A short review of information and communication technologies and basic education in LDCs—what is useful, what is sustainable?

Information and communication technologies such as radio and television have long been used in education. The advent of the technology of the Internet has created pressure for Internet access in primary and secondary schools across the world. This paper reviews some of the available evidence on the impact and cost of such technologies in developing countries. It concludes that while there is strong evidence for the efficacy and efficiency of interactive radio instruction, the evidence on the impact of computer-supported education remains mixed, and costs are prohibitive for many LDCs (less developed countries).     

Toward a Learning Technologies knowledge network

The National Science Foundation-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT) is designed to be a national resource for stimulating research and development of technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 science, math, engineering and technology learning. The Center, launched at the end of 1997, is organized around four themes identified as areas where research is likely to result in major gains in teaching and learning, and sponsors research across disciplines and institutions in its four theme areas. CILT brings together experts in the fields of cognitive science, educational technologies, computer science, subject matter learning, and engineering. It engages business through an Industry Alliance Program and is also training postdoctoral students. CILT's founding organizations are SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning, University of California at Berkeley (School of Education and Department of Computer Science), Vanderbilt University's Learning Technology Center, and the Concord Consortium. Through its programs, CILT seeks to reach beyond these organizations to create a web of organizations, individuals, industries, schools, foundations, government agencies, and labs, that is devoted to the production, sharing and use of new knowledge about how learning technologies can dramatically improve the processes and outcomes of learning and teaching. This paper describes the rationale and operations of the Center, and first-year progress in defining a set of CILT partnership projects with many other institutions that came out of our national theme-team workshops. Roy Pea, of SRI International, is Director of CILT. Marcia Linn (U. California, Berkeley), John Bransford (Vanderbilt University), Barbara Means (SRI International), and Robert Tinker (Concord Consortium), serve as CILT's coprincipal investigators. Sherry Hsi (Ubiquitous Computing) and Sean Brophy (Technology and Assessment Models) are among the first group of CILT Postdoctoral Fellows. Jeremy Roschelle (SRI International) and Nancy Songer (University of Michigan) are CILT theme-team leaders. Roy Pea and Marcia Linn would like to thank the Spencer Foundation for support during their year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, in which they developed the CILT concept with the other authors. CILT is funded by National Science Foundation grant #CDA-9720384. Pea and Linn would also like to acknowledge contributions to this article by the many authors of CILT partnership project proposals, and by theme-team leaders. The authors thankfully acknowledge Donna Baranski-Walker for her many contributions to developing the CILT Industrial Alliance Program while serving as its Director in 1998.     

Managing change and embedding innovation in academic libraries and information services

The paper examines the management of change and the embedding of innovation in academic libraries and information services during a period of considerable and continuous change. Detailed examples are given from the author's own institution that adopts a very structured and corporate approach to strategic planning. The internal and external factors driving organisational change in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector are identified using a PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis, and a detailed SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is presented which will enable institutions to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of their services being able to deliver the changes required. Examples are given of the kinds of changes library and information services will need to implement in order to respond effectively to the changing external environment. Some of the barriers to the successful implementation of change are identified, with some practical measures to bear in mind to help ensure successful outcomes.     

Police Media: The Governance of Territory,Speed, and Communication

The work of the modern police apparatus is highly dependent upon media technologies. This article traces crucial developments in this history, analyzing the central role that media have played in policing practices since the advent of the modern patrol in the late eighteenth century. We trace how the governmentalized police force has used media to govern efficiently what Foucault calls the three great variables: territory, speed, and communication. In conclusion, we consider the possibilities for resistance in a time when digital police media have given rise to alarming strategies for surveilling populations, stifling dissent, and exerting control over public and private space.     

Analyzing Food Science Research for Publishing Characteristics as a Model for Understanding the Needs of Researchers

Abstract

This paper provides a methodology to study the characteristics of the research output from a university department. The faculty publications and their cited references over a 10-year period were used as the basis for this study to identify their publishing patterns and the types of material they are publishing; a core set of journals and other resources they are publishing in and citing over this period; the characteristics of the journals in which they publish and cite; the degree of openness of their publications and their citation advantage; and the age of resources that are referenced.     

Challenges Facing Immigrant Students Beyond the Linguistic Domain in a New Gateway State

Although there is a great deal of theoretical and practical scholarship related to immigrant students, the extant literature most often conflates the needs of English language learners with the needs of immigrant students (Goodwin in Educ Urb Soc 34(2):156–172, 2002; Sox in Theory Pract 48:312–318, 2009; Yoon in Am Educ Res J 49(5):971–1002, 2012). Findings from this study indicate that teachers in an area with a rapidly rising immigrant population perceived immigrant students to face four significant challenges beyond linguistic considerations. By analyzing interview and focus group data from six high school Civics teachers, this qualitative collective case study is positioned to make recommendations for teachers and teacher educators by bringing attention to the challenges facing immigrant students beyond the linguistic domain in a new gateway state.     

Comparison of teacher talk directed to boys and girls and its relationship to their behaviour in secondary and primary schools

There have been a number of earlier investigations, using differing methodologies, into the extent to which teachers in the secondary school interact with boys and girls and the results have suggested an imbalance in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders that is quite similar to the imbalance found in teachers’ behaviour in the primary school. The main aim of this study was to devise an investigation using the same methodology as that used in a recent primary school investigation in order to be able to make a fair comparison between the two levels. The results showed considerable differences in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders in the secondary school from that of teachers in the primary school. Where the primary school data showed teachers interacting more with the boys than the girls and the boys being less on‐task than the girls, the secondary school data showed no such differences.     

Family and social risk,and parental investments during the early childhood years as predictors of low-income children's school readiness outcomes

Using data from the National Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (N = 1851), the current study examined relations among cumulative family and social risk, assessed during infancy and the preschool years, and children's prekindergarten achievement, self-regulatory skills, and problematic social behavior, testing if these associations were mediated through two sets of family processes–responsive parenting practices and the provision of language stimulation and literacy practices. Structural equation modeling results highlight the significance of the timing of children's experience of risk in predicting school readiness competencies. Risk exposure during infancy was observed to be most detrimental for children's school readiness skills and was partially mediated by risk exposure during the preschool years and family processes, assessed during toddlerhood and the preschool years. Moderation analyses revealed no difference in the strength of relationships among the study variables by EHS assignment or by race/ethnicity.