Bringing Funds of Family Knowledge to school. The Living Morocco Project (“برغملا شيعلا”)

The purpose of the study, grounded in sociocultural theory, is to describe the funds of knowledge of a Moroccan family living in Catalonia (Spain) in order to document how teachers can use these funds of knowledge to make direct links between students' lives and classroom teaching. The funds of knowledge approach is based on a simple premise: regardless of any socio-economical and sociocultural "deficit" that people may or may not have all families accumulate bodies of beliefs, ideas, skills and abilities based on their experiences (in areas such as their occupation or their religion). The challenge consists in connecting these bodies of educational resources with teaching practice in order to connect the curriculum with students' lives. In doing so, qualitative research can be carried out using several techniques such as self portraits, self-definition tasks, assessment of family artefacts, documenting routines through photographs, or the analysis of a person's significant circle. The results in terms of teaching practices illustrate the variety of ways teachers can make connections between home and school in ways that assist learners in their academic development. In this article, we propose using the term funds of identity to complement the concept of funds of knowledge

Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System Member Handbook, September 2011

The IPERS Member Handbook summarizes the retirement plan that is provided for most employees of Iowa’s schools, cities, counties, townships, state agencies, and other governmental units. This publication explains the rights and benefits of IPERS membership in as clear and useful a manner as possible; however, it is not intended to be a complete presentation of the IPERS law and policies. Benefits provided under IPERS differ for Special service members—sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, and those working in other protection occupations, such as firefighters, police, correctional officers, and conservation officers. This publication explains what these differences are. To help you find information that applies only to you, IPERS also publishes a variety of booklets and brochures to guide you through IPERS benefits at specific stages of your career, from membership enrollment to retirement. These educational resources are available for viewing or printing from our website at www.ipers.org. You may also contact IPERS and request a free printed copy. Alternative formats containing the information in this publication are available upon request. Note: This publication reflects the law as of July 2011. Some provisions will become effective at later dates, as noted. Any inconsistencies or inadvertent omissions will be resolved in favor of the law.

Growing The Fields of Opportunity for Children and Adults with Autism in Iowa, 2009-2010

Many would argue that the dramatic rise in autism has reached critical mass, and this council echoes that statement. Iowa, like many states in the nation, is currently ill equipped to handle the large influx of children and adults with autism. When this council was initially formed we were facing diagnosis rates of 1 in 150 and currently the diagnosis rate is 1 in 91. Current resource strains in education, qualified trained professionals, access to care, and financial services are rapidly deteriorating Iowa’s ability to deliver quality services to children, adults, and families affected by autism. If Iowa leadership fails to act quickly the already strained system will face a breaking point in the following areas: financing, coordination of care, educational resources, early identification, adult services, and access to service delivery - just to name a few. This council has taken the past 12 plus months hearing testimony from state officials, providers, and caregivers to ensure that care for those with autism is effective, cost efficient, and accessible. This council will be making recommendations on three major areas; early identification, seamless support/coordination of care, and financing of care. While these areas will be highlighted in this first annual report it in no way minimizes other areas that need to be addressed such as early intervention, special education, training, in-home support services, financing options, and data collection. Implementing the initial recommendations of this council will lay foundational support for the areas mentioned above. Often those in position to help ask what can be done to help families in Iowa. This council has provided a roadmap to help facilitate effective and proven treatments to children and adults with autism.

Extending Learning Objects by Means of Social Networking

Learning objects have been the promise of providing people with high quality learning resources. Initiatives such as MIT Open-CourseWare, MERLOT and others have shown the real possibilities of creating and sharing knowledge through Internet. Thousands of educational resources are available through learning object repositories. We indeed live in an age of content abundance, and content can be considered as infrastructure for building adaptive and personalized learning paths, promoting both formal and informal learning. Nevertheless, although most educational institutions are adopting a more open approach, publishing huge amounts of educational resources, the reality is that these resources are barely used in other educational contexts. This paradox can be partly explained by the dificulties in adapting such resources with respect to language, e-learning standards and specifications and, finally, granularity. Furthermore, if we want our learners to use and take advantage of learning object repositories, we need to provide them with additional services than just browsing and searching for resources. Social networks can be a first step towards creating an open social community of learning around a topic or a subject. In this paper we discuss and analyze the process of using a learning object repository and building a social network on the top of it, with respect to the information architecture needed to capture and store the interaction between learners and resources in form of learning object metadata.

Promoting the Creation, Share and Use of OERs through Open Repositories and Social Networks

In this paper we discuss and analyze the process of using a learning object repository and building a social network on the top of it, including aspects related to open source technologies, promoting the use of the repository by means of social networks and helping learners to develop their own learning paths.

La educación para la salud como objeto de estudio histórico : proyecto de investigación

Objetivo: El objetivo es presentar el proyecto de investigación cuyo propósito es conocer la evolución de la Educación para la salud (EpS) desde la antigüedad hasta la época contemporánea, con el fin de identificar y comprender la génesis y construcción de la disciplina. Método: Se trata de un estudio cualitativo histórico enmarcado en el paradigma interpretativo etnohistórico y hermenéutico. Los pilares básicos en que se enmarca conceptualmente, son la Educación, la Persona, grupo o comunidad y la Salud. El espacio social, es aquel en que los grupos sociales vivían y el estructural-temporal, las épocas históricas: prehistoria, antigüedad (culturas antiguas y clásicas), edad media, renacimiento y contemporánea hasta pasada la Guerra Civil española (1940). El sujeto de estudio es la EpS a partir de los elementos que la conforman: el concepto de salud, las creencias, los conocimientos sanitarios, las intervenciones y los recursos educativos para la salud de les personas y los grupos sociales en cada una de las épocas históricas a estudio. Las fuentes utilizadas son las indirectas, materiales-arqueológicas y culturales: verbales (escritas) y no verbales (semiológicas/audiovisuales) y las no seriadas. La recogida de información a través de técnicas de investigación histórica cualitativa: la observación y análisis documental bibliográfico, iconográfico de archivos, prensa, publicaciones oficiales, textos bibliográficos y técnicas textuales-filosóficas: análisis de contenido y crítica histórica. El análisis de la información será cronológico y mediante una clasificación por temáticas y periodos históricos.

