Foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology: Consequences for Media Education and Mobile Learning in Schools

This conceptual paper offers insights to the foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology and relates this concept to traditional concepts of Ecology e.g. media ecology or Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development. It will further discuss the term «ecology» as a relation between learners and their surrounding physical and structural world, e. g. an ecology of resources or the classroom as an ecological system. Thirdly more recent concepts in ecology will be considered e. g. Digital Media Ecology including media ecology (German: Medienökologie) from a German perspective. This contribution tries to describe common principles of (media) ecologies and will ask after their meaning and relation to media education and mobile learning. One of the main results is the realisation that cultural practices of school learning and cultural practices of media acquisition take place in different worlds or in different ecological spheres. The question is thus again of how to bridge these ecological spheres, and how «agency» developed outside school, can be nourished inside school. In other words: how can we bridge socio-cultural and technological structures within these cultural practices.This conceptual paper offers insights to the foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology and relates this concept to traditional concepts of Ecology e.g. media ecology or Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development. It will further discuss the term «ecology» as a relation between learners and their surrounding physical and structural world, e. g. an ecology of resources or the classroom as an ecological system. Thirdly more recent concepts in ecology will be considered e. g. Digital Media Ecology including media ecology (German: Medienökologie) from a German perspective. This contribution tries to describe common principles of (media) ecologies and will ask after their meaning and relation to media education and mobile learning. One of the main results is the realisation that cultural practices of school learning and cultural practices of media acquisition take place in different worlds or in different ecological spheres. The question is thus again of how to bridge these ecological spheres, and how «agency» developed outside school, can be nourished inside school. In other words: how can we bridge socio-cultural and technological structures within these cultural practices

Differential forms, Weitzenböck formulae and foliations

The Weitzenböck formulae express the Laplacian of a differential form on an oriented Riemannian manifold in local coordinates, using the covariant derivatives of the form and the coefficients of the curvature tensor. In the first part, we shall describe a certain "differential algebra formalism" which seems to be a more natural frame for those formulae than the usual calculations in local coordinates. In this formalism, there appear some interesting differential operators which may also be used to characterize local geometric properties of foliations. That is the topic of the second part

Look Out! The Biggest Library Problem

Libraries may lose control of the support, operation, and direction of their institutions because of the popularization of information and accompanying political wrangling. To a large extent, it will be their activism that will determine their viability going forward. If they fail to deal with this situation they may lose control of their destinies. Will we continue to expand and prosper? Case studies

Noise in Electron Devices

Contains reports on one research project.Lincoln Laboratory, Purchase Order DDL B-00337U. S. ArmyU. S. NavyU. S. Air Force under Air Force Contract AF 19(604)-740

Video camera system for locating bullet holes in targets at a ballistics tunnel

A system consisting of a single charge coupled device (CCD) video camera, computer controlled video digitizer, and software to automate the measurement was developed to measure the location of bullet holes in targets at the International Shooters Development Fund (ISDF)/NASA Ballistics Tunnel. The camera/digitizer system is a crucial component of a highly instrumented indoor 50 meter rifle range which is being constructed to support development of wind resistant, ultra match ammunition. The system was designed to take data rapidly (10 sec between shoots) and automatically with little operator intervention. The system description, measurement concept, and procedure are presented along with laboratory tests of repeatability and bias error. The long term (1 hour) repeatability of the system was found to be 4 microns (one standard deviation) at the target and the bias error was found to be less than 50 microns. An analysis of potential errors and a technique for calibration of the system are presented

Sampling edge covers

The random generation or sampling of combinatorial objects has important applications to statistical analyses in various domains, including physics and evolutionary biology. Some objects whose sampling has been well-studied are contingency tables, matchings, and independent sets. Edge covers are related to matchings in graph theory; however, their association does not appear to be of the sort where results for sampling matchings imply results for sampling edge covers. Consequently, we investigate the sampling of edge covers and prove that efficiently sampling so-called (1,2)-edge covers is possible under reasonable restrictions

A New image

This thesis paper is about the development and completion of a series of oil paintings. Some of the images were exhibited at the Bevier Gallery at the Rochester Institute of Technology this Spring, in partial completion of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree. This paper will complete the requirements. The paper will give a chronology of the development of the paintings, beginning with the ideas that preceded the works, and leading through the various stages of their completion. A final section will consist of an artist\u27s statement and will relate my work to some of the dilemmas of modern day painting. A series of notes has been added for clarity

Entry Systems Panel deliberations

The Entry Systems Panel was chaired by Don Rummler, LaRC and Dan Rasky, ARC. As requested, each panel participant prior to the workshop prepared and delivered presentations to: (1) identify technology needs; (2) assess current programs; (3) identify technology gaps; and (4) identify highest payoff areas R&D. Participants presented background on the entry systems R&D efforts and operations experiences for the Space Shuttle Orbiter. These participants represented NASA Centers involved in research (Ames Research Center), development (Johnson Space Center) and operations (Kennedy Space Center) and the Shuttle Orbiter prime contractor. The presentations lead to the discovery of several lessons learned