Changing literacies,changing formations: the role of elicitation in teacher action research with new technologies

As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers’ work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their ‘informal learning’. By ‘stories’ is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The article represents a reflection on the methodological role that ‘elicitation’ can play in drawing out teacher thinking during a time of professional change, thinking that would otherwise likely remain embedded, particularly when teachers’ attention is focused forward on innovation in practice. The methodological use of ‘elicitation’ emerged in the first year of an ongoing teacher action research study, in which seven teachers have been involved in a professional development initiative that actively engages teachers in examining changing literacy formations, beginning with the teachers’ own literacy formations. The methodological practice of elicitation borrows from phenomenology, ethnomethodology, narrative research, reader response theories, curriculum theory and psychoanalysis, and emerged as a way to acknowledge the life histories that teachers were bringing to their professional development with new media. We suggest that elicitation can potentially draw out deep and sustaining sources of a teacher’s commitment, as well as resistance, to change. It can help disclose the tensions between commitment and resistance that even teachers who voluntarily undertake to incorporate new technologies into their practice may experience. Within a teacher action research framework, elicitation can also serve to remind teachers (and others) of the value of what they know and are learning, thus contributing to teachers developing a ‘scholarship of practice’ in response to any actual or perceived ‘intensification’ of their work.     

Using Gestalt theory to teach document design and graphics

Gestalt psychology principles of figure‐ground segregation, symmetry, closure, proximity, good continuation, and similarity provide a simple yet powerful analytic vocabulary for discussing page layout and graphics. The six principles apply readily to typography, white space, data tables and maps, the relation between graphics and text, and other facets of textual design. The principles explain many difficulties that readers have in processing texts and graphics, and they explain why well‐designed pages and graphics are effective.     

A One-year Case Study: Understanding the Rich Potential of Project-based Learning in a Virtual Reality Class for High School Students

This paper presents a qualitative case analysis of a new and unique, high school, student-directed, project-based learning (PBL), virtual reality (VR) class. In order to create projects, students learned, on an independent basis, how to program an industrial-level VR machine. A constraint was that students were required to produce at least one educational application of VR. This study incorporated in-depth classroom observations, interviews with students, analyses of student projects, and surveys of parents and teachers to examine the social and learning processes in the class, and the nature of content learning represented in student projects. The results demonstrated that PBL can be effective even with minimal teacher guidance. The findings substantiate an educational approach rich with promise, for at least some students, that deserves considerable additional study to maximize its powerful potentials for independent and peer-mentored learning.     

THE FUTURE OF TWO‐YEAR COLLEGES: AN ADMINISTRATOR'S‐EYE VIEW

Individuals in eight different types of administrative positions in two‐year colleges were asked to rate the importance of a variety of external and internal issues in the next five years. The purpose of the study reported here was first to identify those internal and external issues that administrators viewed as being of high importance. A second purpose was to assess the degree of consensus among differing types of administrative positions. The third objective was to identify differences between public and independent two‐year college, between men and women, and minority and white administrators perceptions of issues identified as being most important. There was a high degree of agreement across administrative groups as to the importance of five external issues; and when asked to indicate the two most critical issues, administrators were almost unanimous in their assessment. There is less agreement on the two critical internal issues. Some differences by gender and racial/ethnic group were noted, but the differences were not as great as might have been expected.     

Cognitive attainment in online learning environments: matching cognitive and technological presence

To know whether students' achievements are the result of online interaction and not just a consequence of individual differences themselves, it seems essential to link the cognitive results to the students' online behavior (technological presence). In technological presence, interaction is based on the degree in which the online student senses the availability of, and connectedness with, other students, the teacher, and the context. Cognitive presence as a part of the interaction process of teaching and learning reflects the level of accomplishment in online learning environments (cognitive attainment). The purpose of this article is to show some evidence of the mutual influence of the students' technological behaviors and the students' cognitive factors in online learning environments – including teacher and instructional design factors. Two thousand one-hundred thirty written computer-mediated communications from 88 participants in four prototypical online learning activities have been analyzed for this purpose. The analysis shows the influence of technological presence on the quality of learning results of the online knowledge construction process. The conclusions point out the importance of considering technological presence as a new and complementary type of presence as it provides relevant information for instructional and technological design.     

Granite desalination using electromigration. Influence of type of granite and saline contaminant

We describe the results of electromigration desalination of two soluble salt-contaminated Galician granites. The efficacy of electromigration, which had not been previously applied to granite, was assessed for two types of granite contaminated with a 20% NaCl solution and seawater. Desalination effectiveness was evaluated as follows: (1) analysis of anode and cathode ion content during testing; (2) analysis of ions at different distances from the electrodes after testing; (3) pH assessment of the stone surfaces; and (4) evaluation of colour changes. Results were very satisfactory; by the end of testing, chloride was reduced by almost 100% in both the NaCl and seawater contaminated samples. Sulfate reduction was also significant, despite this ion's lower mobility. The granite pH values remained close to neutral and colour changes were minimal. The difference in effectiveness of the process for the two types of stone was associated with their dissimilar pore structure.     

Kawaii Killers and Femme Fatales: A Textual Analysis of Female Characters Signifying Benevolent and Hostile Sexism in Video Games

ABSTRACT

Game developers potentially convey socio-cultural values about gender through design choices. This study interpreted the designs of 11 purposively selected female game characters, developed by studios located in the United States and Japan, through the lens of ambivalent sexism. This social psychological theory posits that sexism consists of hostile and benevolent attitudes about women. Two themes emerged across characterizations: bodies as objects, bodies as weapons and (in)dependence. Both consisted of empowering qualities paired with problematic beliefs about women. This analysis contributes to interdisciplinary literature by using an empirical perspective to interpret gender representations in video games.