Recursos educativos abiertos: Una iniciativa con barreras aún por superar

Los recursos educativos abiertos son un concepto reciente en lo que respecta a la organización del mundo de intercambio de variedad de materiales y herramientas educacionales, e instituciones como la UNESCO están interesadas en el desarrollo de éstos para ser utilizados en una escala tan amplia y global como sea posible. Sin embargo, los REA cuentan con algunas dificultades para obtener plenamente su eficacia, ya que existen diferencias cruciales en la organización y en la interacción de estas redes abiertas. Este artículo intenta explorar el intercambio libre y legal de los contenidos y su reutilización como recursos de apoyo para el aprendizaje en diferentes espacios en línea, aprovechando las posibilidades tecnológicas que permiten conformar nuevas estructuras de socialización y colaboración en línea; y concluye con una reflexión sobre las barreras que aún tienen que superar los REA para lograr un éxito total.

Search and Discovery : OER's Open Loop

Open educational resources (OER) promise increased access, participation, quality, and relevance, in addition to cost reduction. These seemingly fantastic promises are based on the supposition that educators and learners will discover existing resources, improve them, and share the results, resulting in a virtuous cycle of improvement and re-use. By anecdotal metrics, existing web scale search is not working for OER. This situation impairs the cycle underlying the promise of OER, endangering long term growth and sustainability. While the scope of the problem is vast, targeted improvements in areas of curation, indexing, and data exchange can improve the situation, and create opportunities for further scale. I explore the way the system is currently inadequate, discuss areas for targeted improvement, and describe a prototype system built to test these ideas. I conclude with suggestions for further exploration and development.

Optimización del comportamiento informacional mediante el uso de herramientas de bookmarking

La actual sociedad del conocimiento así como las nuevas políticas educativas de la Unión Europea requieren una nueva aproximación a los recursos educativos. El uso de un formato cerrado y monolítico como puede ser el libro de texto tiene que ser substituido por la creación y actualización constante de colecciones o repositorios de recursos que faciliten y formen parte del proceso de aprendizaje. El presente trabajo introduce una aproximación a este nuevo paradigma a través del análisis de tres niveles: la investigación del comportamiento informacional de estudiantes en el uso de recursos educativos disponibles en la red; el análisis funcional y de usabilidad de las herramientas que dan soporte a la gestión y uso de los recursos de información; y la prueba piloto de una herramienta de bookmarking en las aulas virtuales de la asignatura de Interacción Persona-Ordenador cómo práctica para mejorar el comportamiento informacional de los estudiantes. Considerar conjuntamente estos tres niveles es clave para mejorar el comportamiento informacional de los estudiantes y, en consecuencia, permitir una mejor adquisición de las competencias informacionales esenciales en el contexto actual.

Recursos educativos abiertos: Acceso a través de repositorios y uso educacional

Se presenta una revisión bibliográfica, estado del arte, historia, características, desarrollo, proyectos y líneas de investigación de los recursos educativos abiertos (OERs), así como su disposición en repositorios y su uso en la práctica educativa universitaria. Los OERs han tenido dos fases: una inicial, preocupada por el acceso, y otra más actual, centrada en su incorporación a la práctica educativa.

Analyzing OpenCourseWare usage by means of social tagging

Anàlisi de l'ús de OpenCourseWare per mitjà de marcadors socials

OERopoly : A Game to Generate Collective Intelligence around OER

Collective Intelligence (CI ) is a phenomenon that emerges at the crossroads of three worlds: Open Educational Resources (OER), Web 2.0 technologies and Online Learning Communities. Building CI for the OER movement means capturing the richness of information, experiences, knowledge and resources, that the movement is constantly generating, in a way that they can be shared and reused for the benefit of the movement itself. The organisation of CI starts from collecting the knowledge and experiences of OER's practitioners and scholars in new creative forms, and then situating this knowledge in a collective 'pot' from where it can be leveraged with new 'intelligent' meanings and toward new 'intelligent' goals. This workshop is an attempt to do so by engaging participants in a CI experience, in which they will contribute to, and at the same time take something from, the existing CI around OER, Web 2.0 technologies and Online Learning Communities.

The role of mentoring in facilitating the process of repurposing OER

This paper presents the initial data analysis of a research that is work in progress. It discusses the role of mentoring and peer support in facilitating the process of repurposing open educational resources (OER). It also reports on the lessons so far learned from the analysis of two distinct but related case studies on working with learners to use and disseminate OER.

Faculty and Student Perspectives Toward Open Courseware, and Open Access Publishing: Some Comparisons Between European and North American Populations

Instructor and student beliefs, attitudes and intentions toward contributing to local open courseware (OCW) sites have been investigated through campus-wide surveys at Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and the University of Michigan. In addition, at the University of Michigan, faculty have been queried about their participation in open access (OA) publishing. We compare the instructor and student data concerning OCW between the two institutions, and introduce the investigation of open access publishing in relation to open courseware publishing.

Exploring new criteria to design materials for online education

Peer-reviewed