Social Media, Power, and the Future of VBAC

The Internet has been called a disruptive technology because it has shifted power and altered the economics of doing business, whether that business is selling books or providing health care. Social media have accelerated the pace of disruption by enabling interactive information sharing and blurring the lines between the "producers" and "consumers" of knowledge, goods, and services. In the wake of the National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) and major national recommendations for maternity care reform, activated, engaged consumers face an unprecedented opportunity to drive meaningful changes in VBAC access and safety. This article examines the role of social networks in informing women about VBAC, producing low-cost, accessible decision aids, and enabling multi-stakeholder collaborations toward workable solutions that remove barriers women face in accessing VBAC.     

Intermediate-level ICT skills and development in South Africa: Private provision form suited to national purpose!

Abstract   ICT skills are critical to the success of enhancing national development in a globalised era (see World Bank 2006). Rudimentary intermediate-level ICT skills necessary to function optimally in basic computer-related environments are crucial to national competitiveness in a developing context. The supply of these skills provided predominantly by private, non-state institutions in most developing contexts is considerably under-researched (see Atchoarena and Esquieu 2002). This paper provides a rationale for the suitability of private sector intermediate-level ICT provisioning, exploring peculiarities of provisioning in the South African context. The features associated with the varied provider types and the response to the multiplicity of learner and client groups serve as crucial features of suitability. It posits the view that the capacity of the sector to respond effectively to skill needs provides the basis for national development in the South African context. The culpability of the sector in responding effectively to rapid technological developments provides the basis for its suitability to private provision forms. Lessons from this work and its impacts on national regulation of private ICT provision will provide important insights for other developing contexts.

A triad of Filipino adolescents’ zones of lived experiences of information and communications technology (ICT)

Considering that today’s students feel extremely more comfortable with computers than did earlier generations of students vis-à-vis the notion that, as a social category, they have become one of the most interesting topics in research papers and journals in the field of behavioral and social sciences since the 1950s (Batan 2002), their individual and collective experiences of information and communications technology (ICT) could be expected to create a portrait of accounts that might inform educational policy makers as to how their ICT needs and concerns could be better addressed through a more responsive and a well-defined IT-driven educational platform. The central question that this phenomenological study purported to answer was: “How does a select group of Filipino adolescents collectively experience information and communications technology (ICT)?” Findings of this study revealed that the individual and collective articulations, verbalizations, and musings of the 60 adolescents recruited from two regions in the Philippines exposed three distinct but interrelated conceptual zones of ICT, namely: the zone of technology perspective (ZTP), zone of technology power and efficacy (ZTPE), and zone of technology deficits (ZTD). Implications of the study are also discussed in the paper. “There is a demand for qualitative research with an insider perspective, as young voices appear not to have been sufficiently heard.” (Hauan and Heggli 2002:13)      

Sea Country: navigating Indigenous and colonial ontologies in Australian environmental education

In this paper, we contribute to land education research by focusing on the Torres Strait Islands in the Coral Sea at the far north of tip of Cape York, Australia. We describe the Torres Strait Islander concept of Sea Country and Torres Strait Ailan Kastom (translated as ‘Island Custom’). We then analyse some of the ways in which settler colonisation has challenged these ways of knowing and being. Our inquiry looks at how Sea Country is positioned within two contemporary Australian examples of environmental education: firstly, within the new Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priorities that mandate that special attention be given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and also to the concept of sustainability; and secondly, within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s Sea Country Guardians programme This analysis of environmental education curriculum and practice identifies the ways in which the concept of Sea Country and the Indigenous cosmology it represents are simultaneously supported and ignored in the current Australian environmental education context.     

Understanding and Supporting Inhibitory Control: Unique Contributions From Proactive Monitoring and Motoric Stopping to Children’s Improvements With Practice

Children struggle to stop inappropriate behaviors. What interventions improve inhibitory control, for whom, and why? Prior work suggested that practice proactively monitoring for relevant signals improved children’s inhibitory control more than practice with motoric stopping. However, these processes were not clearly dissociated. This study tested 162 seven- to nine-year-old children (89 female, 72 male, 1 unreported; 82% White) on the stop-signal task, following monitoring or stopping-focused practice. Both methods improved inhibitory control, supported generalization, and interacted ( = .20–.73). Practice approaches differentially impacted variability ( = .01–.09). Only monitoring benefits showed signs of depending upon proactive control ( = .02). These findings highlight unique contributions of attentional and stopping processes to inhibitory control, suggesting possibilities for tailored interventions.     

Learning zones: an evaluation of three models for improving learning through teacher/teaching assistant teamwork

Following the review of literature in the preceding article concerning the deployment of support staff, Hilary Cremin, Gary Thomas and Karen Vincett here focus attention on the classroom in their evaluation of three models of team organisation and planning for the work of teaching assistants — room management, zoning and reflective teamwork — in six primary classrooms. Readers will be interested in the detail of the methodological approach adopted and the general finding that all three models were evaluated positively by the participants.