A randomized trial comparing the diagnostic accuracy of visual inspection with acetic acid to Visual Inspection with Lugol's Iodine for cervical cancer screening in HIV-infected women.

Visual inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA) and Visual Inspection with Lugol’s Iodine (VILI) are increasingly recommended in various cervical cancer screening protocols in low-resource settings. Although VIA is more widely used, VILI has been advocated as an easier and more specific screening test. VILI has not been well-validated as a stand-alone screening test, compared to VIA or validated for use in HIV-infected women. We carried out a randomized clinical trial to compare the diagnostic accuracy of VIA and VILI among HIV-infected women. Women attending the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) clinic in western Kenya were enrolled and randomized to undergo either VIA or VILI with colposcopy. Lesions suspicious for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2 or greater (CIN2+) were biopsied. Between October 2011 and June 2012, 654 were randomized to undergo VIA or VILI. The test positivity rates were 26.2% for VIA and 30.6% for VILI (p = 0.22). The rate of detection of CIN2+ was 7.7% in the VIA arm and 11.5% in the VILI arm (p = 0.10). There was no significant difference in the diagnostic performance of VIA and VILI for the detection of CIN2+. Sensitivity and specificity were 84.0% and 78.6%, respectively, for VIA and 84.2% and 76.4% for VILI. The positive and negative predictive values were 24.7% and 98.3% for VIA, and 31.7% and 97.4% for VILI. Among women with CD4+ count < 350, VILI had a significantly decreased specificity (66.2%) compared to VIA in the same group (83.9%, p = 0.02) and compared to VILI performed among women with CD4+ count ≥ 350 (79.7%, p = 0.02). VIA and VILI had similar diagnostic accuracy and rates of CIN2+ detection among HIV-infected women.

Concept maps as a tool to analyze the ideas of teacher training students regarding what to teach on human nutrition in Primary Education

Concept maps are a technique used to obtain a visual representation of a person's ideas about a concept or a set of related concepts. Specifically, in this paper, through a qualitative methodology, we analyze the concept maps proposed by 52 groups of teacher training students in order to find out the characteristics of the maps and the degree of adequacy of the contents with regard to the teaching of human nutrition in the 3rd cycle of primary education. The participants were enrolled in the Teacher Training Degree majoring in Primary Education, and the data collection was carried out through a training activity under the theme of what to teach about Science in Primary School? The results show that the maps are a useful tool for working in teacher education as they allow organizing, synthesizing, and communicating what students know. Moreover, through this work, it has been possible to see that future teachers have acceptable skills for representing the concepts/ideas in a concept map, although the level of adequacy of concepts/ideas about human nutrition and its relations is usually medium or low. These results are a wake-up call for teacher training, both initial and ongoing, because they shows the inability to change priorities as far as the selection of content is concerned.

Training proposal in the degree of Master of Early Childhood Education for working the method of historical research in the classroom

Future teachers must be competent in creating educational settings, which provide tools to their students future they can develop a conscious mind, able to interpret their experiences, to make decisions and imagine innovative solutions to help you participate autonomously and responsible in society. This requires an educational system that allows them to integrate the subjective into a broader spatial and temporal context. La patrimonializatión of “Cultural artefacts” and oral history, the basis of which, are found in the active mind and links both the personal and the group experience, don’t only serve as a catalyst to achieving this goal, but rather, they facilitate the implementation of established practice in infant education. To gain this experience we offer the opportunity for students of their degree in Infant Education in the Public University of Navarre, training within the framework of social didactics, allowing students to learn about established practice from iconic, materials and oral sources in the Archive of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Navarra. The vidences points to their effectiveness and presented in a work in progress.

