Schools' guide : How to select providers of road safety education programs for senior school students

Road safety education is not just about safe driving. Best practice road safety education seeks to improve knowledge and change attitudes relating to being safe, and making sure others are safe on the road. Typical topics might include: • Strengthening attitudes toward safe road use behaviours and avoiding risks • Supporting behaviours to ensure others are safe • Promoting knowledge of traffic rules.

A review of non-traditional occupational therapy practice placement education : a focus on role-emerging and project placements

Practice placement education has been recognised as an integral and critical component of the training of occupational therapy students. Although there is an extensive body of literature on clinical education and traditional practice placement education models, there has been limited research on alternative placements.-------- This paper reviews the literature on various practice placement education models and presents a contemporary view on how it is currently delivered. The literature is examined with a particular focus on the increasing range of practice placement education opportunities, such as project and role-emerging placements. The drivers for non-traditional practice placement education include shortages of traditional placement options, health reform and changing work practices, potential for role development and influence on practice choice. The benefits and challenges of non-traditional practice placement education are discussed, including supervision issues, student evaluation, professional and personal development and the opportunity to practise clinical skills.--------- Further research is recommended to investigate occupational therapy graduates' perceptions of role-emerging and project placements in order to identify the benefits or otherwise of these placements and to contribute to the limited body of knowledge of emerging education opportunities.

How should a vocational education and training course be evaluated?

The course evaluation process used by a large VET provider was evaluated using guidelines suggested by the course evaluation literature and feedback obtained from multiple stakeholders. A modified model is presented as an exemplar for course evaluation in the VET sector.

Older patients request more information : a survey of use of written patient education materials in general practice

Objectives: To determine GPs' reported use of written education materials with older patients and older patients' reported receipt of these materials. To determine GPs' and older patients' perceptions of written materials.---------- Method: Using self-report questionnaires, two populations were surveyed; a randomised sample of 50 GPs (29 males and 21 females) practising in Brisbane's southern suburbs and a convenience sample of 188 older community-dwelling people (aged over 64 years).----------- Results: All GPs reported using written materials with patients, although 28% had not given any to the Last 10 patients. This increased to 46% when patients were older. Twenty percent of patients wanted more written information from their GP, while some GPs believed that older patients preferred verbal information and gave out written information only when they perceived patient interest. All GPs reported giving written materials at the time of consultation and over two thirds discussed the content with patients. Just over 50% of patients reported receiving written information from GPs in the Last six months and only hall of these again discussed it directly with their GP. Overall, patients were more positive than GPs about the value of written education materials.---------- Conclusions: Older patients' desire for written information may be better met if they are more assertive in requesting this of GPs and GPs may better serve their patients' needs if they make written information more readily available to them. Better access to materials and more financial incentives to give them out might also increase GPs' use of written materials.

The user query based learning system for lifetime prediction of metallic components

Real-World Data Mining Applications generally do not end up with the creation of the models. The use of the model is the final purpose especially in prediction tasks. The problem arises when the model is built based on much more information than that the user can provide in using the model. As a result, the performance of model reduces drastically due to many missing attributes values. This paper develops a new learning system framework, called as User Query Based Learning System (UQBLS), for building data mining models best suitable for users use. We demonstrate its deployment in a real-world application of the lifetime prediction of metallic components in buildings

A user driven data mining process model and learning system

This paper deals with the problem of using the data mining models in a real-world situation where the user can not provide all the inputs with which the predictive model is built. A learning system framework, Query Based Learning System (QBLS), is developed for improving the performance of the predictive models in practice where not all inputs are available for querying to the system. The automatic feature selection algorithm called Query Based Feature Selection (QBFS) is developed for selecting features to obtain a balance between the relative minimum subset of features and the relative maximum classification accuracy. Performance of the QBLS system and the QBFS algorithm is successfully demonstrated with a real-world application

Managerial effectiveness for a new millennium in the global higher education sector

With the global tertiary education environment undergoing some of the most rapid changes it has experienced since the 1980s, a technology-driven new millennium is requiring an unprecedented capacity for change on a number of fronts, one of these being the way managers manage. This article discusses some of the new realities facing tertiary education organizations, one of which is a realization that "knowledge capital" is the lifeline of an organization. It ultimately vests in the people whom successful organizations will lead, motivate, develop, and value in a manner sensitive to global trends of convergent social, cultural, and organizational change. This article suggests that the effective leadership of people will return as the touchstone for success, the technological age notwithstanding, and notes recent theory on increased reliance upon organizational integrity in the form of value-based policy and practice. This article draws on management and futurist theory to suggest some of the "flexibility imperatives" in managing the potentially different-looking work force of the future.

