Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: S. FENSTERMAKER ; C. WEST (eds.), Doing Gender, Doing Difference : inequality, power and institutional chang

Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Kathy C. CHARMAZ, Constructing Grounded Theory : a Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysi

Factors Affecting School Teachers’ Perceptions of the Instructional Benefits of Digital Technology

AbstractThe potential benefits of digital technology for teaching and learning in schools have been extensively characterized in the academic literature. However, little is known about the factors that affect teachers’ perceptions of these benefits. This state of affairs is problematic since we know that teachers’ perceptions have an impact on their teaching practices. The ultimate aim of this study was to develop and test a model of the factors affecting primary and secondary school teachers’ perceptions about the instructional benefits of digital technology in their teaching practices. Instructional benefits are defined here as the contribution of digital technology in several aspects of curriculum development such as the formulation of learning goals, the development of curriculum content and learning activities, the allocation of educational resources, and the adoption of new methods of assessment. This study used survey data gathered from 702 teachers from a 356 primary and secondary schools in Spain. The study aimed at exploring the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of using digital technology for curriculum development and individual and school-level conditions. Correlation analyses examined the relationship between overall variables and teachers’ perceptions. Several significant relations were identified. Preliminary findings suggest that factors such as teaching area, digital literacy, educational ICT training, and Internet access are important predictors of teachers’ perceptions of the instructional benefits of digital technology. The outcomes of the study will help schools and teachers to enhance the use of digital technology in their teaching and learning practices

A mobile code bundle extension for application-defined routing in delay and disruption tolerant networking

Grup de recerca SENDA (Security of Network and Distributed Applications)In this paper, we introduce software code to improve Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) performance. DTN is extremely useful when source and destination nodes are intermittently connected. DTN implementations use application-specific routing algorithms to overcome those limitations. However, current implementations do not support the concurrent execution of several routing algorithms. In this paper, we contribute to this issue providing a solution that consists on extending the messages being communicated by incorporating software code for forwarding, lifetime control and prioritisation purposes. Our proposal stems from the idea of moving the routing algorithms from the host to the message. This solution is compatible with Bundle Protocol (BP) and facilitates the deployment of applications with new routing needs. A real case study based on an emergency scenario is presented to provide details of a real implementation. Several simulations are presented to prove the feasibility and usability of the system and to analyse its performance in comparison to state-of-the-art approaches

Factors affecting school teachers' perceptions of the instructional benefits of digital technology

The potential benefits of digital technology for teaching and learning in schools have been extensively characterized in the academic literature. However, little is known about the factors that affect teachers' perceptions of these benefits. This state of affairs is problematic since we know that teachers' perceptions have an impact on their teaching practices. The ultimate aim ofthis study was to develop and test a model of the factors affecting primary and secondary school teachers' perceptions about the instructional benefits of digital technology in their teaching practices. Instructional benefits are defined here as the contribution of digital technology in several aspects of curriculum development such as the formulation of learning goals, the development of curriculum content and learning activities, the allocation of educational resources, and the adoption of new methods of assessment. This study used survey data gathered from 702 teachers from a 356 primary and secondary schools in Spain. The study aimed at exploring the relationship between teacher' perceptions of the benefits of using digital technology for curriculum development and individual and school-level conditions. Correlation analyses examined the relationship between overall variables and teachers' perceptions. Several significant relations were identified. Preliminary findings suggest that factors such as teaching area, digital literacy, educational ICT training, and Internet access are important predictors of teachers' perceptions of the instructional benefits of digital technology. The outcomes of the study will help schools and teachers to enhance the use of digital technology in their teaching and learning practices

Reconsiderando la gestión de riesgos en entornos sociotécnicos

La revolución de las comunicaciones ha afectado profundamente a la estructura social de las sociedades contemporáneas avanzadas. Enzarzadas éstas en contextos de naturaleza marcadamente sociotécnica, es decir, de intrincadas interrelaciones sociales e inciertos avances tecnológicos, la gestión de riesgos deviene una práctica altamente compleja. En efecto, los entornos sociotécnicos resultantes de las tecnologías emergentes sitúan a la gestión del riesgo potencial como prioridad de los individuos, en particular, en los beneficios asumidos mediante la ciencia y la tecnología. Fruto de las dinámicas cambiantes que originan las tecnologías en la sociedad, así como de las respuestas sociales hacia aquéllas, se erigen nuevos frentes que demandan ser atendidos mediante el uso de instrumentos y la aplicación de ciertos procedimientos que se adapten a esta realidad que se impone, a lo sumo, multidimensional. Si los riesgos asociados a ciertas tecnologías se caracterizan, hoy, por la incertidumbre científica que les rodea, y ciertas prácticas reguladoras no satisfacen la confianza de los individuos, quizás debamos reflexionar y replantearnos una nueva forma de dar paso a la participación como camino hacia la creación de un consenso social.The communications revolution has profoundly affected the social structure of contemporary, advanced societies. Entangled in contexts of a markedly socio-technical nature, that is, intricate social interrelations and uncertain technological advances, the management of risk becomes a highly complex practice. In effect, socio-technical spheres, resulting from emerging technologies, situate the management of potential risk as a priority of individuals, in particular the benefits of science and technology. Fruit of the changing dynamics that originate from technologies in society, as well as from the social responses to these changes, new fronts are established, that demand the use of instruments and the application of certain procedures, adapted to this multidimensional reality. Risks associated with certain technologies are characterised today, by scientific incertainty (with which they are surrounded) and certain regulatory practices do not satisfy the trust of individuals. We should therefore, at the same time rethink and rework a new form of management which includes participation, as a path to enable the creation of social consensus

Using Sensors in Organizational Research-Clarifying Rationales and Validation Challenges for Mixed Methods

Sensor-based data are becoming increasingly widespread in social, behavioral, and organizational sciences. Far from providing a neutral window on 'reality,' sensor-based big-data are highly complex, constructed data sources. Nevertheless, a more systematic approach to the validation of sensors as a method of data collection is lacking, as their use and conceptualization have been spread out across different strands of social-, behavioral-, and computer science literature. Further debunking the myth of raw data, the present article argues that, in order to validate sensor-based data, researchers need to take into account the mutual interdependence between types of sensors available on the market, the conceptual (construct) choices made in the research process, and the contextual cues. Sensor-based data in research are usually combined with additional quantitative and qualitative data sources. However, the incompatibility between the highly granular nature of sensor data and the static, a-temporal character of traditional quantitative and qualitative data has not been sufficiently emphasized as a key limiting factor of sensor-based research. It is likely that the failure to consider the basic quality criteria of social science measurement indicators more explicitly may lead to the production of insignificant results, despite the availability of high volume and high-resolution data. The paper concludes with recommendations for designing and conducting mixed methods studies using sensors