Medienbildung und informatische Bildung: Zwei eigenständige Fachbereiche mit Kohärenzen

Ausgehend von einer begrifflich öfters synonymen Verwendung der Termini Medienbildung und informatische Bildung in Arbeits- und Grundsatzpapieren, wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen und Debatten bei Tagungen mit Repräsentanten aus beiden Lagern wird im folgenden Beitrag unter Bezug auf aktuelle Untersuchungen, programmatische Konzepte und Vorhaben im Bildungsbereich eine Differenzierung vorgenommen. Angesichts der Bedeutung der neuen Medien für die heutige Generation sind sich Medienpädagogen und Informatiker einig: Der Erwerb einer umfassenden digitalen Medienkompetenz für alle ist eine gesamtgesellschaftliche Aufgabe. Das für beide Fachbereiche gemeinsame Leitmotiv lautet: Keine Bildung ohne neue Medien

Tablet PCs in Elementary Education: A Pilot Project at the Practice Primary School of the KPH at Campus Vienna/Krems

Am Beginn des Schuljahrs 2011/2012 wurde eine Volksschulklasse der im 21. Wiener Gemeindebezirk gelegenen Praxisschule der katholischen Pädagogischen Hochschule Wien/Krems mit Tablet-PCs ausgestattet. Die Geräte wurden von der Institution und den Eltern finanziert und allen SchülerInnen einer dritten Klasse zur Verfügung gestellt. Evaluation und Dokumentation des Projekts wurde vom österreichische Ministerium für Unterricht und Frauen finanziert. Wie aktuelle internationale Studien zeigen, gewöhnen sich neunjährige SchülerInnen schnell an solche Geräte. Das war auch in der hier vorgelegten Studie zu beobachten. Die SchülerInnen waren sehr motiviert und haben verschiedene Anwendungen erprobt. Die Tablets wurden auch außerhalb des Klassenraums verwendet, was als wesentlicher Vorteil mobiler Computer gesehen werden kann. Tablet-PCs ermöglichen individuelles Lernen und können für kooperative,  soziale und interaktive Lernformen während des Unterrichts und in der Freizeit verwendet werden. Als persönliche mobile Geräte katalysieren die Tablet-PCs selbstgesteuertes “just-in-time” Lernen. Alle SchülerInnen sollten daher im 21. Jahrhundert solche Geräte zur Verfügung haben

When Auditory and Visual Signal Processing Conflict: Cross-Modal Interference in Extended Work Periods

Auditory and visual stimuli presented at intervals of about 300 m sec often produce miss errors in one or the other channel, which result from a bottleneck in a neural circuit associated with executive memory. The present study examined the possibility that cross-modal interference could carry over to performance units that transpire over 3 min or longer. An N-back task performed by 113 undergraduates with simultaneous auditory and visual stimuli was organised into 1-min blocks of 20 trials in 2-back and 3-back conditions. Results showed that impairment of visual processing was more frequent than impairment of auditory processing under conditions of fatigue. A substantial number of person blocks showed no such interference, however. Bottlenecks during early stages of processing may have more extensive effects on later processing than previously recognised. Further research should consider perceptual cycling in longer term tasks involving complex stimuli

Inhibition of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) Activity Provides a Therapeutic Approach for CLTC-ALK-Positive Human Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphomas

ALK positive diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL) are a distinct lymphoma subtype associated with a poor outcome. Most of them feature a t(2;17) encoding a clathrin (CLTC)-ALK fusion protein. The contribution of deregulated ALK-activity in the pathogenesis and maintenance of these DLBCLs is not yet known. We established and characterized the first CLTC-ALK positive DLBCL cell line (LM1). LM1 formed tumors in NOD-SCID mice. The selective ALK inhibitor NVP-TAE684 inhibited growth of LM1 cells in vitro at nanomolar concentrations. NVP-TAE684 repressed ALK-activated signalling pathways and induced apoptosis of LM1 DLBCL cells. Inhibition of ALK-activity resulted in sustained tumor regression in the xenotransplant tumor model. These data indicate a role of CLTC-ALK in the maintenance of the malignant phenotype thereby providing a rationale therapeutic target for these otherwise refractory tumors

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival