Emerging requirements of computer related competencies for librarians

Computers and productivity tools help library patrons to access information, generate insights, structure results into a useful format, and produce knowledge. The use of these productivity tools by patrons requires librarians to alter their traditional professional role, which was primarily to provide information access for patrons, so that they can also provide expanded services and support to these patrons. This study focuses on understanding the computer and productivity tool skills that librarians desire for their new role in assisting patrons with information integration. Many aspiring and working librarians perceive their computer and productivity tool competencies as ranging from novice to proficient, and hope to increase their competencies to very skilled.     

Brain simulation and personhood: a concern with the Human Brain Project

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a massive interdisciplinary project involving hundreds of researchers across more than eighty institutions that seeks to leverage cutting edge information and communication technologies to create a multi-level brain simulation platform (BSP). My worry is that some brain models running on the BSP will be persons. If this is right then not only will the in silico experiments the HBP envisions being carried on the BSP be unethical the mere termination of certain brain models running on the BSP will be unethical. To assess the possible personhood of certain brain simulations I consider John Searle’s critique of strong AI. In arguing that Searle’s critique fails I conclude that the HBP must tread carefully and devise strict rules on how research using the BSP ought to proceed.     

Young children's number sense in Finland,Hong Kong and Singapore

This study examines young children's number sense in subjects from Finland (n=254), Hong Kong (n=246), and Singapore (n=130). Chinese, English and Finnish versions of the Early Numeracy Test (ENT; Van Luit et al., 1994) were used. Two highly correlated aspects of number sense were measured, one reflecting children's abilities to organize and compare quantities (i.e. relational skills), and the other pertaining to their ability to operate with number-word sequence (i.e. counting skills). The results showed significant age-related gain on the relational and counting scales. No gender or language differences were found. The children in Hong Kong and Singapore outperformed those in Finland in relational and counting tasks starting at the age of four years. The children in Singapore also had better relational and counting skills than those in Hong Kong. Differences in teaching were assumed to explain the findings.     

Authenticity in learning for the twenty-first century: bridging the formal and the informal

The paper attempts to bridge informal and formal learning by leveraging on affordance structures associated with informal environments to help learners develop social, cognitive, and metacognitive dispositions that can be applied to learning in classrooms. Most studies focus on either learning in formal or informal contexts, but this study seeks to link the two. The paper proposes three tenets to augment de-contextualized learning in schools by putting back the: (a) tacit, (b) social-collective, and (c) informal. This paper seeks to advance the argument for a consideration of how formal learning might be made more authentic by leveraging the affordances of informal learning. Two case examples are illustrated. The first case shows learners operating in a virtual environment in which??through the collaborative manipulation of terrain??adopt the epistemic frame of geomorphologists. The case seeks to illustrate how the tacit and social-collective dimensions from the virtual environment might be incorporated as part of the formal geography curriculum. In the second case, interactions between members of a school bowling team highlight the contextualized and authentic metacognitive demands placed on learners/bowlers, and how these demands are re-contextualized??through metacognitive brokering??to the formal curriculum. Productive linkages are made between informal and formal learnings and anchored through learners?? authentic experiences.     

Characterization and separation of Cryptosporidium and Giardia cells using on-chip dielectrophoresis

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) has been shown to have significant potential for the characterization of cells and could become an efficient tool for rapid identification and assessment of microorganisms. The present work is focused on the trapping, characterization, and separation of two species of Cryptosporidium (C. parvum and C. muris) and Giardia lambia (G. lambia) using a microfluidic experimental setup. Cryptosporidium oocysts, which are 2-4 μm in size and nearly spherical in shape, are used for the preliminary stage of prototype development and testing. G. lambia cysts are 8–12 μm in size. In order to facilitate effective trapping, simulations were performed to study the effects of buffer conductivity and applied voltage on the flow and cell transport inside the DEP chip. Microscopic experiments were performed using the fabricated device and the real part of Clausius—Mossotti factor of the cells was estimated from critical voltages for particle trapping at the electrodes under steady fluid flow. The dielectric properties of the cell compartments (cytoplasm and membrane) were calculated based on a single shell model of the cells. The separation of C. muris and G. lambia is achieved successfully at a frequency of 10 MHz and a voltage of 3 Vpp (peak to peak voltage).     

