Land education: Indigenous,post-colonial,and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research

This editorial introduces a special issue of Environmental Education Research titled ‘Land education: Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research.’ The editorial begins with an overview of each of the nine articles in the issue and their contributions to land and environmental education, before outlining features of land education in more detail. ‘Key considerations’ of land education are discussed, including: Land and settler colonialism, Land and Indigenous cosmologies, Land and Indigenous agency and resistance, and The significance of naming. The editorial engages the question ‘Why land education?’ by drawing distinctions between land education and current forms of place-based education. It closes with a discussion of modes and methods of land education research.     

Fathers' and mothers' involvements in sibling communication

The purpose of this study was to measure fathers' and mothers' linguistic involvements with the development of communication between young siblings. In a laboratory setting, 39 two-child mother-father families were videotaped in semistructured activities. The older sibling was from 18 to 26-months-old (M=22.4 months, SD=2.5 months) and the younger sibling was from 4 to 8-weeks-old (M=5 weeks, SD =1.5 weeks). Regardless of type of vocalization, when only one parent was present, utterances encouraging sibling interactions were more often aimed at girls than at boys. As a result, such utterances occurred more when both siblings were girls than for any other gender combination. Fathers were more active in issuing such utterances, especially to girls. When both parents were present, gender differences between parents disappeared, although the effects of children's gender did not. Overall, the results suggest that fathers very actively direct sibling interactions, especially those involving girls.     

Is it formal if it's not physics? (the influence of content on formal reasoning)

Formal reasoning has been studied extensively with tasks that have physics or laboratory content. This study compares laboratory and naturalistic content influences on formal reasoning tasks. Ninety 13-, 15-, and 17-year olds received both laboratory and naturalistic content tasks which required ability to control variables. Expectations about the variables in each task were measured. Results revealed that 8 to 20% of the variance in performance was associated with task content. Content effects were shown to reflect expectations about task variables.     

School leaders’ practices for innovative use of digital technologies in schools

School leaders’ practices to support the innovative use of digital technologies for teaching and learning and the conditions for technology-enhanced learning were studied in a 1:1 laptop initiative in two schools over a period of 3 years in Umeå, Sweden. The aim of this paper is to explore, analyze and discuss the possibilities and challenges in the final phase of this 1:1 initiative from the perspective of the school leader. The school leaders saw possibilities in new methods of working, sharing and collaboration, and created a beneficial environment for the use of digital technologies in teaching. The challenges were technical problems, supporting teachers in their work, and finding time to prioritize leadership for the use of digital technologies. How school organizers support school leaders’ practices in creating beneficial conditions for technology-enhanced learning will be important for how school leaders’ practices support, promote, and advance innovative and sustainable teaching and learning environments through the use of digital technologies.     

Arithmetic processing in children with spina bifida: Calculation accuracy, strategy use, and fact retrieval fluency

Three studies compared 98 children with spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM)-a disorder associated with high rates of math disability and spatial deficits-to 94 typically developing children on multidigit subtraction and cognitive addition tasks. Children with SBM were classified into those with reading decoding and math disability, only math disability, and no reading or math disability. Study 1 showed that visual-spatial errors in multidigit arithmetic were not elevated in children with SBM. In Study 2, deficits in accuracy, speed, and strategy-use in single-digit addition characterized groups with math disability regardless of reading status. Accuracy and speed on single-digit addition was strongly related to performance on multidigit subtraction. A math-level matching design in Study 3 revealed less mastery of math facts by the group with SBM. The results are discussed with reference to cognitive and neuropsychological models of math disability.     

元数据与专业置标语言在数字图书馆中知识表述方面的功能

以处理文献资源为基本目的的元数据标准(如Dublin Core,IMS and LOM)和专业置标语言(如MatML,MathML,CML,GML)近年来都在以前所未有的速度向前发展,然而其发展和应用却缺乏相互沟通和操作。数字图书馆建设过程中通常会遇到在不同水平上对文献处理的各种格式和方法进行选择与应用、这些格式和标准如何进行互操作等问题。本文分析用于描述文献资源的元数据和面向专业的置标语言在数字图书馆中对知识进行表述的特点和功能,讨论其在对一个资源作结构上和语义上的分解时的作用,指出元数据与置标语言结合的必要性,并提出在同一数字图书馆中将两者结合起来使用的可行方法。