A lack of strategic orientation for the promotion of culture is clearly evident from the results. The ways in which the members of educational community are involved in organizational culture, cumulatively evaluated, indicate a strategic handling of the promotion of organizational culture. Evaluated, though, separately they are deprived of potency and reassert the incapability in approaching culture holistically. Practices for the consolidation of cooperative climate and the principal's relationship with learning outcomes are confirmed. Article visualizations

Investigation of the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale Psychometric Properties with a Sample of Greek Students

The purpose of this study was to adapt the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) for a Greek student population. The STARS was administered to 890 Tertiary Education students in two Greek universities. It was performed a cross-validation study to examine the factorial structure and the psychometric properties with a series of confirmatory factor analyses. Results revealed a correlated six first-order factor model which provided the best fit to the data compared to a six-factor model with one superordinate factor. All six factors of the Greek version of the STARS presented convergent and discriminant validity and were internally consistent. Implications and limitations are discussed

Evaluating the effectiveness of sales promotions in influencing perceived customer-purchasing behaviour in the hotel sector

ABSTRACT This dissertation was written with the objective of presenting the issue of sales promotions in the hospitality industry. Its' main aim is to examine customers' and hotel managers' perceptions concerning the effectiveness of sales promotions in influencing customers' purchasing intentions and compare the findings of the two groups in order to demonstrate whether managers have realised the types of special offers that attract customer attention. Birmingham and Nottingham were chosen as the targeted areas for the conduct of the surveys. In order to form a questionnaire with up-to-date sales promotion tools, research was conducted to discover the types of special offers hotels in these two areas are currently applying. After having examined hotels' web-pages, it was found that a variety of special offers is promoted in Birmingham and Nottingham, from contests to online price discounts, but this occurs mainly because of the existence of many hotel chains in these two areas. Independent hotels are mainly constrained to the application of monetary tools (price discounts and coupons). The findings of this online research constituted the basis for the formation of the asked questions. The target group of customers were young people aged among 18-35 and the target group of managers were the hotels in Birmingham and Nottingham. Customers seemed to evaluate more positively most of the sales promotion techniques than managers. Though the differences in the responses between these two groups were for many tools insignificant, the surveys revealed that there is a relative lack of knowledge of sales promotion tools from hotel owners and managers, especially from those that work in small hotels. Furthermore, it was found that customers and managers have significant different perceptions for 6 important types of special offers. The tools that were evaluated as the most effective by the customers and which should be taken into account by hotel managers for a future promotion were the online price discount, the online coupon, sampling techniques, the offering of free tickets to the destination's main attractions, the opportunity to stay longer the day of the customers' departure and general types of price discounts presented in relative or absolute terms

Thioester Synthesis By a Designed Nickel Enzyme Models Prebiotic Energy Conversion

The formation of carbon-carbon bonds from prebiotic precursors such as carbon dioxide represents the foundation of all primordial life processes. In extant organisms, this reaction is carried out by the carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH)/acetyl coenzyme A synthase (ACS) enzyme, which performs the cornerstone reaction in the ancient Wood-Ljungdahl metabolic pathway to synthesize the key biological metabolite, acetylCoA. Despite its significance, a fundamental understanding of this transformation is lacking, hampering efforts to harness analogous chemistry. To address these knowledge gaps, we have designed an artificial metalloenzyme within the azurin protein scaffold as a structural, functional, and mechanistic model of ACS. We demonstrate the intermediacy of the NiI species and requirement for ordered substrate binding in the bioorganometallic carbon-carbon bond-forming reaction from the one-carbon ACS substrates. The electronic and geometric structures of the nickel-acetyl intermediate have been characterized using time-resolved optical, electron paramagnetic resonance, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy in conjunction with quantum chemical calculations. Moreover, we demonstrate that the nickel-acetyl species is chemically competent for selective acyl transfer upon thiol addition to biosynthesize an activated thioester. Drawing an analogy to the native enzyme, a mechanism for thioester generation by this ACS model has been proposed. The fundamental insight into the enzymatic process provided by this rudimentary ACS model has implications for the evolution of primitive ACS-like proteins. Ultimately, these findings offer strategies for development of highly active catalysts for sustainable generation of liquid fuels from one-carbon substrates, with potential for broad applications across diverse fields ranging from energy storage to environmental remediation

Can Symmetry non-restoration solve the Monopole Problem?

We reexamine a recently proposed non-inflationary solution to the monopole problem, based on the possibility that spontaneously broken Grand-Unified symmetries do not get restored at high temperature. We go beyond leading order by studying the self-consistent one-loop equations of the model. We find large next-to-leading corrections that reverse the lowest order results and cause symmetry restoration at high temperature.Comment: 17 pages plus three coded and compressed postscript files for figure

Modeling, Simulation and Emulation of Intelligent Domotic Environments

Intelligent Domotic Environments are a promising approach, based on semantic models and commercially off-the-shelf domotic technologies, to realize new intelligent buildings, but such complexity requires innovative design methodologies and tools for ensuring correctness. Suitable simulation and emulation approaches and tools must be adopted to allow designers to experiment with their ideas and to incrementally verify designed policies in a scenario where the environment is partly emulated and partly composed of real devices. This paper describes a framework, which exploits UML2.0 state diagrams for automatic generation of device simulators from ontology-based descriptions of domotic environments. The DogSim simulator may simulate a complete building automation system in software, or may be integrated in the Dog Gateway, allowing partial simulation of virtual devices alongside with real devices. Experiments on a real home show that the approach is feasible and can easily address both simulation and emulation requirement