Empowering single mothers in Iran : Applying a problem-solving model in learning groups to develop participants' capacities to improve their lives

Since 2000, a problem-solving model has been taught to the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child, and teachers and  students of social work in two universities in Iran. Since 2006, with the initiation of UNICEF, social workers, psychologists  and even some psychiatrists in Iran have been learning this model. In 2008, a group of researchers created an empowerment-oriented  psycho-social group and private intervention project to assess whether a group of Iranian single mothers could use this model, which was traditionally used by professionals only, to effectively and independently meet challenges in their own lives. Our results show that all women used the model effectively and, consequently, made more deliberate decisions to improve their life situations. Some of the women succeeded in finding a job and many improved their family relationships. This study suggests that empowerment-oriented social work can help many clients to achieve their goals, and that this psycho-social intervention project can be a useful model for social work in Iran and many other societies.

Assessing a Methodological Proposal for the Design, Creation and Evaluation of Learning Objects Oriented to Educators with Diverse Educational and Technological Competencies

This paper describes a methodological proposal for the design, creation and evaluation of Learning Objects (LOs). This study arises from the compilation and analysis of several LO design methodologies currently used in Ibero-America. This proposal, which has been named DICREVOA, defines five different phases: analysis, design (instructional and multimedia), implementation (LO and metadata), evaluation (from the perspective of both the producer and the consumer of the LO), and publishing. The methodology focuses not only on the teaching inexperienced, but also on those having a basic understanding of the technological and educational aspects related to LO design; therefore, the study emphasizes LO design activities centered around the Kolb cycle and the use of the ExeLearning tool in order to implement the LO core. Additionally, DICREVOA was used in a case study, which demonstrates how it provides a feasible mechanism for LO design and implementation within different contexts. Finally, DICREVOA, the case study to which it was applied, and the results obtained are presented

Construção da plataforma de e-Learning do Instituto Politécnico de Santarém

Relatório de estágio apresentado para obtenção do grau de mestre em Educação e Comunicação Multimédia.

Construção da plataforma de e-Learning do Instituto Politécnico de Santarém

Relatório de estágio apresentado para obtenção do grau de mestre em Educação e Comunicação Multimédia.

Science fair project: O CLIL na educaçã pré-escolar

O ensino bilingue torna-se cada vez mais relevante no contexto Europeu. O Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) apresenta-se como uma metodologia importante como podemos observar no European Profile for Language Teacher Education. Após realizar uma revisão de literatura cujo conteúdo versa sobretudo acerca os princípios orientados pelos preconizadores desta abordagem metodológica, nomeadamente Coyle (2010), Marsh (2010), Mehisto (2008), entre outros, e no sentido de tentarmos aferir a sua viabilidade, realizámos um Projeto de Investigação no qual implementámos esta abordagem pedagógica, ensinando a disciplina de ciências a grupo de alunos do Pré-escolar. Assim, neste estudo de caso, com contornos da metodologia de investigação-ação, tivemos como principal objetivo verificar a aplicabilidade do CLIL na Educação Préescolar. Com a implementação deste projeto, conseguimos perceber que a metodologia CLIL é uma abordagem metodológica eficaz, sendo que, nos permitiu concluir que mesmo na Educação Pré-escolar é possível ensinarmos uma disciplina através de uma segunda língua.

Project Flappy Crab : an edugame for music learning

This chapter discusses some possibilities of gamification and remixing processes for music education. It also analyzes the concepts of gamification, mashup/remix and presents its possible usage in education—music teaching—through the development of the project/educational game FLAPPY CRAB. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to the concepts listed above, trying to consider them in the school context. After that, we will make the summary presentation of the music educational game FLAPPY CRAB, a clone of the GEARS Studios Flappy Bird, developed for mobile devices and other platforms with the UNITY 3D© game engine. In this chapter we’ll talk yet, albeit briefly, about the game engine used in the development of this educational application. This educational game aims to assess the possible impacts that its use has on learning and skill development related to auditory memory, qualitative discrimination of musical sound height (pitch—in the range of an octave with a central point in 440 Hz), visual identification of musical notation symbols and its relative organization according to the grammar rules of traditional music spelling. The game has been tested by a group of approximately 30 teenagers over a period of about 6 months, over which data was collected. In this chapter, we will present a review of the preliminary data collected to date.

Teaching Communications, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities with Multimedia: A University-Middle School Service-Learning Project

Se describe el uso de tecnología en forma de presentaciones de multimedia para facilitar la enseñanza de las Normas para el Aprendizaje de una Lengua Extranjera del Concilio Americano para la Enseñanza de Lenguas extranjeras. Las normas abarcan las comunicaciones, las culturas, las conexiones, las comparaciones y las comunidades. El estudiantado universitario aprende a crear, con multimedia, presentaciones sobre un tema cultural en la lengua meta. El componente de aprendizaje por servicio comunitario se fundamenta en las presentaciones creadas para estudiantes de colegio, quienes tienen acceso a las presentaciones en un sitio web de la universidad.A description is provided of how the use of technology in the form of multimedia presentations enhances the teaching of the Five C Standards for Foreign Language Learning of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages: communications, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. University students learn to create multimedia presentations on a cultural topic in the target language. The service-learning component provides the multimedia presentations for middle-school students who access them from the university website.

