IT Education News, March-April 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, May-June 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, July-August 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, November-December 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, September-October 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

Socio-cultural determinants of adiposity and physical activity in preschool children: a cross-sectional study.

Both individual socio-cultural determinants such as selected parental characteristics (migrant background, low educational level and workload) as well as the regional environment are related to childhood overweight and physical activity (PA). The purpose of the study was to compare the impact of distinct socio-cultural determinants such as the regional environment and selected parental characteristics on adiposity, PA and motor skills in preschool children. Forty preschools (N = 542 children) of two culturally different urban regions (German and French speaking part of Switzerland) participated in the study (Ballabeina Study). Outcome measures included adiposity (BMI and skinfold thickness), objectively measured sedentary activities and PA (accelerometers) and agility performance (obstacle course). Parental characteristics (migrant status, educational level and workload) were assessed by questionnaire. Children from the French speaking areas had higher adiposity, lower levels of total and of more intense PA, were more sedentary and less agile than children from the German speaking regions (percent differences for all outcome parameters except for BMI ≥10%; all p ≤ 0.04). Differences in skinfold thickness, sedentary activities and agility, but not in PA, were also found between children of Swiss and migrant parents, though they were ≤8% (p ≤ 0.02). While paternal workload had no effect, maternal workload and parental education resulted in differences in some PA measures and/or agility performance (percent differences in both: ≤9%, p ≤ 0.008), but not in adiposity or sedentary activities (p = NS). Regional differences in skinfold thickness, PA, sedentary activities and agility performance persisted after adjustment for parental socio-cultural characteristics, parental BMI and, where applicable, children's skinfolds (all p ≤ 0.01). The regional environment, especially the broader social environment, plays a prominent role in determining adiposity, PA and motor skills of young children and should be implicated in the prevention of obesity and promotion of PA in children. clinicaltrials.gov NCT00674544.

Asessing public policies. The case of education in Europe and the interaction between personal and institutional factors

The paper deals with the comparative study of European citizens satisfaction with thestate of education in their respective countries. Individual and contextual effects aretested applying multilevel analysis. The results show that educational public policies(level of decentralization, degree of comprehensiveness and public spending) as well asthe students social environment (socioeconomic and cultural status) have a soundimpact on the opinions about the state of education.

O Dualismo Cultural: os Luso-Caboverdianos entre a Escola a Família e a Comunidade (Estudo de Caso)

