Public broadband investment priorities in the United States: an analysis of the broadband technology opportunities program

In 2009, U.S. Congress approved $7.2 billion to accelerate the deployment of advanced broadband networks and services to unserved and underserved regions of the country. Although primarily a short-term response to the economic crisis, the appropriation also indicates a willingness to seek a new balance between private sector and public sector initiatives in the development of the nation's broadband infrastructure. This paper is a first step in assessing the potential impact of the new government initiatives. It discusses in detail one component of the overall program, the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The rationales and objectives of BTOP and its initial implementation are explored. Based on information in the BTOP database, 265 awards were examined to document award types, target communities, applications, technology, and access speeds. Whereas it is too early to assess the initiatives' effects on employment and other important social and economic objectives, it is appropriate to consider whether the awards made under the BTOP program advance a national broadband development agenda. Overall, they appear to. However, the present analysis found that projects focusing on minority populations may have received less emphasis in the BTOP awards than that announced in the stated goals of the program.     

Effects of social networks on the quality of life in an elder and middle-aged deaf community sample

This article endeavors to investigate the role of social networks in contributing to the quality of life of an elder and middle-aged Deaf population. In particular, it poses the question of whether a certain network composition (deaf and hearing network persons) provides positive resources to improve quality of life and attempts to identify moderating and mediating connections between social networks and quality of life. Based on the data collected in a survey of 107 members of the Deaf community aged 45-81 years, it was possible to ascertain the fact that a larger social network is significantly associated with a higher quality of life, but the size of the deaf network is principally decisive. The hypothesis that a bicultural network composition would have a particular positive effect on the quality of life could not be confirmed. Findings revealed that the effect of deaf network size on the quality of life is mediated by personal resources concerning self-efficacy and communication skills. Moreover, evidence was sound for the functional equivalence of social and personal resources, which suggests that potential negative effects of reduced personal resources on the quality of life could possibly be compensated by a larger deaf network and vice versa.     

Professionalisierung von Hochschullehrenden

Despite a growing interest in professionalization, research on didactic training of novice university teachers is lacking. This contribution, therefore, analyzes the development of teaching intentions and strategies (teaching approaches) in relation to teaching action, professional vision and teacher identity during a video-based training. We questioned fourteen novice teachers in a pre-post-design and with reference to video-taped teaching sessions. We also conducted a systematic video analysis. The results show that the teachers?? approaches start out rather teacher-focused. However, these approaches become more coherent to teaching action over time, which, in combination with emerging self-efficacy in teaching, indicates a developing teaching profile. Teachers?? professional vision of their own teaching is strongly focused on themselves. Teachers reflect on discrepancies between intentions and action and, by this, they can deduce concrete actions to make their teaching coherent to their intentions. We, therefore, conclude that our training equips teachers with the necessary tools for changes in action. Even so, putting this knowledge into practice also depends on contextual factors.     

Formative assessment strategies for students' conceptions—The potential of learning analytics

Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers.
• Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice.
• Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning.

What does the paper add

• Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified.
• Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective.
• Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions.
• Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions.