Fourth graders’ dyadic learning on multi-touch interfaces—versatile effects of verbalization prompts

Educational technology research and development - Multi-touch interfaces allow for direct and simultaneous input by several co-present learners and afford hands-on learning experiences. Additional...     

Advancing autism technology

The purpose of this review is to broadly identify technological advances in supports and evaluation for individuals on the autism spectrum. Literature review with commentary on the evolving technologies supporting and/or evaluating social-emotional, behavioral, academic, and cognitive domains. There has been an increasing synthesis of technology within the education domain. A growing body of research has investigated the potentiality and efficacy of technological interventions, specifically in the area of support for individuals on the autism spectrum. This growth must also factor in sustainability and feasibility to be practical within the school setting. Continued research is also necessary to ensure the equity of technology supporting individuals on the autism spectrum.     

Combined effects of sleep deprivation and strenuous exercise on cognitive performances during The North Face® Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc® (UTMB®)

This study investigated the effects of combined sleep deprivation and strenuous exercise on cognitive and neurobehavioral performance among long-distance runners completing one of the most difficult ultramarathons in the world. Seventeen runners participated. Each had a wrist-worn actigraph throughout the race to record their sleep time. In addition, each individual’s performance in 10-min response-time tests before and after the race was recorded and a questionnaire enabled participants to report any difficulties they experienced during the competition. During race completion times of 27 to 44 h, combined acute lack of sleep (12 ± 17 min of rest during the race) and strenuous exercise (168.0 km) had marked adverse effects on cognitive performances ranging from mere lengthening of response time to serious symptoms such as visual hallucinations. This study suggests that regardless of rest duration and time in race, cognitive performances of ultramarathoners are adversely affected.     

Eastern Movement Disciplines (EMDs) and Mindfulness: A New Path to Subjective Knowledge in Western Physical Education

Linda Bain (1995) argues that subjective knowledge is of central importance to her life, both personally and professionally, and that a purely objective approach to physical education should be complemented with subjective knowledge, the key to which is “mindfulness.” Following her lead, we argue that the traditional model of physical education and health, absent of mindfulness, falls into contradictions that are destructive to the person and urge instead for a holistic approach. We contend that Eastern Movement Disciplines (EMDs) are ideally suited to integrating mindfulness into Western physical education since they are, by their very nature, mindful activities, never understanding the person as “object” but always as body-mind. We discuss the historical and holistic background of mindfulness and EMDs, relate this to certain Western philosophical schools of thought, and bring out implications for physical education and health. Finally, in the spirit of holism, we touch briefly on the social significance of this East-West merger.     

The impact of impairment on kinematic and kinetic variables in Va’a paddling: Towards a sport-specific evidence-based classification system for Para Va’a

ABSTRACT

Para Va’a is a new Paralympic sport in which athletes with trunk and/or leg impairment compete over 200 m. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of impairment on kinematic and kinetic variables during Va’a ergometer paddling. Ten able-bodied and 44 Para Va’a athletes with impairments affecting: trunk and legs (TL), legs bilaterally (BL) or leg unilaterally (UL) participated. Differences in stroke frequency, mean paddling force, and joint angles and correlation of the joint angles with paddling force were examined. Able-bodied demonstrated significantly greater paddling force as well as knee and ankle flexion ranges of movement (ROM) on the top hand paddling side compared to TL, BL and UL. Able-bodied, BL and UL demonstrated greater paddling force and trunk flexion compared to TL, and UL demonstrated larger bottom hand paddling side knee and ankle flexion ROM compared to BL. Significant positive correlations were observed for both male and female athletes between paddling force and all trunk flexion angles and ROM in the trunk and pelvis rotation and bottom hand paddling side hip, knee and ankle flexion. The results of this study are important for creating an evidence-based classification system for Para Va’a.     

Tackling Uncertainty for Journalism Graduates

As journalism struggles to adapt to technological disruption, journalism educators are searching for ways to prepare students for an industry in flux. Entrepreneurial journalism has been incorporated into university curricula as a solution, however the discourse and application lacks a theoretical basis. This article aims to address these gaps by clearly defining entrepreneurship, its theoretical principles relevant for journalism education and then outlining the trial of a Multidisciplinary Experiential Entrepreneurship Model (MEEM), designed to enhance graduates’ career aspirations through cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset. The MEEM trial was assessed using a sequential mixed-methods approach, consisting of survey data collected at the start and completion of the course and interview data collected two months later. The findings demonstrate that the theoretical principles underpinning MEEM not only enabled students to create a new media venture, but the skills acquired also provided a method for entrepreneurial problem-solving and innovating, which is valuable to students working inside or outside traditional news media. This paper contributes theoretically by outlining five principles of entrepreneurial problem-solving and providing a teachable method that can be deployed through an effectual entrepreneurship pedagogy.     

The nature of the activity deficit produced by inescapable shock

Two experiments investigated the nature and etiology of the reduced activity in the presence of shock produced by prior exposure to inescapable shock. Previous experiments have demonstrated this deficit in the presence of gridshock. However, gridshock hurts less if movement across the grids is reduced. It is thus unclear whether the inescapable-shock-produced deficit represents a facilitation of learning to reduce movement across the grids in order to alleviate pain or is an “unconditioned” reduction in movement in response to shock. The first experiment tested these possibilities by examining the effects of inescapable shock on subsequent movement during shock delivered via fixed tail electrodes to freely moving subjects. Inescapably shocked subjects still moved less in response to shock than did escapably shocked and restrained control subjects. Experiment 2 examined the possibility that this deficit occurs because unconditioned movement in response to shock during pretreatment diminishes after a few seconds, the reduction then being adventitiously reinforced by shortly ensuing shock termination. Activity during inescapable shock was closely monitored by ultrasonic motion detection. Although activity did decrease across trial blocks, the required within-trial patterns did not occur. Shock-elicited activity did not diminish after a few seconds of shock, but remained unchanged across the 5-sec shock presentations.     

Conditioned and unconditioned stress-induced analgesia: Stimulus preexposure and stimulus change

Aversive events such as electric shock lead to analgesia. There have been differing views with regard to whether the aversive event itself can lead to analgesia as a direct unconditioned reaction, or whether the analgesia is instead a reaction to fear conditioned to cues present during shock or to other associative processes initiated by the aversive event. Maier (1989, 1990) has argued that aversive events such as shock lead to both types of analgesia, with the type observed depending on test conditions. Unconditioned analgesia was argued to be present soon after shock, with conditioned analgesia replacing the unconditioned form if the subject is allowed to remain in the shock environment. Consistent with this argument, the experiments reported here show that (1) preexposure to the environment in which shock later occurs has no effect on the analgesia soon after shock, but eliminates the later analgesia; (2) the initial postshock analgesia is unaffected by removing the subject from the shock environment to a different environment, but the later reaction is prevented by such a change; (3) returning the subject to the shock environment after confinement in a nonshock environment rearouses an analgesic reaction; and (4) this rearousal does not occur if the subject has first been confined to the shock environment without shock.