AR-based Technoself Enhanced Learning Approach to Improving Student Engagement

The emerging technologies have expanded a new dimension of self – ‘technoself’ driven by socio-technical innovations and taken an important step forward in pervasive learning. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research has increasingly focused on emergent technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) for augmented learning, mobile learning, and game-based learning in order to improve self-motivation and self-engagement of the learners in enriched multimodal learning environments. These researches take advantage of technological innovations in hardware and software across different platforms and devices including tablets, phoneblets and even game consoles and their increasing popularity for pervasive learning with the significant development of personalization processes which place the student at the center of the learning process. In particular, augmented reality (AR) research has matured to a level to facilitate augmented learning, which is defined as an on-demand learning technique where the learning environment adapts to the needs and inputs from learners. In this paper we firstly study the role of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which is one of the most influential theories applied in TEL on how learners come to accept and use a new technology. Then we present the design methodology of the technoself approach for pervasive learning and introduce technoself enhanced learning as a novel pedagogical model to improve student engagement by shaping personal learning focus and setting. Furthermore we describe the design and development of an AR-based interactive digital interpretation system for augmented learning and discuss key features. By incorporating mobiles, game simulation, voice recognition, and multimodal interaction through Augmented Reality, the learning contents can be geared toward learner's needs and learners can stimulate discovery and gain greater understanding. The system demonstrates that Augmented Reality can provide rich contextual learning environment and contents tailored for individuals. Augment learning via AR can bridge this gap between the theoretical learning and practical learning, and focus on how the real and virtual can be combined together to fulfill different learning objectives, requirements, and even environments. Finally, we validate and evaluate the AR-based technoself enhanced learning approach to enhancing the student motivation and engagement in the learning process through experimental learning practices. It shows that Augmented Reality is well aligned with constructive learning strategies, as learners can control their own learning and manipulate objects that are not real in augmented environment to derive and acquire understanding and knowledge in a broad diversity of learning practices including constructive activities and analytical activities.

Student engagement in Portuguese schools : A national project

The 31st International School Psychology Association (ISPA) Conference will be held in Malta from 7-11th July 2009. The conference theme is "School Psychology for Diversity".

Sports sponsorship as a channel for brand engagement on social media

The purpose of this Mater’s Thesis was to examine how sports sponsorship can be used as a channel for brand engagement on social media. All these three concepts have been researched previously, however, up until now they have been studied separately. Therefore, the aim was also to investigate the interrelations between these three concepts, as there is a lack of academic base on the matter. The theory of the research was based on existing academic researches of social media, brand engagement and sports sponsorship. The empirical part of the research was conducted by utilizing quantitative research method. An online questionnaire was published on Facebook pages of two Liiga ice hockey teams. In the end the total sample consisted of 322 viable respondents. The collected data was analyzed by using statistical analysis software, SPSS. The findings of the empirical research reveal that information, enjoyment, personal identity, social interaction and compensation motivate consumers to engage with brands on social media. However, the behavior of consumers is more passive than active brand engagement. Personal identity and compensation serve as motivational reasons for brand engagement on both active and passive level, while the rest are only passive brand engagement. Besides motivation there are other variables that affect consumers. Support for the team reflects to brand engagement, which is passive brand engagement. The visibility of the brand during the event is linked to both active and passive brand engagement. Prior information of sports team and event and frequency of attendance can be linked only to active brand engagement. On the other hand, congruence between the team and brand reflects only to passive brand engagement.

Social identity and engagement: an exploratory study at university

Within the framework of research on students' active performance in their study habits, the aim of this study is to analyze a model predicting the effect of social identity and personal initiative on engagement in university students. We conducted a cross-sectional study on 266 students from different Spanish universities. The resulting data were analyzed using SPSS Macro MEDIATE. Evidence was found for the proposed model. Only group-identity predicted personal initiative and engagement. Analysis revealed the mediating role of proactive behavior on engagement in university students. It is concluded that the university management may intervene, from an organizational-culture approach, promoting guidelines to reinforce students' sense of belonging by enhancing initiative and autonomous problem solving in learning behaviors.

Teachers’ professional growth through engagement with lesson study

Lesson study is highly regarded as a model for professional learning, yet remains under-theorised. This article examines the professional learning experiences of teachers and numeracy coaches from three schools in a local network of schools, participating in a lesson study project over two research cycles in 2012. It maps the interconnections between their experiences and their beliefs and practices, using Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (Teach Educ 18(8):947–967, 2002)Interconnected Model of Professional Growth. Analysis of interview data and video-recordings of planning meetings, research lessons, and post-lesson discussions reveals the development of teachers’ collaborative planning skills, increased attention to students’ mathematical thinking, use of orchestrated whole-class discussion based on anticipated student solutions and focused questioning, and the enhancement of collaborative practices for teacher inquiry. Our findings illuminate the interplay between the External Domain, the Personal Domain, the Domain of Practice, and the Domain of Consequence, in the teaching and learning change environment, and the mediating processes of enactment and reflection. Changes in the domains across the period of the lesson study provide evidence of teachers’ professional growth, with the iterative processes of enactment and reflection being critical in mediating this professional growth.

