Missing the targets and being misunderstood: Child phonology and interactive problems

Effects of vowel variation on interaction are considered, with particular relevance to their role in conversational breakdown. The effect of speaker knowledge and experience is noted as a variable in developmental progress which must inform profiling decisions, and the need for appropriate taxonomies of speech varieties is emphasized as a precursor to clinical and educational assessments. It is noted, too, that a shared sociolinguistic background between speaker and listener does not always resolve difficulties arising from non-target realizations, casting some doubt on ideas that assessors always possess a guaranteed sense of phonological variability and its effects. Hence, an informed understanding of phonological variation, rather than merely awareness that such variation exists, is advocated.

Using low fidelity simulation in interactive workshops for undergraduate medical and midwifery students

There is recognition of the need to continuously improve inter-professional relationships within clinical practice. Mutual respect, effective communication and working together are factors which will contribute to higher standards of care (Miers et al, 2005; Begley, 2008). An inter-professional education initiative, using low-fidelity simulation has been piloted and subsequently embedded within a pre-registration midwifery curriculum. The aim of the collaboration is to enhance inter-professional learning by providing an opportunity for final year midwifery students and 4th year medical students within a non-threatening environment to interact and communicate prior to obstetric clinical placements. The midwifery students are provided with an outline agenda for the workshop, but are encouraged to use creative license with regard to workshop delivery. Preliminary evaluations have been positive from both midwifery and medical students. The teaching sessions have provided an opportunity to learn about and respect each other’s roles. The midwifery students have commented on the enjoyable aspects of team working during preparation and the confidence gained from teaching medical students. The medical students felt that the sessions lowered their anxiety levels going into the labour setting. This workshop will demonstrate how low-fidelity simulation can effectively enhance the students experience promoting team working and self-confidence.

iLectures - Exploring the interactive lecture using web-based broadcasting technology

The continued use of traditional lecturing across Higher Education as the main teaching and learning approach in many disciplines must be challenged. An increasing number of studies suggest that this approach, compared to more active learning methods, is the least effective. In counterargument, the use of traditional lectures are often justified as necessary given a large student population. By analysing the implementation of a web based broadcasting approach which replaced the traditional lecture within a programming-based module, and thereby removed the student population rationale, it was hoped that the student learning experience would become more active and ultimately enhance learning on the module. The implemented model replaces the traditional approach of students attending an on-campus lecture theatre with a web-based live broadcast approach that focuses on students being active learners rather than passive recipients. Students ‘attend’ by viewing a live broadcast of the lecturer, presented as a talking head, and the lecturer’s desktop, via a web browser. Video and audio communication is primarily from tutor to students, with text-based comments used to provide communication from students to tutor. This approach promotes active learning by allowing student to perform activities on their own computer rather than the passive viewing and listening common encountered in large lecture classes. By analysing this approach over two years (n = 234 students) results indicate that 89.6% of students rated the approach as offering a highly positive learning experience. Comparing student performance across three academic years also indicates a positive change. A small data analytic analysis was conducted into student participation levels and suggests that the student cohort's willingness to engage with the broadcast lectures material is high.

Interactive management control via analytic hierarchy process (AHP). An empirical study in a public university hospital

Management control in public university hospitals is a challenging task because of continuous changes due to external pressures (e.g. economic pressures, stakeholder focuses and scientific progress) and internal complexities (top management turnover, shared leadership, technological evolution, and researcher oriented mission). Interactive budgeting contributed to improving vertical and horizontal communication between hospital and stakeholders and between different organizational levels. This paper describes an application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to enhance interactive budgeting in one of the biggest public university hospital in Italy. AHP improved budget allocation facilitating elicitation and formalization of units' needs. Furthermore, AHP facilitated vertical communication among manager and stakeholders, as it allowed multilevel hierarchical representation of hospital needs, and horizontal communication among staff of the same hospital, as it allowed units' need prioritization and standardization, with a scientific multi-criteria approach, without using complex mathematics. Finally, AHP allowed traceability of a complex decision making processes (as budget allocation), this aspect being of paramount importance in public sectors, where managers are called to respond to many different stakeholders about their choices.

Using dramatic activity to enhance Junior Core French students' motivation and oral communication skills /

Junior Core French students' motivation to learn a second language and students' French oral communication skills relating to drama instruction were investigated in this study. Students' increased and improved motivation and oral acquisition were measured by several forms of data collection including journals, questionnaires and surveys, interviews, outside observer and teacher observations, and anecdotal comments. The results indicated that as a result of drama integration in the Junior Core French classroom, grade 5 students, both male and female, were more motivated to participate in second language instruction, thereby increasing and improving their oral communication skills. The findings showed that more males than females reported that drama integration allowed them the opportunity to use their French speaking skills. Research shows that interactive approaches to teaching such as drama give students the motivation and enthusiasm to learn.

The development of a Flanders Interaction Analysis style instrument for use in educational computer mediated communication research

Please consult the paper edition of this thesis to read. It is available on the 5th Floor of the Library at Call Number: Z 9999 E38 D56 1992

Adoption d'une intervention systémique visant à faciliter la communication entre les infirmières et les familles dans un contexte de soins intensifs en traumatologie

Le but de cette étude est d’adopter une intervention systémique visant à faciliter la communication entre les infirmières1 et les familles2 dans un contexte de soins intensifs (SI) en traumatologie. Cette recherche prend en compte la réalité et les besoins du milieu à l’étude grâce au devis participatif retenu. Le cadre de référence est composé de l’approche systémique familiale de Wright et Leahey (2005) ainsi que de la théorie du caring de Jean Watson (1979). La collecte des données a été inspirée du parcours de recherche en spirale de Lehoux, Levy et Rodrigue (1995). Cinq entrevues ont été menées auprès de membres de familles ainsi que trois groupes de discussion (focus groups) auprès d’infirmières. L’analyse des données a été effectuée selon le Modèle de Huberman et Miles (2003) qui préconise une démarche analytique continue et interactive. Les résultats obtenus révèlent un changement de pratique selon dix interventions systémiques infirmières spécifiques permettant de faciliter la communication avec les familles aux soins intensifs en traumatologie et soulignent l’importance d’agir sur le plan du contexte, de la relation et du contenu liés au processus de communication. De plus, ils permettent de démontrer un réel changement de pratique dans le milieu retenu pour l’étude.

Élaboration d'interventions en enseignement de l'art dramatique fondées sur les concepts de la communication

Thèse diffusée initialement dans le cadre d'un projet pilote des Presses de l'Université de Montréal/Centre d'édition numérique UdeM (1997-2008) avec l'autorisation de l'auteur.

L'influence de la formation multimédia/interactive sur le leadership d'habilitation

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Du Linéaire au Stellaire, du film au webdocumentaire : un dispositif de réflexion et de communication sur le réel

Ce texte de mémoire est accompagné du webdocumentaire interactif : De la chaise à la mer, disponible à l'adresse http://www.delachaisealamer.net.

A Language for Interactive Cooperative Agents

Cooperative behaviour of agents within highly dynamic and nondeterministic domains is an active field of research. In particular establishing highly responsive teamwork, where agents are able to react on dynamic changes in the environment while facing unreliable communication and sensory noise, is an open problem. Moreover, modelling such responsive, cooperative behaviour is difficult. In this work, we specify a novel model for cooperative behaviour geared towards highly dynamic domains. In our approach, agents estimate each other’s decision and correct these estimations once they receive contradictory information. We aim at a comprehensive approach for agent teamwork featuring intuitive modelling capabilities for multi-agent activities, abstractions over activities and agents, and a clear operational semantic for the new model. This work encompasses a complete specification of the new language, ALICA.

The potential of digital interactive television for the provision of healthcare and wellness services

The potential of digital interactive television (iDTV) to promote original services, formats and contents that can be relevant to support personal health care and wellness of individuals, namely elderly people, has not been yet fully explored in the past. Therefore, in a context of rapid change of the technological resources, in which the distribution and presentation of content comes associated with new platforms (such as digital terrestrial TV and IPTV), it is important to perceive the configurations that are being developed for interactive digital TV (iDTV) that may result in relevant outcomes within the field of healthcare and wellness, with the aim of offering complementarity to the existing services and contents made available today via the traditional means and media. This article describes and discusses the preliminary results of the first part of the research project iDTV-HEALTH: Inclusive services to promote health and wellness via digital interactive television. These first results suggest that iDTV solutions may represent a real contribution to delivery healthcare and wellness to the target population, namely as a supplement to health services provision.

The use of computer-based learning tools for teaching and clinical purposes: Interactive computing strategy for Iraq

Medical universities and teaching hospitals in Iraq are facing a lack of professional staff due to the ongoing violence that forces them to flee the country. The professionals are now distributed outside the country which reduces the chances for the staff and students to be physically in one place to continue the teaching and limits the efficiency of the consultations in hospitals. A survey was done among students and professional staff in Iraq to find the problems in the learning and clinical systems and how Information and Communication Technology could improve it. The survey has shown that 86% of the participants use the Internet as a learning resource and 25% for clinical purposes while less than 11% of them uses it for collaboration between different institutions. A web-based collaborative tool is proposed to improve the teaching and clinical system. The tool helps the users to collaborate remotely to increase the quality of the learning system as well as it can be used for remote medical consultation in hospitals.

Continuous prewarping of time for multiuser interactive virtual environments

Dynamic multi-user interactions in a single networked virtual environment suffer from abrupt state transition problems due to communication delays arising from network latency--an action by one user only becoming apparent to another user after the communication delay. This results in a temporal suspension of the environment for the duration of the delay--the virtual world `hangs'--followed by an abrupt jump to make up for the time lost due to the delay so that the current state of the virtual world is displayed. These discontinuities appear unnatural and disconcerting to the users. This paper proposes a novel method of warping times associated with users to ensure that each user views a continuous version of the virtual world, such that no hangs or jumps occur despite other user interactions. Objects passed between users within the environment are parameterized, not by real time, but by a virtual local time, generated by continuously warping real time. This virtual time periodically realigns itself with real time as the virtual environment evolves. The concept of a local user dynamically warping the local time is also introduced. As a result, the users are shielded from viewing discontinuities within their virtual worlds, consequently enhancing the realism of the virtual environment.

Student and teacher response system : development of an interactive anonymous real-timeformative feedback system

This paper is focusing IT-supported real-time formative feedback in a classroom context. The development of a Student and Teacher Response System (STRS) is described. Since there are a number of obstacles for effective interaction in large classes IT can be used to support the teachers aim to find out if students understand the lecture and accordingly adjust the content and design of the lecture. The system can be used for formative assessment before, during, and after a lecture. It is also possible for students to initiate interaction during lectures by posing questions anonymously. The main contributions of the paper are a) the description of the interactive real-time system and b) the development process behind it.