Plain English writing in Sri Lanka - an achievable goal

The use of plain English in document writing, whether in correspondence, agreements and deeds, court documents or judicial writing, is an important goal for the legal profession in Sri Lanka.

The use of multimodal technologies to enhance reflective writing in teacher education

For preservice teachers new to the teaching profession, reflective practice can be a difficult process. Yet reflective writing, once mastered, has the capacity to support preservice teachers to make connections between teaching theory and professional practice, and to start to take control of their own professional learning journey. The reflective practice described in this chapter was scaffolded through a framework for writing, the use of annotated work samples and explicit teaching. This approach was enhanced through multimodal resources including written peer assessment, audio teacher feedback and a video recording of the class presentation. The video footage assisted the preservice teachers to reconcile the feedback that they received from multiple sources. This chapter describes and analyses the implementation of the PRT Pattern (Prompting Reflection using Technology). Results of this practice revealed that the multiple forms of feedback assisted the preservice teachers to analyse their performance in terms of their developing professional identity and practice.

Teaching and Assessing Reflective Writing in a Large Undergraduate Core Substantive Law Unit

The focus of higher education has shifted towards building students’ skills and self-awareness for future employment, in addition to developing substantive discipline knowledge. This means that there is an increasing need for embedding approaches to teaching and learning which provide a context for skills development and opportunities for students to prepare for the transition from legal education to professional practice. This chapter reports on a large (500-600 students) core undergraduate Equity law unit in an Australian University. ePortfolio has been embedded in Equity as a means of enabling students to document their reflections on their skill development in that unit. Students are taught, practice and are assessed on their teamwork and letter writing skills in the context of writing a letter of advice to a fictional client in response to a real world problem. Following submission of the team letter, students are asked to reflect on their skill development and document their reflections in ePortfolio. A scaffolded approach to teaching reflective writing is adopted using a blended model of delivery which combines face to face lectures and online resources, including an online module, facts sheets designed to guide students through the process of reflection by following the TARL model of reflection, and exemplars of reflective writing. Although students have engaged in the process of reflective writing in Equity for some years, in semester one 2011 assessment criteria were developed and the ePortfolio reflections were summatively assessed for the first time. The model of teaching and assessing reflective practice was evaluated in a range of ways by seeking feedback from students and academic staff responsible for implementing the model and asking them to reflect on their experiences. This chapter describes why skill development and reflective writing were embedded in the undergraduate law unit Equity; identify the teaching and learning approaches which were implemented to teach reflective writing to online and internal Equity students; explain the assessment processes; analyse the empirical evidence from evaluations; document the lessons learnt and discuss planned future improvements to the teaching and assessment strategies.

Elisabet Eliasberg writing in her first American home after fleeing Hitler's Austria; 73 Payson Avenue, New York City Portraits Women

Digital Image

High contrast laser writing in insitu textured germanium films via a novel chemical oxide formation

A high contrast laser writing technique based on laser induced efficient chemical oxidation in insitu textured Ge films is demonstrated. Free running Nd-YAG laser pulses are used for irradiating the films. The irradiation effects have been characterised using optical microscopy, electron spectroscopy and microdensitometry. The mechanism for the observed contrast has been identified as due to formation of GeO2 phase upon laser irradiation using X-ray initiated Auger spectroscopy (XAES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The contrast in the present films is found to be nearly five times more than that known due to GeO phase formation in similar films.

Quantitative evaluation of electron beam writing in passivated gold nanoclusters

Jenkins, Tudor; Hayton, D.J.; Bedson, T.R.; Palmer, R.E., (2001) 'Quantitative evaluation of electron beam writing in passivated gold nanoclusters', Applied Physics Letters (78) pp.1921-1923 RAE2008

The atom pencil: serial writing in the sub-micrometre domain

The atom pencil we describe here is a versatile tool that writes arbitrary structures by atomic deposition in a serial lithographic process. This device consists of a transversely laser-cooled and collimated cesium atomic beam that passes through a 4-pole atom-flux concentrator and impinges on to micron- and sub-micron-sized apertures. The aperture translates above a fixed substrate and enables the writing of sharp features with sizes down to 280 nm. We have investigated the writing and clogging properties of an atom pencil tip fabricated from silicon oxide pyramids perforated at the tip apex with a sub-micron aperture.

Writing to learn and learning to write across the disciplines: Peer-to-peer writing in introductory-level MOOCs

© Comer, Clark, Canelas.This study aimed to evaluate how peer-to-peer interactions through writing impact student learning in introductory-level massive open online courses (MOOCs) across disciplines. This article presents the results of a qualitative coding analysis of peer-to-peer interactions in two introductory level MOOCs: English Composition I: Achieving Expertise and Introduction to Chemistry. Results indicate that peer-to-peer interactions in writing through the forums and through peer assessment enhance learner understanding, link to course learning objectives, and generally contribute positively to the learning environment. Moreover, because forum interactions and peer review occur in written form, our research contributes to open distance learning (ODL) scholarship by highlighting the importance of writing to learn as a significant pedagogical practice that should be encouraged more in MOOCs across disciplines.

'Neo-Latin Writing in the British Isles'

This chapter seeks to identify cultural and generic trends and authorial methodologies that may serve to unify or to differentiate between the histories of neo-Latin literature in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It considers ways in which Latin served to bridge horizontal spaces (both physical and metaphorical) between four British regions, between neo-Latin writers in Britain and their continental predecessors and peers, and between Latin and the respective vernacular(s). It also examines vertical spaces (both chronological and cultural) between the neo-Latin and the classical Latin text, and between the linear demarcations of ‘early modern’, ‘Augustan’ and ‘Romantic’. An assessment of links between nationhood and the neo-Latin text as evinced by anthologies, antiquarian and quasi-historical writing, is followed by examples of generic continuity and metamorphosis in the British neo-Latin pastoral, ode and epigram. The concluding sections offer two generic case-studies (neo-Latin epic and didactic) both of which, it is argued, engendered the birth of specifically British versions of the mock-heroic and mock-didactic.