A tese que ora findamos visa a obtenção do grau de doutora em Educação, na Especialidade de Desenvolvimento Curricular, pelo Departamento do Currículo e Tecnologia Educativa, do Instituto de Educação e Psicologia, da Universidade do Minho. Intitulado o dualismo cultural: os luso-caboverdianos entre a escola, a família e a comunidade, o presente estudo centra-se numa abordagem crítica da escolaridade básica obrigatória, no qual procurámos compreender e explicar as condições de realização deste nível de ensino pelos jovens de ascendência caboverdiana, nascidos em Portugal, na qualidade de sujeitos biculturais em consequência da simbiose das culturas caboverdeana e portuguesa. Isto para concluirmos se na oferta do serviço educativo e de formação estão acautelados os seus direitos de cidadania e de participação na sociedade em que se encontram inseridos e a que pertencem de facto. Nesta investigação foi fundamental analisar a oferta de educação básica, entender as representações de alunos lusocaboverdeanos acerca da sua identidade cultural e das suas percepções sobre a formação académica que recebem; reconhecer representações e percepções de professores acerca da realidade educativa portuguesa, o enquadramento da multiculturalidade e a docência em turmas com alunos luso-caboverdianos, e compreender as percepções de pais e encarregados da educação caboverdeanos acerca da realidade educativa portuguesa e do enquadramento dos seus filhos na escola, para perceber se o insucesso educativo dos luso-caboverdeanos está relacionado com a condição de aluno “culturalmente diferente” ou se tem a sua origem na escola e no currículo da escolaridade obrigatória e, assim, contribuir com subsídios teóricos e práticos para o aprofundamento da problemática da multiculturalidade em Portugal, com vista à sua potenciação e normalização no sistema educativo. Estando perante uma sociedade de formação multicultural reafirmada com a colonização, justifica-se, em Portugal, a preocupação com a temática da diversidade cultural nas políticas educativas, resultante da consciencialização da manifestação da diversidade cultural no contexto escolar, podendo a sua omissão constituir num factor de insucesso educativo. Por isso, integramos nesta investigação matérias como: uma conceptualização do multiculturalismo com vista a questionar e clarificar os conceitos e as perspectivas inerentes a este fenómeno. Uma tentativa de desocultar para perceber o conteúdo simbólico e os porquês das políticas de integração das minorias etnicoculturais que, ao que parece, nos tempos que correm, por quase toda a parte, se converteram numa prioridade absoluta e inadiável. Estabelecemos uma ponte entre a génese do campo curricular e a construção de um currículo multi e/ou intercultural, merecendo devida atenção as tendências que dominam as discussões e a produção científica actuais nestes domínios. Problematizámos o currículo e identidade na escolaridade obrigatória nas dimensões inserção sociocultural, promoção da igualdade de sucesso educativo e inclusão dos sujeitos e o currículo e a educação para o exercício da cidadania numa escola que se quer plural. Neste último debatemos o conteúdo político da educação para a cidadania, as políticas educativas e curriculares e a escolaridade básica obrigatória como uma proposta que continua em aberto, por isso, passível de adequação às necessidades de uma educação da e para a diversidade. Procurámos fazer uma análise das políticas de integração socioeducativa da diversidade cultural, com destaque para o quadro legal que regula a integração das minorias étnicas na escola básica portuguesa, com particular incidência sobre as crianças pertencentes à comunidade caboverdeana nascidas em território português, procurando concluir acerca da existência, ou não, de posições e opções de políticas educativas concretas face à necessidade de dar prosseguimento à educação multicultural neste contexto. Tratou-se de uma investigação qualitativa holística, que permitiu desenvolver compreensões profundas dos fenómenos a partir das evidências reunidas, do estudo das representações dos sujeitos sobre quem recaem os resultados da investigação, mas também de sujeitos que, assim como o meio envolvente, estabelecem uma relação indirecta com os mesmos resultados. Circunscrito a um estudo de caso, a reflexão e a partilha de conhecimento e informações possibilitou desenvolver uma compreensão sobre a problemática estudada. Dos resultados obtidos, destacámos aqui que, em Portugal, apesar da absorvência da diversidade cultural nas política educativa, não se concretizou, ainda, uma proposta que, na prática, crie a reciprocidade entre as questões etnicoculturais e o sucesso e/ou insucesso educativos das minorias em educação com ganhos decisivos no combate ao insucesso e ao abandono escolar. Continua-se a desenvolver uma educação igualitarista monocultural pela via da homogeneização curricular, assente na noção de que povos e grupos podem estar em condições de igualdade se reunidos numa cultura comum. Aparentemente sob pilares democráticos, esta educação multicultural segue a concepção liberal associando essencialismo, universalismo e igualitarismo, resultando num propósito civilizacional excludente das minorias etnicoculturais. As conclusões chegadas permitem-nos defender a dessacralização do currículo nacional comum e uniforme e a defesa de uma proposta curricular baseada numa cultura científica global e necessária, de acordo com as faixas etárias e níveis de ensino, com campos de integração obrigatória de conteúdos territorializados alicerçados no interculturalismo como estratégia promotora da interacção crítica e solidária entre diferentes sujeitos e grupos culturais, permissiva da construção de identidades próprias e da confissão da diferença cultural, associada ao intraculturalismo como uma via permeabilizadora da educação democrática como garante da cidadania plena a todos os indivíduos, como condição fundamental para o estabelecimento das condições de igualdade e de garantia de sucesso em educação.

Relatório Final Jogos-Simulação De Marketing – Power Computer

This school in the course of Marketing Business Management and specifically Entrepr This school in the course of Marketing Business Management and specifically Entrepreneurship in the discipline of Simulation - Games Marketing year was accordingly for the creation of a company in the computer business in business online simulator called Marketplace, in order to put into practice all the theoretical knowledge acquired during all previous semesters. This platform we were confronted with decisions in eight quarters corresponding 4 every year , in order to encourage learning in a practical way, a virtual and dynamic environment. Every quarter acareados with well organized tasks taking as a reference point defined strategies such as market research analysis, branding , store management after its creation , development of the policy of the 4Ps , identifying opportunities , monitoring of finances and invest heavily . All quarters were subjected decisions and are then given the results , such as: market performance , financial performance, investments in the future , the "health" of the company 's marketing efficiency then analyzed by our company , teaching and also by competition Balanced Scorecard ie , semi-annual and cumulative . For the start of activities it was awarded the 1st year a total of 2,000,000, corresponding to 500,000 out of 4 first quarter , and 5,000,000 in the fifth quarter in a total of 7,000,000 . The capital invested was used to buy market research, opening sales offices , create brands , contract sales force , advertise products created and perform activity R & D in order to make a profit and become self- sufficient to guarantee the payment of principal invested to headquarters ( Corporate Headquarters ) .

Working with Iowans building a culture of conservation, Program Summary, November 2008

Over 94% of Iowa ’ s land is held in private ownership, and the programs of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Division of Soil Conservation (IDALS-DSC) have been established to work with these landowners. Over 90% of the landscape is used for agricultural production so much of our focus is in rural communities, but we haven’t overlooked the importance of land management in urban areas. It is crucial to understanding of both conservation and hydrology issues, that what happens on the landscape has immense consequences to the environmental health of our state and the quality of life we enjoy. IDALS-DSC is striving to integrate our programs with other agencies and local concerns to improve water and local concerns to improve water and soil quality throughout the state and nation.

