Meeting the needs of teachers and students within the CESAR training system

Computers seem to be an unquestionably useful tool to support the learning process, although positive students' and teachers' attitude towards the system is required to guarantee a successful introduction of new technologies in traditional classrooms. Training or exercises provide the students with the challenge of using their knowledge to solve concrete problems, so that they incite students to participate actively. Training can be adapted to different learning styles in order to strengthen student involvement. Moreover, tools to adapt the didactic material to several educational methods must be provided, in such a way that teachers consider the system a helpful tool rather than a substitute. Taking into account the foregoing, this paper describes a training system to create and use exercises in a hypermedia learning environment for hearing-impaired children called CESAR.     

Seeing one another as “other”

In this paper, the authors discuss two complementary life history research projects investigating prospective teachers' identities in relation to their race and social class. Drawing on the experiences of one student from each study, they show how both whites and students of color primarily thought about one another as “others”—people who fundamentally differed from one another and whom they understood through preconceived ideas about a group. The authors draw on a Bakhtinian notion of how a “surplus of sight” enables one to develop understandings of an “other” and also of oneself.     

The effects of explicit timing on middle‐school students’ writing production across 5‐ and 15‐min sessions

Enhancing rates of accurate, active, academic responding can enhance learning. Both temporal manipulations (i.e., reducing time to work on assignments) and providing multiple distributed temporal cues (MDTC), sometimes referred to as explicit timing, have been shown to enhance rates of accurate mathematics responding. The current study was designed to evaluate the effects of session length (i.e., 5 vs. 15 min to write) and temporal cues (i.e., a single initial temporal cue vs. MDTC) on seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students writing assignment rates and writing accuracy. Results showed that the 5 min writing sessions did result in significantly greater rates of accurate responding than the 15 min sessions; however, explicit timing did not significantly alter writing rates or accuracy. These findings suggest that educators can enhance rates of accurate writing by reducing writing session lengths. Discussion focuses on applied implications of providing briefer writing sessions and future research investigating the interaction between multiple temporal cues and assignments.     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Organizational Dissent and Workplace Freedom in Five European Economies

Individuals in five European countries—Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (n = 1184)—completed a survey exploring the relationship between organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Results revealed workplace freedom of speech is positively correlated with dissent among the entire sample in France and in Germany. Results in Spain were nonsignificant. In the United Kingdom, there was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and dissent. There was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and articulated dissent and a positive relationship with latent dissent in Finland. Moreover, MANCOVA testing showed nationality to have a significant effect on organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Germans scored the highest on dissent and workplace freedom with Spain scoring the lowest.     

Government innovation through social media

Social media in government is becoming one of the major trends in Electronic Government (e-government) research and practice worldwide. During the last few years, several authors have addressed the potential of social media for the innovation of public sector organizations. Most of these contributions have focused on the technical dimensions of social media, while other aspects have not attracted equal attention. In contrast, this introductory article interrogates the role of social media in the basic areas of e-government: government information flows and the availability of government information; the use of information technology to create and provide innovative government services; the impact of information technology on the relationships between the governed and those governing; and the increasing importance of information policies and information technologies for democratic practices. Accordingly, the next few pages propose and develop three dimensions of social media in government: tools, goals, and topics. We think that these dimensions could help to better understand the use of social media in government settings. Then, after a brief review of current trends in social media and government research, we present the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we present some practical lessons and suggest ideas for future research. This special issue could be seen as a starting point for the development of innovation through social media in public administrations around the world.     

What is the relationship between social constructivism and Piagetian constructivism? An analysis of the characteristics of the ideas within both theories

For twenty years, social constructivism has been a paradigm in science teaching and not an easy bedfellow for piagetian constructivism, even though both have had the same thing in mind… a study of the learner. For this reason we attempt to find connections and bridges between them so that both may be enriched, to the benefit of science teaching.     

Spirituality And The Body

Modern spirituality is still challenged by the age-old opposition between matter and spirit. But this traditional dualism has lost some of its sting because modern science itself has been forced to countenance the existence of invisible realities. This article presents some areas of contemporary life in which the spiritual is conspicuously entwined with the material even though the relationship often goes unnoticed. If spirituality can be helped to confront its own tacit acceptance of the material, then it may be possible to move toward a postmodern spirituality, one in which there will be less animosity against, and more acceptance of, the material dimensions of existence.