How adolescents navigate Wikipedia to answer questions / ¿Cómo navegan los adolescentes en Wikipedia para contestar preguntas?

Abstract

In one experiment, we explored how high school students use hyperlink relevance cues while they navigate to answer questions from hypertexts. Current evidence has shown that students may navigate by either performing a deep semantic analysis of the relationship between the question and the existing hyperlinks, or by matching words in the question to words in the hyperlink labels. We focused on how students combine both cues during navigation, and how comprehension skills relate to the use of such cues. Our study revealed that 14 year old students (N = 53) selected hyperlinks by relying to a similar degree on both word matching and semantic overlap. Furthermore, when there was a conflict between an irrelevant link cued via word matching and a relevant link only cued through semantic overlap, students’ comprehension skills facilitated their initial selection of an informative relevant link. To conclude, we discuss the implications of these results for current models of hypertext navigation.     

Experiencias Pedagógicas Interculturales: Sobre los Desafíos a la Educación en la Frontera Noroeste de Argentina

En este artículo reflexionamos sobre algunas experiencias pedagógicas interculturales que han significado transformaciones profundas en nuestras prácticas como investigadoras, docentes y extensionistas de la Universidad Nacional de Salta, transitando contextos rurales y aislados en el norte de Argentina, por más de veinte años. Prestamos especial atención a dos experiencias desarrolladas, una en la región andina y otra en el llamado Umbral al Chaco, con comunidades guaraníes. Problematizamos las concepciones sobre interculturalidad y ponemos en cuestión ciertos significados y metodologías dominantes en el campo de la investigación educativa y la formación docente para la educación intercultural.     

Education and Social Change: A View From Europe and Latin America

This article is based on the economic, political, cultural, social, and educational changes produced as a result of globalization. We focus on the universalization of education and its importance to achieving sustainable human development while respecting the cultures and ethnic groups in a region. Within higher education in the world, we delve more deeply into the creation of the European Higher Education Area and the Latin American Higher Education Area. This work allows us to highlight the problems, challenges, and needs that education is facing worldwide.     

Transnational Alliances: La Clase Mágica—Nepohualtzitzin Ethnomathematics Club

This article exposes the ancient Nepohualtzitzin as an important contemporary mathematical tool. The design and development of Nepohualtzitzin Ethnomathematics Clubs (NECs) in predominantly Latina/o and low-income schools is also presented. NECs provide informal learning opportunities to develop and strengthen cultural connections to and abilities in mathematics for bicultural-bilingual learners, their parents, and teacher candidates. The formation of NECs is made possible through transnational alliances developed over time between the University of Texas at San Antonio, Secretaría de Educación Pública de México (Ministry of Public Education of Mexico), Coahuiltecan Indian Nation, Aztlán Associates, Danza Azteca Xinachtli, and Tzicatl—Community Development Corporation.     

READING MATHEMATICS REPRESENTATIONS: AN EYE-TRACKING STUDY

We use eye tracking as a method to examine how different mathematical representations of the same mathematical object are attended to by students. The results of this study show that there is a meaningful difference in the eye movements between formulas and graphs. This difference can be understood in terms of the cultural and social shaping of human perception, as well as in terms of differences between the symbolic and graphical registers.     

Influence of different sports on bone mass in growing girls

The aim of this study was to analyse whether there are differences in bone mass in girls playing different sports. Two hundred girls (10.6 ± 1.5 years old, Tanner stages I–III) participated in the study and were divided into groups of 40 (swimmers, soccer players, basketball players, handball players and controls). Bone mineral content and bone mineral density (BMD) (whole body and hip) were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The degree of sexual development was determined using Tanner test, and physical activity habits were recorded through a questionnaire designed ad hoc for this research. Girls were divided by pubertal stage and the type of sport. In the prepubertal group, intertrochanteric BMD was significantly higher in both handball and soccer players compared with the control group (P < 0.05). Furthermore, in the pubertal group, total BMD, mean arms BMD, pelvis BMD, femoral neck BMD, intertrochanteric BMD and Ward’s triangle BMD were significantly higher in soccer and handball players compared with the control group (P < 0.05), and the swimmers showed significantly higher values in the mean arms BMD compared with the control group (P < 0.01). Our data suggest that sport practice during puberty, especially in activities that support the body weight, may be an important factor in achieving a high peak bone mass and improving bone health in girls.     

e-Cognocracy and the design of public policies

Designing public policies using information technology as a communication support system is one of the most important current issues in the public policy making field. This work presents a methodology for the design and selection of public policies based on the cognitive democratic model known as e-Cognocracy. In addition to facilitating debate between representatives and the represented (deliberative democracy), this model allows for co-decision making between citizens and politicians. Furthermore, and of even greater importance, e-Cognocracy generates a process of continuing education that is concordant to the lifelong process of living systems (cognitive process). The methodology contemplates multiple rounds (usually two) when incorporating the preferences of the actors implicated in decision making and takes advantage of the creative capacity of human beings when solving complex problems. At the same time, the methodology permits the evaluation of both the individual and social learning that is derived from the scientific resolution of the problem and the democratisation of the knowledge that is extracted. This methodology was applied to a real-life experience in the Spanish municipality of Cadrete.     

The Undressed Newsroom

Rapidly changing working conditions in recent years, along with the need to reduce the costs of news production, require journalists to adapt. Our suggestion here is that many of the research methods for analysing journalists' work environments to date are no longer sufficient for capturing this ongoing change. In searching for new approaches to analysis of the journalistic environment, we decided to apply visual ethnography, a method not yet used in the Czech Republic and not much used in the world beyond. For our pilot study of Czech newsrooms, we worked with both photographs taken of the journalists involved in our project and photographs taken by our research team (photographs showed both journalists' working conditions and working processes). We then interviewed the journalists about the photographs and more widely about their working practices and conditions. This paper presents the results of the research but also considers the advantages and challenges of the visual ethnographic approach and its implementation in media environments.