From War-net to Net-war: The Internet and Resistance Identities in Indonesia

For decades following independence, informational media in Indonesia developed parallel with the interests of the state that made use of the media as a means to legitimize and maintain its identity as a progressive ‘‘developmental state’’. The Internet, which came to Indonesia during the early phase of the political crisis in the 1990s, economically and politically has risen to become an alternative media that is no longer under state control, thus bolstering civil society in its resistance to state and corporate domination. Based on Indonesia's experience, this paper describes how the Internet provides means for popular resistance to the dominant paradigm.     

A theoretical framework for integrating creativity development into curriculum: the case of a Korean engineering school

Existing approaches to developing creativity rely on the sporadic teaching of creative thinking techniques or the engagement of learners in a creativity-promoting environment. Such methods cannot develop students’ creativity as fully as a multilateral approach that integrates creativity throughout a curriculum. The purpose of this study was to formulate a theoretical framework for a curriculum that fosters creativity. Based on the analysis of documents from accreditation organizations and engineering programs, the researchers synthesized the essential abilities and knowledge of creative engineers and formulated an initial theoretical framework for an engineering curriculum designed to integrate creativity development. To validate this initial framework, in-depth faculty interviews were conducted. The results pointed to an optimal curriculum containing four course groups centered on design, domain knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge, and creative leadership. In addition, the findings revealed an optimal structure and sequence for the courses by grade level. The discussion includes implications of the resulting framework, along with contextual and institutional issues and recommendations for future study.     

Beyond logic and argument analysis: Critical thinking,everyday problems and democratic deliberation in Cambridge International Examinations’ Thinking Skills curriculum

It is widely held that, by teaching individuals how to reason through and analyse everyday problems, the teaching of critical thinking develops the deliberative capacities essential to the healthy functioning of democracy. Implicit in this view is the assumption that a certain commensurability exists between the problems presented in such curricula and those that occupy democratic deliberation. In examining one influential critical thinking curriculum, University of Cambridge International Examination’s Thinking Skills, however, this article reveals the contingency of the assumption. With its presentation of problems steeped in discourses of logic and argument analysis, and with little consideration of notions of rightness/wrongness, such a curriculum can only tend towards the development of an instrumental form of rationality that, being morally indifferent and emotionally apathetic, contributes instead to the depoliticization of democracy. Given that the nature of democratic deliberation does not only focus on what is correct, but, more crucially, on what is right, it is argued that the problems on critical thinking curricula need to both engage individuals in deliberations over issues of social good, and allow them to think of themselves in ways that fundamentally tie them to other members of society.     

Expanding “within context” to “across contexts” learning: a case study of informal and formal activities

Learning happens not only in schools, but also in every context that affords new experiences and opportunities for metacognition. We aim to maximize the different activity-milieux in which learners are engaged in developing their life-long learning dispositions to learn within and across contexts. This paper is a follow up of an earlier published paper in which a framework on interpreting learning as how the self interacts with phenomena and reifications was proposed. Grounded in this learning framework, our research seeks to expand the “within context” learning to “across contexts” learning with evidence from a case study examining a 10-year-old boy's learning process. Through the case study, we will describe the interplay between bowling and schooling and how strategies learned from one context is situated into another drawing upon Ito et al.'s (2010 Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M, boyd, d., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, … Pascoe, C.J., Perkel, D., Robinson, L., Sims, C., Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [Google Scholar]) developmental trajectory of “hanging out-messing around-geeking out” perspectives. The findings show that for learning to be meaningful and authentic for the twenty-first century, it is essential for the learner(s) to be in constant dialectical interactions and relationship with oneself, others, and with the social-cultural artifacts that afford the learning. We conclude with practical implications derived from the study.