Distance Learning during Moments of Crisis: Opportunities, Challenges and Implications of Online Instructional Design

The ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has shown that distance learning is no more regarded as a mere luxury or just a complementation to in-person learning. It is increasingly being considered by educationalists as an important source and asset of education, especially within the context of the twenty-first century education and the different ICT and soft skills it requires. Starting from a number of webinars and trainings I did during this period, and based mainly on  a personal online training at Harvard university’s edX platform on ‘Family Engagement in Children’s Education’ that lasted four months, this paper attempts to explore the potential that online learning and training represents for learning and teaching English. Specifically, emphasis will be on dissecting the formal and content qualities of successful online course designing. Finally, the paper will end with a discussion of some results and recommendations for educational practitioners as to material selection and design of distance learning

Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the ‘‘Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Altimetry for the future: building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the “Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Developing Teachers’ Soft Skills and its Effects on Teacher-Student Relationship: Review of the Literature

Today, the field of education is witnessing tremendous changes, both in theory and in practice. This paper seeks to explore the position of teachers, their roles and the ‘soft skills’ they are supposed to be equipped with. The new emergent demands dictated by the recent geo-political and economic factors, both internally and externally, have brought about new perceptions of the place and the role of the teacher in the twenty first century, with specific standards and skills being more commonly emphasized. Unlike traditional views of the role of teachers, whose primary mission was limited to indoctrination and lecturing, more recent research in the field suggests that teachers should necessarily be well-equipped with specific ‘soft skills’ added to the ‘hard skills’ that he/she already possesses as a teacher. Getting knowledge and good training on these soft skills enhances communication and helps build a positive teacher-student relationship. This paper aim to argue that teachers’ awareness of and training on soft skills can be one of the building blocks for a more healthy and ‘dialogic’ Moroccan school. To reach this objective, I will first address the different definitions of soft skills as well as the diverse taxonomies available in the literature. This will be followed by a discussion of the historical shifts in conceiving and practicing these skills in the field of education. Next, I will specifically address what I consider to be the essential ‘soft skills’ recommended for teachers. The paper will end by briefly suggesting some recommendations for teachers and stakeholders

Relevance of Single-Transmetalated Resting States in Iron-Mediated Cross-Couplings: Unexpected Role of σ-Donating Additives

International audienceControl of the transmetalation degree of organoiron(II) species is a critical parameter in numerous Fe-catalyzed cross-couplings to ensure the success of the process. In this report, we however demonstrate that the selective formation of a monotransmetalated FeII species during the catalytic regime counterintuitively does not alone ensure an efficient suppression of the nucleophile homocoupling side reaction. It is conversely shown that a fine control of the transmetalation degree of the transient FeIII intermediates obtained after the activation of alkyl electrophiles by a single-electron transfer (SET), achievable using σ-donating additives, accounts for the selectivity of the cross-coupling pathway. This report shows for the first time that both coordination spheres of FeII resting states and FeIII short-lived intermediates must be efficiently tuned during the catalytic regime to ensure high coupling selectivities

Sur l’usage des modèles de réponse à l’item dans la construction d’une plate-forme numérique d’enseignement : l’exemple d’écri+

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Colour centre recovery in yttria-stabilised zirconia: photo-induced versus thermal processes

International audienceThe photo-annealing of colour centres in yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) was studied by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy upon UV-ray or laser light illumination, and compared to thermal annealing. Stable hole centres (HCs) were produced in as-grown YSZ single crystals by UV-ray irradiation at room temperature. The numbers of HCs decays to non-zero asymptotic values when UV light is set off. The HCs produced by 200-MeV Au ion irradiation are partially bleached by UV light, whereas the F$^+$-type centres (involving oxygen vacancies) were left unchanged. In contrast, a significant photo-annealing of the latter point defects was achieved in 1.4-MeV electron-irradiated YSZ by 553-nm laser light irradiation, inside the absorption band of F$^+$-type centres centred at a wavelength $\sim$550 nm. Thermal annealing of F$^+$-type centres was also followed by UV-visible absorption spectroscopy. Almost complete photo-bleaching by laser irradiation was achieved like for thermal bleaching at $\sim$500K. Kinetic rate models of colour-centre evolution are proposed for the photo-induced processes and correlated to the thermally-activated ones

Ethanol transformation into higher hydrocarbons over HZSM-5 zeolite: Direct detection of radical species by in situ EPR spectroscopy

International audienceHZSM-5 (Si/Al ratio = 40) zeolite is an efficient catalyst for ethanol transformation due to its capacity to maintain a high activity in C3 + hydrocarbons formation with time-on-stream (TOS) and this in spite of a great loss of acidity and microporosity and a high coke content deposited inside the pores of the zeolite. A study by in situ Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy in ethylene conversion to hydrocarbons showed that a fraction of radicals was active

Investigation of the Redox Behavior of Ferroquine, a New Antimalarial

International audienceFerroquine (FQ or SR97193) is a unique ferrocene antimalarial drug candidate which just entered phase IIb clinical trials in autumn 2007. FQ is able to overcome the chloroquine (CQ) resistance problem, an important limit to the control of Plasmodium falciparum, the principal causative agent of malaria. However, as for other therapeutic agents such as chloroquine (CQ) and artemisin, its mechanism of action remains partially unknown. Most investigations have so far focused on comparing the activity of FQ to that of CQ in order to understand how the ferrocene core contributes to a stronger antiplasmodial activity. Studies have already shown that the ferrocene altered the shape, volume, lipophilicity, basicity and also electronic profile of the parent molecule and, hence, its pharmacodynamic behavior. However, few investigations have been undertaken to probe the real contribution of redox properties of the ferrocene (iron(II))/ferricinium (iron(III)) system in FQ as reported in this article. In our experimental and theoretical approach, we considered the redox profile of the ferrocene core of FQ in the specific conditions (acidic and oxidizing) of the parasitic digestive vacuole as a possible discriminating property from CQ in the antimalarial activity