Percepción de estudiantes con discapacidad visual sobre sus competencias digitales en una universidad pública del sureste de México

En este artículo nuestro objetivo fue indagar la percepción de estudiantes universitarios con discapacidad visual (ECDV) acerca del desarrollo de sus competencias digitales. Participaron en el estudio los diez ECDV inscritos en programas de licenciatura en el ciclo 2014-02. Evaluamos el avance que perciben los estudiantes en competencias digitales relacionadas con el aprendizaje social y colaborativo, la búsqueda y tratamiento de la información, el desarrollo de relaciones interpersonales en el contexto universitario, y el uso de herramientas virtuales y de comunicación social de la universidad. Los resultados sugieren que, a excepción de aquellas referentes a las relaciones interpersonales, los ECDV perciben poco adelanto en sus competencias digitales. Con una prueba Anova de medidas repetidas, determinamos que la percepción de los ECDV sobre las competencias digitales concernientes a las relaciones interpersonales es significativamente mayor que la que reportan en las otras competencias. Concluimos que los ECDV no perciben una mejora en sus competencias digitales, en particular las de aprendizaje social y colaborativo, así como el uso de herramientas digitales.

Una aproximación a la realidad de las plataformas virtuales de las universidades españolas: el primer reto para una educación personalizada en personas con discapacidad motórica o visual

El punto de partida para ofrecer una educación universitaria personalizada basada en entornos de educación onlinea personas con diversidad funcional debe centrarse en garantizar la óptima accesibilidad a su contenido web y a los recursos de aprendizaje. En la actualidad, la mayoría de las universidades disponen de plataformas virtuales de educación, con un importante peso para el correcto desarrollo de sus estudios y para la optimización del aprendizaje de su alumnado. Por otro lado, los entornos virtuales suponen un importante punto de acceso a la posible matriculación en dichas universidades del alumnado con discapacidad. Este trabajo tiene dos objetivos. El primero de ellos consiste en definir cuáles son las condiciones óptimas de accesibilidad web de las plataformas virtuales de educación y de los sitios web de las universidades para personas que presentan discapacidad visual o discapacidad motórica, de acuerdo a los estándares internacionales. El segundo objetivo del trabajo persigue ofrecer una breve aproximación al grado de accesibilidad de los sitios web de las universidades españolas para el alumnado con esas dos discapacidades. El trabajo sigue un diseño descriptivo basado en dos elementos de análisis. Por un lado, la revisión de estudios de accesibilidad y diversidad funcional y, por otro, el análisis de la accesibilidad web de los sitios web de las 78 universidades españolas. Se concluye que existen dificultades de accesibilidad web y navegación en los entornos virtuales de las universidades españolas, situación que, por lo tanto, redunda en limitaciones en el aprendizaje de los colectivos de estudiantes con limitaciones.

The Visual Arts as a Canvas for Teaching Computer Programming

We explore the relationships between the construction of a work of art and the crafting of a computer program in Java and suggest that the structure of paintings and drawings may be used to teach the fundamental concepts of computer programming. This movement "from Art to Science", using art to drive computing, complements the common use of computing to inform art. We report on initial experiences using this approach with undergraduate and postgraduate students. An embryonic theory of the correspondence between art and computing is presented and a methodology proposed to develop this project further.

Seeing disadvantage in schools: exploring student teachers’ perceptions of poverty and disadvantage using visual pedagogy

This paper describes exploratory research into the development of innovative visual pedagogies for investigating how pre-service student teachers articulate their views about the effects of poverty on educational attainment. Social class emerges as the strongest factor in poverty and educational disadvantage in the UK. The resulting issues are often awkward for students to discuss and conventional pedagogies may not have effective ‘reach’ here. Findings from this study showed that the visual methods deployed gave students pedagogically well structured spaces for the expression and exchange of a diversity of views about poverty and social class, engaging them in both heated discussions and prolonged ‘silences’. However, the pedagogies did not challenge the stereotypical deficit models of ‘the poor’ which some students expressed. Nevertheless, we argue that reconfigured versions of these visual pedagogies have considerable potential for innovative social justice work in teacher education.

