L'universite ouvriere de Zagreb

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Technology enhanced learning in programming courses – international perspective

Technology enhanced learning (TEL) is increasingly influencing university education, mainly in overcoming disadvantages of direct instruction teaching approaches, and encouraging creativity, problem solving and critical thinking in student-centered, interactive learning environments. In this paper, experiences from object-oriented programming (OOP) courses that are taught in three institutions from three different European countries are presented and compared. The courses are based on Java and are delivered in the second year of studies, after students have attended an introductory programming course. The emphasis is given on TEL approaches and accompanying tools and services, focusing mainly on Learning Management Systems (LMS). Our students completed an appropriate questionnaire to evaluate the importance and utilization of TEL services that are used or planned to be used at the programming courses. The results of statistical analysis of collected data show that students from all three institutional groups consider organizational services provided by TEL tools as much or very much important in their education, while communicational services are rarely used. Using non-parametric statistical tests we studied the similarities and differences in perceived importance of TEL services among students from different institutional groups.     

Quality of religious education in Croatia assessed from teachers’ perspective

The main aim of the present study was to examine the quality of religious education in Croatian primary schools when assessed from teachers’ perspective. Religious education teachers (N?=?226) rated the impact of certain factors on the existing quality of religious education in primary schools and expressed their expectations about the future status of this aspect of education. In addition, teachers rated different sources of their professional satisfaction as religious education teachers. We identified understandable latent dimensions of teachers’ opinions, expectations and satisfaction where retained dimensions are modestly interrelated. The conducted regression analyses suggest that teachers with different professional status-related personal attributes are fairly uniform in their views, expectations and satisfactions. An interesting finding of this study concerns the relationship between school-based Catholic religious education and the parish-based catechesis, where an existing relationship represents a weak source of religious education teachers’ satisfaction. This represents a valuable empirically driven insight regarding the Catholic religious education in Croatian schools with some importance to the broader context of religious education in general.     

Education of medical biochemists in Bosnia and Herzegovina

In this paper we would like to briefly introduce readers to the situation in the field of laboratory medicine in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a focus on training in the field of medical biochemistry. As in some of neighboring countries, term Medical biochemist is the usual name for the Clinical biochemist or Clinical chemist in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite the difficult period through which the profession had passed in the last two decades, laboratory work, particularly clinical biochemistry, has managed to retain the necessary quality and keep pace with the developed world. In post war period, Society of Medical Biochemists of Bosnia and Herzegovina held regular meetings each year as a part of "life long learning" process, where both scientific and vocational lecturers presented their work. A single law on the state level would provide us with more defined and precise answers, such as: who can get a specialization, how long should last the training for medical biochemistry specialists (duration in years). This law should be in consent with the program described in EC4 or other documents given by the EFCC (European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine) and IFCC (International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine).     

Monument Annuity as an Economic Tool,and Its Application to Croatia

Preservation of the built heritage is not just a matter of preserving the historic features of buildings and landscape, but also of preserving their economic value. A building or site's historic character and economic value can be successfully preserved only if the building is well managed, maintained and conserved by the owner. Therefore, it is in the interest of the owner, to require anyone using such property to pay towards the costs through the collection of a monument annuity. The introduction of monument annuity in Croatia has already had a considerable effect on the amount available for expenditure on maintaining the cultural heritage. An annuity is a payment for the use of a fixed resource, such as land, natural resources or in this case a cultural monument. The theory of annuities has been developed by numerous economic theorists, primarily examining land annuities. The monument annuity provides an economic basis for collecting assets for the consumption of the monument in terms of its attributes and represents a pecuniary equivalent for direct and/or indirect monument consumption. It also regulates monument consumption and stimulates the owner to manage the monument with a view to its preservation. The concept of monument annuity represents an economic instrument through which the economic value of the monument is asserted on the market. Through its functions the annuity enables the management of protected built heritage as well as the realization of the most important objective of protection, not only the preservation of the monument value, but also the ‘wise use’ of built heritage in economic development.