发展特色鲜明的一般本科院校信息与计算科学专业——以成都信息工程学院为例

成都信息工程学院信息与计算科学专业结合培养目标和社会实际需求,在专业定位上,突出＂数学基础扎实,理工融合＂的特色;在课程设置上,合理设置专业必修课程,优化选修课程,调整理论教学与实验教学的比例,对课程进行模块化设计;在专业实践教学上,建立＂课内实验—课内实验与课外实践—课外实践—综合实践＂的多层次、逐步递进的阶梯型实践教学体系。实践表明,找准专业定位,明确专业办学特色对办好本专业起到至关重要的作用。     

新世纪第一个10年中国教育技术学科的国际交往研究

我国教育技术起步较晚,大部分理念和技术都是从国外引入并逐步加以本土化的。国际交往对于我国教育技术的发展具有很大的作用,作为我国首次全方位关注教育技术国际交往的研究,其意义就更为重要。21世纪以来,我国教育技术领域的国际交往越来越频繁,当前的主要途径有国内师生出访交流,国外学者来华作报告、进行合作交流,对国外学者进行专访对话,学者赴外参加国际会议或国内举办国际会议,以及翻译国外著作等。10年来,随着国际合作内容不断丰富,其研究越来越广泛并走向深入,主要集中在学科发展、远程教育和学习模式等10个领域。这些国际交往使我国教育技术学科地位得到巩固和发展,研究领域得到拓展,研究方法更加科学和规范。评估10年的国际交往,今后更应加强实质性合作研究,提高交流实效,重视国际项目合作,避免停留在表面或流于形式,要以一种平等合作、批判性、包容性的态度进行国际交流和对话。     

对中国教育技术学科发展的再思考:方法、实践与理论

本文基于对方法、实践、理论这三个关乎我国教育技术学科发展的核心问题的思考,提出了三个主要观点:(1)以科学实证的方法指导研究,特别是发展"基于证据的研究";(2)以技术设计的思想指导教学实践和装备发展,同时促进"研究与设计的互动"以及"技术与文化的互动",并由此构建促进不断进步的学与教理论以及催生新的学习文化和教育实践的重要动力系统;(3)自信规范地构建理论体系,梳理多层面的已有理论积累,并在未来的学科发展中更多地增强专业组织的凝聚与导向作用.     

Phonological awareness in kindergarten: a field study in Luxembourgish schools

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a phonological awareness training program in the specific context of the Luxembourgish educational system. The intervention was run by the kindergarten teachers in their classes with minimal external supervision. Forty-one classes of the area around Luxembourg City participated in the study. One hundred and fifty children from 20 kindergarten classes were part of the training group and 157 children from 21 classes formed the control group. At the end of kindergarten, clear training effects were observed for all phonological awareness tasks, except for the highly demanding phoneme deletion task. After 6 months of reading and writing instruction in first grade, no training effects were found in a pseudoword spelling task for the entire training group. Only at-risk children, which had the lowest performance on preschool phonological awareness measures, showed significant training effects. We conclude that early phonological awareness training may be profitably incorporated in kindergarten classroom activities, particularly for at-risk pupils, even when the language characteristics and teaching methods already concur in facilitating the understanding of the alphabetic principle.     

Examining creativity through a virtual reality support system

This study explores the effects of immersive VR on an individual’s creativity and factors related to creativity including flow, attention and meditation (i.e., mental relaxation or stress). Sixty undergraduate students were invited to participate in an open-ended challenge to design a wearable technology functioning as a smart phone individually, either in the immersive VR condition (N?=?30) or in the paper-and-pencil condition (N?=?30). Surveys and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements were used to collect data. Findings showed that the participants in the immersive VR condition had higher quality creative products than those in the paper-and-pencil condition. The sequence analysis of the participants’ EEG brainwaves also showed that the participants in the immersive VR condition maintained a more stable focus or attention, while those in the paper-and-pencil condition were more relaxed. Research results led to a deeper understanding of using a VR support system for individual creativity. Recommendations for the design and application of an immersive VR creativity support system are discussed.     

REA Presidential Address: Spaces of Inter-cultural Provocation for Religious Formation

In this essay, I reflect on the challenges faced by professors teaching Jewish studies in a Catholic university system. The essay records my experiences teaching two courses, “Judaism and the Holocaust” and “American Judaism: Thought and Culture,” at Santa Clara University as an adjunct lecturer during the academic year 1994‐95. The essay touches on broader questions concerning “the dialectics of difference” that inform cross‐cultural education and exchange. Teach‐ ing Jewish studies in any Gentile space (Catholic, Protestant, or secular) entails a constructive tension between trust and suspicion, candor and reserve.     

An International Orientation on Institutional Strategies and Governmental Policies for the Use of ICT in Higher Education

This article provides an international comparative overview of institutional strategies, collaboration patterns and governmental policies related to the use of ICT in higher education. It has been produced as part of an international comparative study on the use of ICT in higher education. A study commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and published as: “The Use of Information and Communication Technology in Higher Education: An International Orientation on Trends and Issues”, B. Collis and M. van der Wende (Eds). University of Twente, CHEPS, 1999. It covers the following range of countries: Belgium, Finland, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America. Additionally some main initiatives at the European level have been taken into account. On the basis of this international comparison, the following main conclusions were drawn. Due in part to the fact that in many cases institutional strategies for ICT are still lacking, interesting experimentation does not generally lead to successful dissemination and adoption on a wider scale. In many cases, the push for a substantial use of ICT in distance learning programs has come from new educati onal markets, life-long learning and international education in particular. The response of higher education to these markets is leading in many countries to a convergence of distance and traditional (on-campus) education. Inter-institutional and inter-sectoral collaboration between universities and companies are characteristics of many successful ICT initiatives, although they do not generally continue into sustainable implementation in the individual institutions. Governments facilitate the use of ICT through the establishment of infrastructure, networks and inter-institutional and public–private partnerships, and try to create the right regulatory environment. Further deregulation will enable institutions to respond to new market demands and will inspire the necessary organizational change in higher education institutions.     

Envisioning a critical social pedagogy of learning and work in a contemporary culture of cyclical lifelong learning

In Canada, current federal learning-and-work policy is focused on individual learner-worker development using an iteration of lifelong learning as cyclical. This policy aims to enhance the social as an effect of enhancing the economic. In this neoliberal milieu, cyclical lifelong learning has become not only a norm but also a culture and an attitude. Still, a current Canadian phenomenon indicates that increasing numbers of young adults are disengaging from participation in such learning that the federal government considers being a preventive measure. In discussing their withdrawal from what might be perceived as cyclical lifelong learning for control, I consider a particularly challenging case: the predicament of young adults in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. To help us think about adequately addressing the dislocation they experience in life and work, I offer a Freire-informed vision of a critical social pedagogy of learning and work. This pedagogy calls for re-engendering the social in lifelong learning by revitalizing critical social concerns with historical awareness, hope, possibility, ethics, justice, democratic vision, learner freedom, critique, and intervention.