300 research outputs found
Semantic web learning technology design: addressing pedagogical challenges and precarious futures
Semantic web technologies have the potential to extend and transform teaching and learning, particularly in those educational settings in which learners are encouraged to engage with âauthenticâ data from multiple sources. In the course of the âEnsembleâ project, teachers and learners in different disciplinary contexts in UK Higher Education worked with educational researchers and technologists to explore the potential of such technologies through participatory design and rapid prototyping. These activities exposed some of the barriers to the development and adoption of emergent learning technologies, but also highlighted the wide range of factors, not all of them technological or pedagogical, that might contribute to enthusiasm for and adoption of such technologies. This suggests that the scope and purpose of research and design activities may need to be broadened and the paper concludes with a discussion of how the tradition of operaismo or âworkersâ enquiryâ may help to frame such activities. This is particularly relevant in a period when the both educational institutions and the working environments for which learners are being prepared are becoming increasingly fractured, and some measure of âprecarityâ is increasingly the norm
Research ethics and participatory research in an interdisciplinary technology-enhanced learning project
This account identifies some of the tensions that became apparent in a large interdisciplinary technology-enhanced learning project as its members attempted to maintain their commitment to responsive, participatory research and development in naturalistic research settings while also âenactingâ these commitments in formal research review processes. It discusses how these review processes were accompanied by a commitment to continuing discussion and elaboration across an extended research team and to a view of ethical practice as an aspect of phronesis or âpractical wisdomâ which demands understanding of specific situations and reference to prior experience. In this respect the interdisciplinary nature of the project allows the diverse experience of the project team to be brought into play, with ethical issues a joint point of focus for continuing interdisciplinary discours
Postdigital possibilities: operaismo, co-research, and educational inquiry
There are parallels between the post-Marxist traditions of operaismo (workerism) and autonomism and emerging ideas about the âpostdigitalâ. Operaist analyses and approaches, and particularly the work of Romano Alquati on co-research, have the potential to contribute to discourses as to what might be involved in postdigital inquiry in educational settings, and to better understand of critical data literacies. For such educational inquiry to evolve into a comprehensive strategy of âco-researchâ, it is argued that what is needed are models of teacher inquiry with the potential to challenge dominant rhetorics, to support emancipatory research and development, and to establish the postdigital as a counter-hegemonic educational programme
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Using an evidence informed approach to create online learning resources
The Plant Sciences Pedagogy Project began in the autumn of 2005 sponsored by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI). The project objectives within the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge were twofold: to conduct research into undergraduate teaching and learning within the Department; and to develop online resources to support student learning. The research focused on the second year âPart IB Plant & Microbial Sciencesâ (IB PMS) Course. A combination of focus groups, dual-scale questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gauge both student and staff opinions on, attitudes towards, and expectations of, teaching on the IB PMS course. This resulted in a solid evidence base, with several key themes emerging that were confirmed by multiple approaches. This evidence base was then used to inform and shape the construction of the studentsâ course site and the new resources to be housed within it. The site was developed in the Universitiesâ adaptation of the Sakai Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform, known as CamTools, for which technical support was provided by Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET). There can be a strong temptation to use all the options offered by available information technology for their own sake and CamTools is rich in pre-programmed software âtoolsâ. Therefore the evidence informed approach was adopted to identify appropriate tools for implementation. The CamTools/Sakai online environment proved to be extremely versatile and allowed the development of bespoke online learning resources for students; this resulted in an online learning environment which best matched the needs of the course and its students
Prehistory of the Ica-Nazca Littoral, Peru
Maritime resources played a significant economic role in the prehistoric coastal communities of Central and Northern Peru, and, prior to the current study, it was reasonable to assume they were equally important on the South Coast. In the 1980s, researchers postulated that the Nasca culture of the Early Intermediate Period was a state-level society based on inland agriculture, heavily augmented by aquatic foodstuffs gathered and processed at coastal settlements. Carmichael calls this the Nasca Maritime Hypothesis. It envisioned permanent, ocean front towns providing massive amounts of marine resources to inland centers, in exchange for agricultural produce. The research reported here was designed to test this hypothesis by means of a systematic ground survey covering a fifteen kilometer wide strip back from the shores, stretching from the north end of the BahĂa de la Independencia to the southern boundary of the BahĂa San NicolĂĄs, a two hundred kilometer straight-line distance more than doubled by the winding coastline, and covering all of the coastlands opposite the inland valleys of Ica and Nazca. In the process, sites from all time periods were recorded, and all ecological zones within the study area were sampled, providing the first comprehensive overview of human exploitation in this region through time.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/andean_past_special/1006/thumbnail.jp
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