Generación de cursos virtuales adaptativos en SCORM e IMS-LD

The use of virtual learning environments it’s more and more frequent in all education levels. However, this increasing use of such environments also implies that the different stages now used in the processes of teaching-learning need to be considered. Student users in a virtual learning environment are faced, not only to the problems related to acquire the knowledge of their course, but also to technological problems as information overloading, getting used to web surfing, computer use, etc. One way to minimize the impact caused by heterogeneity existing in virtual learning environments is to adapt several aspects to the specific characteristics from the user and his context. From this point of view, this work shows a model for an integral user that has been used to generate a virtual course that can interoperate between ELearning platforms. This course has been created using the SCORM reference model and the IMSLD specification

Application of real-time PCR for total airborne bacterial assessment : comparison with epifluorescence microscopy and culture-dependent methods

Traditional culture-dependent methods to quantify and identify airborne microorganisms are limited by factors such as short-duration sampling times and inability to count nonculturableor non-viable bacteria. Consequently, the quantitative assessment of bioaerosols is often underestimated. Use of the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) to quantify bacteria in environmental samples presents an alternative method, which should overcome this problem. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a real-time Q-PCR assay as a simple and reliable way to quantify the airborne bacterial load within poultry houses and sewage treatment plants, in comparison with epifluorescencemicroscopy and culture-dependent methods. The estimates of bacterial load that we obtained from real-time PCR and epifluorescence methods, are comparable, however, our analysis of sewage treatment plants indicate these methods give values 270-290 fold greater than those obtained by the ''impaction on nutrient agar'' method. The culture-dependent method of air impaction on nutrient agar was also inadequate in poultry houses, as was the impinger-culture method, which gave a bacterial load estimate 32-fold lower than obtained by Q-PCR. Real-time quantitative PCR thus proves to be a reliable, discerning, and simple method that could be used to estimate airborne bacterial load in a broad variety of other environments expected to carry high numbers of airborne bacteria. [Authors]

Commentary on the need for a research culture in the forensic sciences

Asked to comment on a collective discussion paper by Jennifer L. Mnookin et al., this Commentary identifies difficulties the authors encountered in defining or agreeing on the subject matter "forensic science" and its perceived deficiencies. They conclude that there is a need for a research culture, whereas this Commentary calls for the development of a forensic science culture through the development of forensic science education fed by research dedicated to forensic science issues. It is a call for a change of emphasis and, perhaps, of paradigm.

Placement of Students Ages 3-21 with Disabilities Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): A Policy Discussion, May 2010

The provision of free appropriate public education (FAPE), an Individualized Education Program (IEP), and the least restrictive environment (LRE) have been important cornerstones of educating students with disabilities since the enactment of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), Public Law 94-142, in 1975, and its subsequent reauthorizations, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, 1997, and 2004. It is impossible to consider any one of these cornerstones without the others, when determining an appropriate educational placement for a student with a disability. The Iowa Department of Education has identified several practice issues regarding the interplay between FAPE, LRE, and the IEP in placement decisions for students with disabilities. To that end, this document will provide guidance for administrators of local education agencies (LEAs) and area education agencies (AEAs), as well as IEP teams (or other placement teams) within Iowa LEAs and AEAs when making placement decisions for eligible children with disabilities. This guidance will specifically discuss ten LRE and FAPE placement/program policy questions that have been identified by the Iowa Department of Education as needing attention. The policy discussions are consistent with the legal provisions of the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA (IDEA 2004) and its 2006 final federal implementing regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). This document is also consistent with the Iowa Administrative Rules of Special Education (2007) [hereinafter “Iowa Rules”]. In addition, the term local education agency (LEA) is used interchangeably for school district throughout this document. Prior to the discussion of specific policy questions, a federal and state legal framework for providing FAPE for students with disabilities within the LRE is briefly outlined. Pertinent FAPE and LRE court decisions that impact Iowa LEAs and AEAs are also included within Section II.

Addressing elementary school teachers' professional stressors: Practical suggestions for schools and adminstrators

Purpose: Given the preponderance of education reform since the No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2001), reform efforts have shaped the nature of the work and culture in schools. The emphasis on standardized testing to determine schools' status and student performance, among other factors, has generated stress, particularly for teachers. Therefore, district and school administrators are encouraged to consider the contextual factors that contribute to teacher stress to address them and to retain high-performing teachers. Research Methods/Approach: Participants were recruited from two types of schools in order to test hypotheses related to directional responding as a function of working in a more challenging (high-priority) or less challenging (non-high-priority) school environment. We employed content analysis to analyze 64 suburban elementary school teachers' free-responses to a prompt regarding their stress as teachers. We cross-analyzed our findings through external auditing to bolster trustworthiness in the data and in the procedure. Findings: Teachers reported personal and contextual stressors. Herein, we reported concrete examples of the five categories of contextual stressors teachers identified: political and educational structures, instructional factors, student factors, parent and family factors, and school climate. We found directional qualities and overlapping relationships in the data, partially confirming our hypotheses. Implications for Research and Practice: We offer specific recommendations for practical ways in which school administrators might systemically address teacher stress based on the five categories of stressors reported by participants. We also suggest means of conducting action research to measure the effects of implemented suggestions.