Designing Web 2.0 ePortfolios for music postgraduate study : A practice-led enquiry

This article examines the design of ePortfolios for music postgraduate students utilizing a practice-led design iterative research process. It is suggested that the availability of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and social network software potentially provide creative artist with an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about art with artefacts of the artist products and processes present in that discussion. The design process applied Software Development as Research (SoDaR) methodology to simultaneously develop design and pedagogy. The approach to designing ePortfolio systems applied four theoretical protocols to examine the use of digitized artefacts to enable a dynamic and inclusive dialogue around representations of the students work. A negative case analysis identified a disjuncture between university access and control policy, and the relative openness of Web2.0 systems outside the institution that led to the design of an integrated model of ePortfolio.

Thinking as if you are another : drama, persuasive language and pretexts

Using Shaun Tan’s picture book Rules of Summer (2013) as a pretext, this practical session will explore how primary teachers can engage middle and upper primary students in drama-based activities that support student learning and assessment outcomes in both English and The Arts (with a particular emphasis on drama and media arts). The session will explore notions of persuasive text (written and oral), points of view, devised storytelling and embodied learning.

Effects of joint thickness, adhesion and web shells to the face shell bedded concrete masonry loaded in compression

The Australian masonry standard allows either prism tests or correction factors based on the block height and mortar thickness to evaluate masonry compressive strength. The correction factor helps the taller units with conventional 10 mm mortar being not disadvantaged due to size effect. In recent times, 2-4 mm thick, high-adhesive mortars and H blocks with only the mid-web shell are used in masonry construction. H blocks and thinner and higher adhesive mortars have renewed interest of the compression behaviour of hollow concrete masonry and hence is revisited in this paper. This paper presents an experimental study carried out to examine the effects of the thickness of mortar joints, the type of mortar adhesives and the presence of web shells in the hollow concrete masonry prisms under axial compression. A non-contact digital image correlation technique was used to measure the deformation of the prisms and was found adequate for the determination of strain fi eld of the loaded face shells subjected to axial compression. It is found that the absence of end web shells lowers the compressive strength and stiffness of the prisms and the thinner and higher adhesive mortars increase the compressive strength and stiffness, while lowering the Poisson's ratio. © Institution of Engineers Australia, 2013.