Experience of international students from developing countries in negotiating technology for learning

International students are important economically and culturally, bringing diversity and an international perspective enriching learning experiences in classrooms. With the global transformations eLearning has become an important element of students’ higher education experience in developed countries. Although students of developed countries have digital exposure at an early age, many students from developing countries, on the journey of becoming international students, are inadequately prepared for eLearning. The lack of digital skills, prior experience, cultural differences and language barriers together with the drastic changes in learning environments require international students to not only adapt to the host environment but also to negotiate technology for learning. The scarcity of research exploring the eLearning experiences of international students from developing countries and the benefits of this understanding is discussed in an effort to promote research in this area.

Altered anterior insula activation during anticipation and experience of painful stimuli in expert meditators.

Experientially opening oneself to pain rather than avoiding it is said to reduce the mind's tendency toward avoidance or anxiety which can further exacerbate the experience of pain. This is a central feature of mindfulness-based therapies. Little is known about the neural mechanisms of mindfulness on pain. During a meditation practice similar to mindfulness, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used in expert meditators (> 10,000 h of practice) to dissociate neural activation patterns associated with pain, its anticipation, and habituation. Compared to novices, expert meditators reported equal pain intensity, but less unpleasantness. This difference was associated with enhanced activity in the dorsal anterior insula (aI), and the anterior mid-cingulate (aMCC) the so-called ‘salience network’, for experts during pain. This enhanced activity during pain was associated with reduced baseline activity before pain in these regions and the amygdala for experts only. The reduced baseline activation in left aI correlated with lifetime meditation experience. This pattern of low baseline activity coupled with high response in aIns and aMCC was associated with enhanced neural habituation in amygdala and pain-related regions before painful stimulation and in the pain-related regions during painful stimulation. These findings suggest that cultivating experiential openness down-regulates anticipatory representation of aversive events, and increases the recruitment of attentional resources during pain, which is associated with faster neural habituation.

Reply to Christine Sylvester, “Terro rWars: Boston Iraq”: An examination of differences between counter-terrorism and war as seen through the Iraqi experience of occupation

This response examines what is overlooked in Sylvester’s analysis of similarities between the US police security response to the Boston marathon bombings (2013) and Kevin Powers’ fictionalized account of the US war operations in Al Tafar, Iraq (2004) and evaluates the consequences for our understanding of contemporary war. This is done by highlighting differences between the experience of residents in Boston and the (real) town of Tal Afar, key among them the insecurity, fear and calamity that result from the distinct political realities in these locations. The experience of war from the perspective of the victims adds an important dimension to the debate over the changing nature of war. At a time that is marked by an unprecedented level of technologization and visual mediation, it brings into focus the fragmentary and often one-sided evidence on which our knowledge of contemporary war is based. It reminds us to ask not only what we know about war, but how we know it.

Meta-morphs: – being a mediator of the ‘thin’ place and ‘thin’ experience in the HE classroom. A paper on the experience of creating transformations in HE teaching and learning

The research which underpins this paper began as a doctoral project exploring archaic beliefs concerning Otherworlds and Thin Places in two particular landscapes - the West Coast of Wales and the West Coast of Ireland. A Thin Place is an ancient Celtic Christian term used to describe a marginal, liminal realm, beyond everyday human experience and perception, where mortals could pass into the Otherworld more readily, or make contact with those in the Otherworld more willingly. To encounter a Thin Place in ancient folklore was significant because it engendered a state of alertness, an awakening to what the theologian John O’ Donohue (2004: 49) called “the primal affection.” These complex notions and terms will be further explored in this paper in relation to Education. Thin Teaching is a pedagogical approach which offers students the space to ruminate on the possibility that their existence can be more and can mean more than the categories they believed they belonged to or felt they should inhabit. Central to the argument then, is that certain places and their inhabitants can become revitalised by sensitively considered teaching methodologies. This raises interesting questions about the role spirituality plays in teaching practice as a tool for healing in the twenty first century.

The experience of friendship, victimization and bullying in children with an autism spectrum disorder: associations with child characteristics and school placement

Children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be vulnerable to social isolation and bullying. We measured the friendship, fighting/bullying and victimization experiences of 10–12-year-old children with an ASD (N = 100) using parent, teacher and child self-report. Parent and teacher reports were compared to an IQ-matched group of children with special educational needs (SEN) without ASD (N = 80) and UK population data. Parents and teachers reported a lower prevalence of friendships compared to population norms and to children with SEN without an ASD. Parents but not teachers reported higher levels of victimization than the SEN group. Half of the children with an ASD reported having friendships that involved mutuality. By teacher report children with an ASD who were less socially impaired in mainstream school experienced higher levels of victimization than more socially impaired children; whereas for more socially impaired children victimization did not vary by school placement. Strategies are required to support and improve the social interaction skills of children with an ASD, to enable them to develop and maintain meaningful peer friendships and avoid victimization.

“Very sore nights and days”: the child’s experience of illness in early modern England, c. 1580-1720

Sick children were ubiquitous in early modern England, and yet they have received very little attention from historians. Taking the elusive perspective of the child, this article explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual experience of illness in England between approximately 1580 and 1720. What was it like being ill and suffering pain? How did the young respond emotionally to the anticipation of death? It is argued that children’s experiences were characterised by profound ambivalence: illness could be terrifying and distressing, but also a source of emotional and spiritual fulfilment and joy. This interpretation challenges the common assumption amongst medical historians that the experiences of early modern patients were utterly miserable. It also sheds light on children’s emotional feelings for their parents, a subject often overlooked in the historiography of childhood. The primary sources used in this article include diaries, autobiographies, letters, the biographies of pious children, printed possession cases, doctors’ casebooks, and theological treatises concerning the afterlife.

The experience of the hidden curriculum for autistic girls at mainstream primary schools

This article presents the findings of ethnographic case studies of three girls on the autistic spectrum attending mainstream primary schools and illustrates the difficulties they experience and the ways in which these are often unrecognised. The observations of the girls and subsequent individual interviews with their mothers, class teachers, SENCO’s and ultimately themselves, reveal the personal adjustments the girls make in response to the hidden curriculum and the ways in which these go unnoticed, effectively masking their need for support, and contributing to their underachievement in school. The research also identifies a misunderstanding of autism in girls by some teachers that contributes to a lack of support for their needs, despite their diagnosis. Teachers need to understand how autistic girls present, and how they learn, if they are to recognise the need to illuminate the hidden curriculum. The implications of these findings are that without this awareness autistic girls in mainstream settings are also at risk of limited access to the known curriculum and of social isolation.

Kvinnors upplevelse av planerad hemförlossning i Skandinavien : Women´s experience of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries

Background: In Sweden and Norway planned home birth is not included in the health care system. In Denmark women with expected low risk birth have the right to choose home birth. Registrations of home births in the Nordic countries are not completed and women’s experiences of planned home birth in Scandinavian context are not earlier described.Objective: The aim of this study was to describe women’s experiences of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries.Design: Inductive content analysis. Fifty-three Scandinavian women who have experienced planned home birth have replied an open question in a questionnaire. Findings: In the analysis five categories and twelve subcategories emerged. The categories were, to feel secure, experiences of support, being in control, harmony and insecurity. The women felt secure and calm in their own homes. They felt being in control, secure, support and trust in the midwife, relatives and the own body. What worried the women most in presence of the delivery was that the midwife should not be present. Keywords: Home birth, experiences, women.

Sex, a one mans show : Perceptions and experience of sexuality, contraceptives, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion among young people in Kisumu, Kenya – A qualitative study

This study aimed to explore perceptions and experiences concerning sexuality, contraceptives, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion among young people in Kisumu, Kenya. The design of the study was inductive with a qualitative approach using personal in-depth interviews. Eight participants (four female and four male) were asked to describe their perceptions and experience concerning sexuality, contraceptives, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion. The result showed that culture and norms, misconceptions and gender based power in sexuality are factors that impact Sexual Reproductive Health among young people in Kisumu today. Unwanted pregnancy was described as a shame, a burden and a destroyed life which lead to many unsafely induced abortions. The findings indicate that youth interventions are important, such as engaging young men in unwanted pregnancy and thus unsafe abortions and to empower young women.