Student attitudes towards cooperative learning in education

Abstract: Active or participatory learning by the student within a classroom environment has been fairly recently recognized as an effective, efficient, and superior instructional technique yet few teachers in higher education have adopted this pedagogical strategy. This is especially true in Science where teachers primarily lecture to passively seated students while using static visual aids or multimedia projections. Teachers generally teach as they were taught and lecture formats have been the norm. Although student-learning theories as well as student learning styles, abilities, and understanding strategies have changed, traditional teaching techniques have not evolved past the “chalk and talk” instructional strategy. This research looked into student’s perceptions of cooperative learning or team-based active learning in order to gain insight and some understanding as to how students felt about this learning technique. Student’s attitudes were then compared to student grades to detennine whether cooperative learning impeded or ameliorated academic performance. The results revealed significant differences measured in all the survey questions pertaining to perception or attitudes. As a result of the cooperative learning activities, respondents indicated more agreement to the survey questions pertaining to the benefits of cooperative learning. The experimental group exposed to cooperative learning thus experienced more positive attitudes and perceptions than the groups exposed only to a lecture-based teaching and learning format. Each of the hypotheses tested demonstrated that students had more positive attitudes towards cooperative learning strategies. Recommendations as to future work were presented in order to gain a greater understanding into both student and teacher attitudes towards the cooperative learning model.||Résumé: Lapprentissage actif ou préparatoire par létudiant au sein d’une classe a été reconnu assez récemment comme une technique d’enseignement plus efficace. Cependant, peu d’enseignants ont adopté cette stratégie pedagogique pour l'éducation post-secondaire. Ceci est particulièrement le cas dans le domaine des sciences où les enseignants font surtout usage de cours magistraux avec des étudiants passifs tout en utilisant des aides visuelles statiques ou des projections multimédias. Les professeurs enseignent generalement comme on leur a eux-même enseigné et les cours magistraux ont été la norme par le passé. Les techniques traditionnelles d'enseignernent n'ont pas évolué au-delà de la craie et du tableau noir et ce même si les théories sur l’apprentissage par les étudiants ont changé, tout comme les styles, les habiletés et les stratégies de compréhension d’apprentissage des étudiants. Cette recherche se penche sur les perceptions des étudiants au sujet de l'apprentissage coopératif ou de l'apprentissage actif par équipe de telle sorte qu'on puisse avoir un aperçu et une certaine compréhension de comment les étudiants se sentent par rapport à ces techniques d'apprentissage. Les attitudes des étudiants ont par la suite été comparées aux notes de ceux-ci pour déterminer si l'apprentissage coopératif avait nui ou au contraire amélioré leurs performances académiques. Les résultats obtenus dans l'étude d'ensemble révèlent des différences significatives dans toutes les questions ayant trait à la perception et aux attitudes.

A Haptic System for Depicting Mathematical Graphics for Students with Visual Impairments

When teaching students with visual impairments educators generally rely on tactile tools to depict visual mathematical topics. Tactile media, such as embossed paper and simple manipulable materials, are typically used to convey graphical information. Although these tools are easy to use and relatively inexpensive, they are solely tactile and are not modifiable. Dynamic and interactive technologies such as pin matrices and haptic pens are also commercially available, but tend to be more expensive and less intuitive. This study aims to bridge the gap between easy-to-use tactile tools and dynamic, interactive technologies in order to facilitate the haptic learning of mathematical concepts. We developed an haptic assistive device using a Tanvas electrostatic touchscreen that provides the user with multimodal (haptic, auditory, and visual) output. Three methodological steps comprise this research: 1) a systematic literature review of the state of the art in the design and testing of tactile and haptic assistive devices, 2) a user-centered system design, and 3) testing of the system’s effectiveness via a usability study. The electrostatic touchscreen exhibits promise as an assistive device for displaying visual mathematical elements via the haptic modality.

Ampliação de movimentos na dança circular com pessoas com deficiência visual

This paper aims at studying how circular dance can afford to sight-disabled peoples movement and how they can learn to cope with the deep movement of relation, consciousness, appropriation and communion with the world. Inside circular dance, a cosmic metaphor, is inscribed the movement of the world, which tells and changes amorously the human history. In the works of Paulo Freire and Maurice Merleau-Ponty one can find the necessary support to discuss, as long as possible, movement and existence. Research-action is used as a methodological approach whose empirical center is placed on the Institute of Education and Rehabilitation of Blind, in Natal, which shelters eight sightdisabled adults. The research s data reveal that the practice of circular dance concurs to enlarge the movement of the research s subjects, to develop a more accurate perception of their selves and of their own capacities, as well as improve the relations Me/Others, Me/World, which require a context of differences. The study has revealed that the practice of dance develops a better perception of the limits and surpasses as a human condition and, in consequence, the discovery of one s own body and the other s body as a resource of lessons and representations of the self and of the world. It lets out the development of a new way of thinking and coping with discrimination surrounding the disabled persons. In movement, in circular dance, the barrier between sight disablement and vision loses force.