Learning to reflect in the first year of legal education : the key to surviving legal education and legal practice

Lawyers and law students suffer significant rates of depression and substance abuse. This paper suggests that Law Schools have an obligation to assist students to develop the emotional intelligence necessary in order to cope with the stressful nature of legal practice. We draw on Schön’s discussion of the indeterminate zone of professional practice to suggest that reflective practice is the means by which students can become sufficiently emotionally intelligent to become balanced and happy lawyers. We suggest that incorporating reflective practice in intentional curriculum design in the first year of law is an effective first step in assisting students to develop the emotional intelligence necessary to survive the study and practice of law.

Stepping out into the real world of education : an introduction

‘Stepping out into the real world of Education’ has been written to complement ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education’ (Millwater & Beutel, 2008). Both books are aimed at strategising the transition you are experiencing, from preservice teacher to professional educator, through issues that you will face as early career teachers from any specialist teaching strand - early childhood, primary, middle or secondary. ‘Transitioning to the real world of Education’ (Millwater & Beutel, 2008) addressed the particularities and practicalities of professional standards, life-long learning, teaching for diversity, values-education, teacher/student relationships, teaching in a digital age and teacher burnout. This text aligns with these and explores other areas, in recognition that your early career phase is the pivotal point of how much you commit to being a teacher in the long term.

Educating the Other: Standpoint and Theory on the 'Internationalisation' of Higher Education

How adequate are current theoretical standpoints, tools and categories for explaining the flows of international students to Anglo/American/European universities? This essay takes a different analytic tact and historical standpoint to the study of them and us, insiders and outsiders (cf. Foley, Levinson & Hurtig, 2001), in the internationalisation of education.

From Prosumer to Produser: Understanding User-Led Content Creation

Alvin Toffler’s image of the prosumer (1970, 1980, 1990) continues to influence in a significant way our understanding of the user-led, collaborative processes of content creation which are today labelled “social media” or “Web 2.0”. A closer look at Toffler’s own description of his prosumer model reveals, however, that it remains firmly grounded in the mass media age: the prosumer is clearly not the self-motivated creative originator and developer of new content which can today be observed in projects ranging from open source software through Wikipedia to Second Life, but simply a particularly well-informed, and therefore both particularly critical and particularly active, consumer. The highly specialised, high end consumers which exist in areas such as hi-fi or car culture are far more representative of the ideal prosumer than the participants in non-commercial (or as yet non-commercial) collaborative projects. And to expect Toffler’s 1970s model of the prosumer to describe these 21st-century phenomena was always an unrealistic expectation, of course. To describe the creative and collaborative participation which today characterises user-led projects such as Wikipedia, terms such as ‘production’ and ‘consumption’ are no longer particularly useful – even in laboured constructions such as ‘commons-based peer-production’ (Benkler 2006) or ‘p2p production’ (Bauwens 2005). In the user communities participating in such forms of content creation, roles as consumers and users have long begun to be inextricably interwoven with those as producer and creator: users are always already also able to be producers of the shared information collection, regardless of whether they are aware of that fact – they have taken on a new, hybrid role which may be best described as that of a produser (Bruns 2008). Projects which build on such produsage can be found in areas from open source software development through citizen journalism to Wikipedia, and beyond this also in multi-user online computer games, filesharing, and even in communities collaborating on the design of material goods. While addressing a range of different challenges, they nonetheless build on a small number of universal key principles. This paper documents these principles and indicates the possible implications of this transition from production and prosumption to produsage.

User behaviours and intentions with digital news media in Australia

This paper summarises findings from a survey of user behaviors and intentions towards digital media and information in Australia. It was undertaken in the first quarter of 2009 by the Queensland University of Technology Creative Industries Faculty and was funded by the Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre. The survey targeted users of 2 news and information sites that are available online only. Findings highlighted differences between the 18-24 year age segment and older users. Social networks (specifically friends and family) were rated as the least reliable, relevant and accurate sources of news. Other findings indicate online news sources that are associated with an established newspaper are highly valued as reliable, relevant and accurate news sources by most people. While most people prefer to use online news sources, there is a great deal of variation in the ways in which people actually use online news. From a total of 524 respondents to the survey it was possible to identify three main types of online news consumers: convenience, loyal and customising users.

On Indigenous education

A critical overview of current policy debates in Indigenous education, with a focus on the tensions between models of direct instruction and culturally appropriate pedagogy.

The user-led disruption : self-(re)broadcasting at Justin.tv and elsewhere

The rise of videosharing and self-(re)broadcasting Web services is posing new threats to a television industry already struggling with the impact of filesharing networks. This paper outlines these threats, focussing especially on the DIY re-broadcasting of live sports using Websites such as Justin.tv and a range of streaming media networks built on peer-to-peer filesharing technology.