How to merge courses via Skype™†? Lessons from an International Blended Learning Project‡

This study reports on an international project in which students taking the course Contemporary Issues in Turkish Politics in spring 2011 and fall 2011 at two institutions of higher education, ‘Gettysburg College’ in the United States and ‘Izmir University of Economics’ in Turkey, worked together in virtual learning environments to complete various tasks as part of their course work. The project employed a blend of traditional and technology-based teaching methods in order to introduce a technology like Skype in a bi-national learning environment in Turkey. Students collaborated and interacted with their international counterparts in two different virtual contexts. First, classrooms in the two countries were merged via Skype three times to conduct classroom-to-classroom discussion sessions on Turkish politics. Second, students were paired across locations to work on several assignments. In this paper, our goal is to present how Skype is used in a bi-national context as a blended teaching tool in an upper-level college course for instructors pursuing a similar exercise. In addition to outlining the process with a focus on Skype discussions and one-on-one student projects, we provide actual assignments and discussion questions. Students’ views elicited through surveys administered throughout the semester are presented alongside anecdotal evidence to reflect how the project was received.

Blended Learning Essentials Project reports

Blended Learning Essentials is a free suite of online courses for the Vocational Education and Training sector to promote effective practice and pedagogy in blended learning. The courses were run and supported from 2016 onwards by a consortium of partners funded by Ufi Charitable Trust. The lead partners were the University of Leeds, the UCL Institute of Education, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), and FutureLearn. The Blended Learning Essentials (BLE) courses are for anyone working in further education, skills training, vocational education, workplace learning, lifelong learning or adult education, who wants to learn about and implement blended learning. The project reports cover engagement and marketing work undertaken during this project phase to reach the courses’ key audiences and work undertaken during this project phase to develop and promote the pathways to accreditation available to course participants. These reports are shared by ALT as a project partner on behalf of the BLE Project under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. �

The Process of Simulation Authoring/Creation by Chemistry Teachers: A Service Learning Experience

Two case studies are presented to describe the process of public school teachers authoring and creating chemistry simulations. They are part of the Virtual Didactic Laboratory for Chemistry, a project developed by the School of the Future of the University of Sao Paulo. the documental analysis of the material produced by two groups of teachers reflects different selection process for both themes and problem-situations when creating simulations. The study demonstrates the potential for chemistry learning with an approach that takes students' everyday lives into account and is based on collaborative work among teachers and researches. Also, from the teachers' perspectives, the possibilities of interaction that a simulation offers for classroom activities are considered.

Students' collective knowledge construction in the virtual learning environment ""ToLigado - your school interactive newspaper""

Introduction. The ToLigado Project - Your School Interactive Newspaper is an interactive virtual learning environment conceived, developed, implemented and supported by researchers at the School of the Future Research Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Method. This virtual learning environment aims to motivate trans-disciplinary research among public school students and teachers in 2,931 schools equipped with Internet-access computer rooms. Within this virtual community, students produce collective multimedia research documents that are immediately published in the portal. The project also aims to increase students' autonomy for research, collaborative work and Web authorship. Main sections of the portal are presented and described. Results. Partial results of the first two years' implementation are presented and indicate a strong motivation among students to produce knowledge despite the fragile hardware and software infrastructure at the time. Discussion. In this new environment, students should be seen as 'knowledge architects' and teachers as facilitators, or 'curiosity managers'. The ToLigado portal may constitute a repository for future studies regarding student attitudes in virtual learning environments, students' behaviour as 'authors', Web authorship involving collective knowledge production, teachers' behaviour as facilitators, and virtual learning environments as digital repositories of students' knowledge construction and social capital in virtual learning communities.

Triple objective team mentoring: achieving learning objectives with chemical engineering students

A sophisticated style of mentoring has been found to be essential to support engineering student teams undertaking technically demanding, real-world problems as part of a Project-Centred Curriculum (PCC) at The University of Queensland. The term ‘triple-objective’ mentoring was coined to define mentoring that addresses not only the student’s technical goal achievement but also their time and team management. This is achieved through a number of formal mentor meetings that are informed by a confidential instrument which requires students to individually reflect on team processes prior to the meeting, and a checklist of technical requirements against which the interim student team progress and achievements are assessed. Triple-objective mentoring requires significant time input and coordination by the academic but has been shown to ensure effective student team work and learning undiminished by team dysfunction. Student feedback shows they value the process and agree that the tools developed to support the process are effective in developing and assessing team work and skills with average scores mostly above 3 on a four point scale.

Project to investigate improving literacy and numeracy outcomes of distance education students in the early years of schooling

The project was commissioned to investigate and analyse the issue of effective support for distance education students in the early years of school to maximise literacy and numeracy outcomes. The scope of this project was limited to students living in rural and remote areas who are undertaking education at home and who are in their early years of schooling. For the purpose of this project, the early years are conceptualised as the first three years of formal compulsory schooling in each of the States and Territories. There were a number of key tasks for the project which included: 1. Examining of the role of home tutors/supervisors This included interviewing personnel from the State and Territory distance education providers as well as the principals, teachers, home tutors and children. 2. Describing literacy and numeracy teaching and learning, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in distance education This aspect of the project involved a critical review and analysis of relevant literature and reports in the last five years, and a consideration of the new initiatives that had been implemented in the States and Territories in the last two years. 3. The development of resources Through examination of the role of home tutors/supervisors, and an examination of literacy and numeracy and the use of technology in distance education, three resources were developed: ● A guide for home tutors/supervisors and schools of distance education about effective intervention and assessment strategies to support students’ learning and to assist the home tutors/supervisors in implementing ICT to support the development of literacy and numeracy in the early years. ● A calendar of activities for literacy and numeracy that would act as a stimulus for integrated and authentic activity for young children. ● An embryonic website of resources for the stakeholders in rural and distance education that might act as a catalyst for future resource building and sharing. In this way the final key task of the project, which was to create a context for a strategic dissemination plan, was realised when a strategy to address effective dissemination of the findings of the project so as to maximise their usefulness for the relevant groups was achieved.