Stretchy time or screen time: how early years practitioners conceptualise time in relation to children's digital play

There is a tension between the early years (EY) ideal of ‘stretchy time’ for free-flow play and discourses surrounding children’s digital play, which emphasise the need for time limits. To explore this tension further, we engaged in collaborative reflective dialogue with 20 EY practitioners in a workshop exploring apps for young children. Based on a thematic analysis of the written notes made by practitioners during the workshop, we present four conceptualisations of time adopted by practitioners in relation to digital play: balance, limitation, self-regulation and open exploration. . We then present three factors that shape these conceptualisations of time: 1) whether apps are seen as tools or activities, 2) pedagogic emphasis on purposefulness versus playfulness and 3) take-up of popular discourses of concern. Based on the findings, we suggest how practitioners might use observation, reflection and their own playful experiences as a way of generating new possibilities for managing time around digital play in EY environments

The screen and the sand-timer: the integration the interactive whiteboard into an early years free-flow learning environment

This paper aims to explore how the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) is situated in the social and material conditions of an early years free-flow learning environment. It examines how the affordances of the IWB and the expectations of the surrounding classroom impact on how activity involving the IWB unfolds. It achieves this through an analysis of observations, documented through video, of how children enter into and exit from activities involving the IWB during free-flow activity time. We share the different types of entrance and exit observed, and what these suggest about the social and material conditions in which IWB is situated. Based on these findings, we suggest opportunities for the disruption of existing patterns of integration of the IWB into the learning environment, so as to explore the potential for more collaborative and creative engagement with the technology. Specifically, we argue that the emphasis on turn-taking that characterises the early years learning environment – an emphasis reinforced by the inability of the IWB to support simultaneous engagement by multiple users – is prompting children to engage individually with the resources and miss opportunities to create and play together

Effect of Cyclic Loadings on the Shear Strength and Reinforcement Slip of RC Beams

Numerous studies of the response of reinforced concrete members under cyclic loadings, many of which have been summarized and have indicated that, in general, the flexural strength of under-reinforced beams remains unimpaired under cyclic loadings consisting of a reasonable number of cycles. However, there is a body of evidence indicating that their shear strength may suffer under such loadings. The first objective of the current study is to construct an accurate 2D shell finite element model of reinforced concrete beams under cyclic loadings. The second objective is carrying out a parametric study on reinforced concrete beams, using the suggested 2D shell model.  The objective of this study was to observe the effect of the stirrup spacing, steel-to-concrete bond properties on the performance of reinforced concrete beams under cyclic loadings. For this purpose, an efficient and accurate finite element model was established taking into account the compression and tensile softening introducing damage in the concrete material, the Baushinger effect using nonlinear isotropic/kinematic hardening in the steel and an adequate bond-slip law for the concrete–steel interface. The simulated results of numerical models were verified by experimental results available in literature in order to validate the proposed model, including hysteretic curves, failure modes, crack pattern and debonding failure mode. The model provided a strong tool for investigating the performances of reinforced concrete beam. The results showed that: Cyclic loadings may change the failure mode of the beam to bond failure even though it has sufficient bond length to resist static loadings. So that under cyclic loadings additional anchorage length must be taken, cyclic loadings also influence the ductility and peak load for beams fail in shear. All these topics are of the utmost importance to RC behaviour to be considered by construction codes

Virtual, augmented reality and learning analytics impact on learners, and educators: A systematic review

Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies have emerged as promising tools in the education sector, offering new possibilities for immersive learning experiences. Many researchers have focused their research on examining the potential of these technologies in education from different perspectives. However, it was discovered that there are research gaps in current systematic reviews regarding the examination of the impact of Virtual, Augmented Reality and Learning Analytics utilization on various types of learners and educators across different educational systems, including K-12 Education, Higher Education, Vocational, and Industrial Training, in addition to the educational systems’ research tendencies and their adoption of these technologies. Therefore, our study aims to address these gaps by searching various studies in Google Scholar, Scopus, and the IEEE Xplore databases. By following the PRISMA protocol, 150 research papers were selected for analysis, and our findings show that improving motivation and attention, improving learners’ understanding & performance, and increasing knowledge retention are the most significant impacts on all types of learners. For educators, we found that these technologies have a prominent effect on assisting educators in teaching and training and reducing the burden. Furthermore, we discovered that Higher Education and Augmented Reality were the dominant educational system and the technology type in the selected studies. We also found that most Virtual and Augmented reality researchers preferred to use questionnaires and online surveys for data collection. We further identified that analyzing learners’ traces when interacting with Virtual and Augmented Reality applications can improve learners’ performance and learning experience. Our review offers valuable insights into how integrating these technologies with Learning Analytics can benefit learners and educators and how educational institutions and industrial organizations can take advantage of adopting these technologies

Performance Evaluation of Power Efficient Mechanisms on Multimedia over LTE-A Networks

Power optimization is a critical challenge in multimedia services over cellular communication systems. Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) has been developed for higher bandwidth access for accommodating today’s heavy data applications to provide better performance. Idle mode permits cellularstations to manipulate power and sources with the aid of limiting its activity for discrete periods and this eliminates the lively requirement for handover and other ordinary operations. Also, provides a periodical method for the cell station for pending downlink traffic directed to the cellularstation and as a result gets rid network handover traffic from basically inactive cellular stations. Discontinuous Reception (DRX) has been carried out to decrease the power intake of the consumer device, and transmission of big quantity of data. At data transfer, mobile device and the network phases negotiation occur. During other times, the device turns its receiver off and enters a low power state. Thereby similarly assisting numerous services and big quantities of information transmissions. This study prepossession of a massive quantity of data. Also proposes the two-power optimization modes idle mode and DRX mode parameters to achieve maximum possible power saving with the higher quality of multimedia services. Furthermore, the effectiveness of using DRX short cycles and DRX long cycles on multimedia services and the overall performance. Using OPNET Simulator 17.5, it concluded that DRX mechanism is preferred to operate compared with the Idle mechanism, also resulted that the DRX long cycles are a very good choice for all multimedia services and the overall network performance