Engineering: good for technology education?

Recent curriculum changes in the educational system of Australia have resulted in study options being available in Engineering for senior secondary students to use for university entrance. In other educational systems, Engineering is playing an increasingly important role, either as a stand-alone subject or as part of an integrated approach to Science, Mathematics and Technology. These developments raise questions about the relationship between Engineering and Technology education, some of which are explored in this paper

Rich environments for active learning in action: Problem‐based learning

Rich Environments for Active Learning (REALs) are comprehensive instructional systems that are consistent with constructivist theories. They promote study and investigation within authentic contexts; encourage the growth of student responsibility, initiative, decision making and intentional learning; cultivate collaboration among students and teachers; utilize dynamic, interdisciplinary, generative learning activities that promote higher‐order thinking processes to help students develop rich and complex knowledge structures; and assess student progress in content and learning‐to‐learn within authentic contexts using realistic tasks and performances. Problem‐Based Learning (PBL) is an instructional methodology that can be used to create REALs. PBL's student‐centred approach engages students in a continuous collaborative process of building and reshaping understanding as a natural consequence of their experiences and interactions within learning environments that authentically reflect the world around them. In this way, PBL and REALs are a response to teacher‐centred educational practices that promote the development of inert knowledge, such as conventional teacher‐to‐student knowledge dissemination activities. In this article, we compare existing assumptions underlying teacher‐directed educational practice with new assumptions that promote problem solving and higher‐level thinking by putting students at the centre of learning activities. We also examine the theoretical foundation that supports these new assumptions and the need for REALs. Finally, we describe each REAL characteristic and provide supporting examples of REALs in action using PB

Enhancing security incident response follow-up efforts with lightweight agile retrospectives

Security incidents detected by organizations are escalating in both scale and complexity. As a result, security incident response has become a critical mechanism for organizations in an effort to minimize the damage from security incidents. The final phase within many security incident response approaches is the feedback/follow-up phase. It is within this phase that an organization is expected to use information collected during an investigation in order to learn from an incident, improve its security incident response process and positively impact the wider security environment. However, recent research and security incident reports argue that organizations find it difficult to learn from incidents. A contributing factor to this learning deficiency is that industry focused security incident response approaches, typically, provide very little practical information about tools or techniques that can be used to extract lessons learned from an investigation. As a result, organizations focus on improving technical security controls and not examining or reassessing the effectiveness or efficiency of internal policies and procedures. An additional hindrance, to encouraging improvement assessments, is the absence of tools and/or techniques that organizations can implement to evaluate the impact of implemented enhancements in the wider organization. Hence, this research investigates the integration of lightweight agile retrospectives and meta-retrospectives, in a security incident response process, to enhance feedback and/or follow-up efforts. The research contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it presents an approach based on lightweight retrospectives as a means of enhancing security incident response follow-up efforts. Second, it presents an empirical evaluation of this lightweight approach in a Fortune 500 Financial organization's security incident response team

The social impact and cultural issues affecting the e-learning performance in Libyan Higher Education institutes

This paper analyses the social impact and cultural issues which affect the e-learning performance in Libyan Higher Education institutes (HEIs). It is described the development and implementation of e-learning systems in various HEIs with the emphasis on the digital gap in Libya and barriers to successful e-learning implementation in these institutions. Also the social impact of using e-learning packages and Internet by young people in Libya is studied and a SWOT analysis of ICT and e-learning in Tripoli University is performed in order to improve the effectiveness of the use of e-learning systems in Libyan HEIs

Business activities to use during the low season

The objective of this work is to find alternative activities or businesses that contrast the low winter season of an organisation. The research methods are mixed, using a quantitative method with a survey of 50 people and a qualitative method with interviews of the owner and management of the organisation. The results show that during the winter it is very difficult to attract people. The owner of the organisation has tried for a long time to implement strategies, without success. Some suggestions of activities include paying for any activity rather than accommodation. Activities include pizza nights, quiz nights, music classes, yoga and astronomy

A competitor analysis

This study develops a new marketing strategy to combat the action of the threats associated with the market and making the business diversified within the market. The main aim of the research is enhancing profit by reducing competition of a liquor store. The Porter five forces model suggests looking beyond the competitors of the market and learning about their impact. This can be used as a tool for performing analysis of the external as well as the internal environment of the liquor store, which is small retail outlet. This creates firm impact on the overall performance of the activity of the organisation. In the research both quantitative and qualitative approaches are used. The liquor store can enhance their market share by way of diversification of their operation in less competitive markets in New Zealand. It is also concluded that the analysis of suppliers must be performed by the organisation in order to find the best supplier for their required products, at reliable and affordable prices. The buyers or customers create an important part of the business of a liquor store. This study makes an effort to develop a new and effective marketing strategy to combat the action of several threats associated with the market and diversifying the business within the market. This strategy would also help the brand with new store openings

Marketing and branding strategies of the construction industry

Nowadays the construction business is one of the most developed businesses in New Zealand, while competition has increased in the same field. As a result, it has become essential to have good strategies which can help one company to be different from other companies. Among different strategies, marketing and branding strategies are most significant for the success of any business. This project has the aim of finding different marketing and branding strategies that are used by the construction company and showing different steps, which can be helpful for making it more unique and to attract more customers. Qualitative research method has been applied in which primary and secondary research has been conducted. In primary research, an interview has been carried out with one participant and in secondary research, various web searches have been done to find out the importance of social media as a marketing strategy. How customer service, website, brand awareness can be helpful for branding strategies has been discussed. As a result, it was concluded that social media can be the most helpful way of advertising and increasing the number of customers. Again, for making a successful brand, customer service is very significant and website, logo, etc., as well play the same role. After analyzing the results of primary and secondary research, various recommendations have been given such as increasing website visitors, upgrading the website, increasing the use of social media and having a budget for both strategies