Breaking the Line: New Literacies,Postmodernism and the Teaching of Printed Texts

In many contemporary texts boundaries are broken down. Words and image convey multiple meanings, lending themselves to postmodern readings, in the sense that they encourage readings that reject a single interpretation and instead hold in suspense the possibility of multiple readings co‐existing. This article explores how these texts allow the consumer/reader the opportunity to actively engage, and in a sense therefore to produce, the cultural event rather than being merely the passive receiver of it. It raises implications for the way that such texts are considered in schools.     

The local educational change process and policy implementation

That change is a process, not an event, is being accepted gradually by educators, policy makers, and researchers. Just as development of an innovation takes time, specialized personnel, and resources, so does implementation. A number of issues and implications related to viewing innovation development and implementation as a process need to be addressed. Planning for, facilitating implementation, and evaluating the change process varies depending on whether there is a single innovation, innovation bundle, hyperinnovation or large—scale innovation. Instead of top down, or bottom up, in all cases, the various participants must strive to level the playing field. Change processes are most successful when policy makers, practitioners, and researchers understand that all are part of the same effort and each has an essential role in achieving implementation success.     

How Useful are our Models? Pre-Service and Practicing Teacher Evaluations of Technology Integration Models

We report on a survey of K-12 teachers and teacher candidates wherein participants evaluated known models (e.g., TPACK, SAMR, RAT, TIP) and provided insight on what makes a model valuable for them in the classroom. Results indicated that: (1) technology integration should be coupled with good theory to be effective, (2) classroom experience did not generally influence teacher values and beliefs related to technology integration, (3) some models may be more useful to teachers than others, (4) the widespread use of a model does not necessarily reflect usefulness, (5) useful models for teachers should engender real-world, concrete application, and (6) visual appeal of a model is largely subjective, but some visual representations might convey notions of practicality. Conclusions should be used to help researchers and practitioners understand the practical application value of technology integration models in real-world settings.     

Mapping the literature of perfusion.

Perfusionists select and operate the equipment necessary for monitoring, supporting, or temporarily replacing the patient's circulatory or respiratory function. There are over 3,000 perfusionists working in U.S. hospitals, medical and perfusionist groups, and as independent contractors. The purpose of this study was to identify the core literature of perfusion and to determine which major databases provide the most thorough access to this literature. This paper is part of the Medical Library Association Nursing and Allied Health Resource Section's project to map the literature of the allied health professions. It uses a bibliometric methodology to identify core journals. A group of forty-three journals was determined to make up the core journal literature of perfusion. MEDLINE provided the best overall indexing coverage for these journals, but librarians and perfusionists will wish to supplement its use with the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature in order to access the journals written primarily for perfusionists. The study results can guide purchasing and database searching decisions of collection development and reference librarians, encourage the database producer to increase coverage of titles that are unindexed or underindexed, and advise perfusionists of the best access to their core literature.     

Higher education reform in a transitional economy: a case study from the School of Economic Studies in Mongolia

One of the issues to be faced by countries in central and eastern Europe and parts of Asia undergoing transition to a market economy is how to prepare students for the new environment. This article explores the experience from a three year Technical Assistance to the former Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) funded project aimed at reforming economics education at the School of Economic Studies (SES) within the National University of Mongolia. The focus of the project was initially on curriculum reform, but it soon became evident that to be effective this would need to be supported by managerial reform.The article therefore commences by briefly outlining the context of the reform process in Mongolia and by describing the nature of curriculum reform within the SES, including issues relating to the learning environment, course content and structure, and learning and assessment methods. That leads to an analysis of consequential reform of institutional management including issues relating to the codification and common ownership of information, conditions of service of staff, financial flexibility and management information systems.The article reflects on achievements and constraints of implementing reform at a sub-institutional (School) level and concludes with a summary of findings which might be of general value to those involved in the management of change as institutions begin to prepare their students to operate within a market economy.     

The HPT model applied to a kayak company's registration process

This case study describes the step‐by‐step application of the traditional human performance technology (HPT) model at a premier kayak company located on the coast of North Carolina. The HPT model was applied to address lost revenues related to three specific business issues: misinformed customers, dissatisfied customers, and guides not showing up for tours or lessons at the kayak company. The case study includes problem statements, organizational analysis, environmental analysis, gap analysis, cause analysis, and proposed interventions.     

Perceptual learning in human and nonhuman animals: A search for common ground

Perceptual learning has been extensively studied in both human and nonhuman animals, but the two lines of research have, for the most part, developed independently, addressing seemingly rather different issues by rather different methods. It has been argued, however, that analysis of the disparate phenomena studied in experiments on perceptual learning reveals that in all the studies, the essential feature is that appropriate training allows behavior to come to be controlled by the unique features, rather than by the common features, of similar stimuli. It has further been argued that experiments with nonhuman animals have established the existence of a range of learning processes that allow this to occur, and that these processes have general relevance, applying to humans as well as to animals.