The 1998 BFA Graduating Class: Department of Visual Arts

The exhibition of works by Sir Wilfred Grenfell College's graduating Class in visual arts constitutes the culmination of four years of intensive study and practice. our students are trained in the fundamentals of their craft and exposed tio a variety of media and styles ranging from the traditional to the avant garde. But their education has more to do with the exploration and development of their creativity, the enlargement of their capacity to see, and their mastery of the vocabulary of sight, enabling them to discover, uncover and represent. Each of the students ha sustained and nurtured an individual and unique quest over the four years of this rigorous programme.

A Visual Analytics Approach to Comparing Cohorts of Event Sequences

Sequences of timestamped events are currently being generated across nearly every domain of data analytics, from e-commerce web logging to electronic health records used by doctors and medical researchers. Every day, this data type is reviewed by humans who apply statistical tests, hoping to learn everything they can about how these processes work, why they break, and how they can be improved upon. To further uncover how these processes work the way they do, researchers often compare two groups, or cohorts, of event sequences to find the differences and similarities between outcomes and processes. With temporal event sequence data, this task is complex because of the variety of ways single events and sequences of events can differ between the two cohorts of records: the structure of the event sequences (e.g., event order, co-occurring events, or frequencies of events), the attributes about the events and records (e.g., gender of a patient), or metrics about the timestamps themselves (e.g., duration of an event). Running statistical tests to cover all these cases and determining which results are significant becomes cumbersome. Current visual analytics tools for comparing groups of event sequences emphasize a purely statistical or purely visual approach for comparison. Visual analytics tools leverage humans' ability to easily see patterns and anomalies that they were not expecting, but is limited by uncertainty in findings. Statistical tools emphasize finding significant differences in the data, but often requires researchers have a concrete question and doesn't facilitate more general exploration of the data. Combining visual analytics tools with statistical methods leverages the benefits of both approaches for quicker and easier insight discovery. Integrating statistics into a visualization tool presents many challenges on the frontend (e.g., displaying the results of many different metrics concisely) and in the backend (e.g., scalability challenges with running various metrics on multi-dimensional data at once). I begin by exploring the problem of comparing cohorts of event sequences and understanding the questions that analysts commonly ask in this task. From there, I demonstrate that combining automated statistics with an interactive user interface amplifies the benefits of both types of tools, thereby enabling analysts to conduct quicker and easier data exploration, hypothesis generation, and insight discovery. The direct contributions of this dissertation are: (1) a taxonomy of metrics for comparing cohorts of temporal event sequences, (2) a statistical framework for exploratory data analysis with a method I refer to as high-volume hypothesis testing (HVHT), (3) a family of visualizations and guidelines for interaction techniques that are useful for understanding and parsing the results, and (4) a user study, five long-term case studies, and five short-term case studies which demonstrate the utility and impact of these methods in various domains: four in the medical domain, one in web log analysis, two in education, and one each in social networks, sports analytics, and security. My dissertation contributes an understanding of how cohorts of temporal event sequences are commonly compared and the difficulties associated with applying and parsing the results of these metrics. It also contributes a set of visualizations, algorithms, and design guidelines for balancing automated statistics with user-driven analysis to guide users to significant, distinguishing features between cohorts. This work opens avenues for future research in comparing two or more groups of temporal event sequences, opening traditional machine learning and data mining techniques to user interaction, and extending the principles found in this dissertation to data types beyond temporal event sequences.

Ensino superior para pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva em Portugal : diagnóstico e contributos para uma efetiva inclusão

No presente livro, apresenta-se uma síntese do trabalho de campo desenvolvido para Portugal, no âmbito do primeiro ano de atividade do projeto ERASMUS+ intitulado ISOLearn for HEI: Innovation and Social Learning for Higher Education Institutions (http://www.ISOLearn.net/), entre Outubro de 2014 e Outubro de 2016. No âmbito deste projeto europeu, coordenado pela Universidade Aberta, procurou-se fazer um levantamento das condições existentes para a inclusão de pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva no Ensino Superior, em 4 países europeus: Portugal; Itália; Suécia e Eslovénia. Para tal foi desenvolvido um trabalho que consistiu na realização de entrevistas a Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES), e um conjunto de questionários online, a estudantes com este tipo de deficiências. Procurou-se fazer este levantamento enquadrado na legislação existente sobre este tema, e sobretudo na sensibilidade das principais partes interessadas (stakeholders) nesta temática, aferindo a sua perceção da realidade, procurando-se desta forma identificar eventuais desajustes entre o enquadramento legal e institucional vigente, e a prática das Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES) em cada um dos quatro países envolvidos. Considerando que os parceiros portugueses incluem entidades que se dedicam exclusivamente aos problemas da população em estudo, como é o caso da ACAPO – Associação dos Cegos e Amblíopes de Portugal; da APS – Associação Portuguesa de Surdos; e da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, que tem vindo a desenvolver trabalho na consagração dos Direitos Humanos e da inclusão de pessoas com deficiência; que por essa razão o trabalho de campo desenvolvido pelos parceiros portugueses foi extremamente rigoroso e em certa medida mais aprofundado, quer em termos metodológicos, quer em termos de amostra obtida – com entrevistas a 23 IES, e a participação de 49 estudantes, repartidos entre estudantes com deficiência visual e estudantes com deficiência auditiva – entendeu-se que seria importante autonomizar o trabalho sobre Portugal, dando-lhe a visibilidade que a edição eletrónica do presente livro pretende comportar. A presente edição pretende, pois, constituir apenas um pequeno pilar para o desenvolvimento do conhecimento sobre esta matéria em Portugal. É objetivo da equipa do projeto que, a partir da sua leitura se despertem consciências que levem à realização de mais trabalhos sobre esta temática, que possam permitir, não apenas uma maior sensibilização da sociedade portuguesa em geral sobre estas matérias, mas também, incitar todas as partes interessadas à ação, no sentido de uma maior inclusão das pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva, no Ensino Superior. Naturalmente, tratando-se de um trabalho desenvolvido no âmbito de um projeto europeu, os objetivos definitivos vão para além das fronteiras nacionais, esperando-se que ele possa ajudar a própria Europa a desenvolver mais e melhores políticas para abordagem à temática da inclusão das pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva no Ensino Superior no espaço europeu. Este deve ser considerado um trabalho em aberto; apenas um primeiro passo de uma longa e, espera-se, frutuosa caminhada, cujo destino será a inclusão das pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva, no Ensino Superior.

Ampliação de movimentos na dança circular com pessoas com deficiência visual

This paper aims at studying how circular dance can afford to sight-disabled peoples movement and how they can learn to cope with the deep movement of relation, consciousness, appropriation and communion with the world. Inside circular dance, a cosmic metaphor, is inscribed the movement of the world, which tells and changes amorously the human history. In the works of Paulo Freire and Maurice Merleau-Ponty one can find the necessary support to discuss, as long as possible, movement and existence. Research-action is used as a methodological approach whose empirical center is placed on the Institute of Education and Rehabilitation of Blind, in Natal, which shelters eight sightdisabled adults. The research s data reveal that the practice of circular dance concurs to enlarge the movement of the research s subjects, to develop a more accurate perception of their selves and of their own capacities, as well as improve the relations Me/Others, Me/World, which require a context of differences. The study has revealed that the practice of dance develops a better perception of the limits and surpasses as a human condition and, in consequence, the discovery of one s own body and the other s body as a resource of lessons and representations of the self and of the world. It lets out the development of a new way of thinking and coping with discrimination surrounding the disabled persons. In movement, in circular dance, the barrier between sight disablement and vision loses force.