The effect of mobile technology usage on work engagement and emotional exhaustion in Japan

Researchers have repeatedly found that the use of mobile technology (MT) in the West is a double-edged sword that produces both positive and negative psychological experiences for employees. MT blurs the boundaries between work and non-work contexts, limiting employees' personal space and time as a result, and possibly having a negative impact on their work engagement. Our findings in Japan, however, were different. Japanese workers' total MT usage (i.e., during office and non-office hours) had a positive impact on their work autonomy, which, in turn, led to greater work engagement. Emotional exhaustion was not related to MT usage. The findings from this study imply that MT can result in positive psychological experiences for employees and present some managerial implications for boundary conditions.

Petrofac International Limited: el mercadeo interno, una estrategia efectiva en el manejo de personal

Como futuros administrados es importante recordar que nuestra función no será únicamente crear una empresa y generar constantemente ingresos. Esto es una de tantas tareas que tiene una persona que se encamina por crear o ser parte de una empresa, sea grande o pequeña siempre existirán variables que con los años se han convertido más y más indispensables en los procesos de este recorrido. El tema principal de nuestro estudio de caso es entender el concepto del endomarketing o como muchos lo conocen marketing interno; en pocas palabras es algo que por años se ha visto su efectividad en la productividad y satisfacción de los empleados. Google es una de las multinacionales más grandes del mundo, que el ultimo reconocimiento fue por parte de uno de los ranking más influyentes “The World’s Billionaries” ocupando como el CEO de la compañía Larry Page el puesto #12 , que por años ha sabido invertir en su recurso más importante que son sus empleados. En una entrevista con la revista Fortune, Larry exclama que “es importante que la empresa sea una familia, que las personas sientan que son parte de la empresa, y que la empresa es como una familia para ellos. Cuando se trata a las personas de esa manera, se obtiene una mejor productividad”. Con este pequeño ejemplo e idea de cómo una de las marcas más influyentes en el mundo ha fortalecido su mejor recurso por años el cual le ha remunerado con el éxito que tiene hoy en día. Entonces es como el mercadeo interno o endomarketing siendo uno de los conceptos tratados en el mercadeo en general hoy en día, logrando meterse como un modelo de negocio en la mayoría de empresas que existen hoy. Este es uno de los motivos que nos motivó para desarrollar este estudio de caso que verán a continuación, el cual se basa en la investigación y análisis de variables que comprenden a la empresa Petrofac, y si bien ha sabido implementar el concepto en sus procesos diarios. El estudio de caso describe como a través de los años ha sabido implementar con éxito la herramienta de evaluación y análisis del mercado interno a los empleados que constituyen hoy en día Petrofac International Limited. Abarcaremos primero con los objetivos del estudio, seguido del inicio y crecimiento de la empresa en los últimos años, en que países tiene presencia y cuáles son sus proyectos más importantes hoy en día. El estudio de caso será implementado por un tipo de investigación descriptiva, que con la recopilación de suficiente información tanto cuantitativa como cualitativa nos ira fortaleciendo la hipótesis principal, usaremos datos estadísticos que serán recopilados de encuestas, entrevistas y focus group. Al final con el análisis y a las conclusiones que lleguemos se busca demostrar el impacto positivo que ha tenido los empleados de diferentes países y de diferentes culturas que poco a poco han influenciado a la empresa para alcanzar el éxito que ha logrado hasta ahora, y de la misma forma como la empresa ha influenciado en cada una de las vidas de estas personas sin importar el lugar en el que estén laborando, siempre la empresa busca que se sientan parte de ella. Como resultados generales, se obtienen argumentos que sustentan que la implementación del mercadeo interno le permite a la empresa generar ventajas competitivas y dinámicas, que son desarrolladas internamente para un futuro reflejarlas ante los clientes externos. El estudio permitió concluir que el mercadeo interno debe ser una estrategia de comunicación dentro de una empresa convirtiéndose de primera necesidad para la compañía, pues los beneficios que genera son cada vez más necesarios para cada área que abarca el negocio.

Impediments to Cosmopolitan Engagement: Technology and Late-Modern Cosmopolitanism

What characterises late modern variety of cosmopolitanism from its classical predecessors is the inherent connection between cosmopolitanism and technology. Technology enables a vital dimension of the cosmopolitan experience – to move beyond the cosmopolitan imagination to enable active, direct engagement with other cultures. Different types of technologies contribute to cosmopolitan practice but in this paper we focus on a specific set of these enabling technologies: technologies which play a crucial role in regulating the free movement of people and populations. We briefly examine how three of the great surveillance states of the 20th century – Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic – used hightech solutions in pursuing an anti-cosmopolitanism. We suggest that in the period from 2001 to the present, important elements of the cosmopolitan ethos are being closed down, and once again high-tech is intimately connected to this moment. The increasing (and proposed) use of identity cards, biometric identification systems, ITS and GIS all work to make the globalised world much harder to traverse and inhibit the full expression and experience of cosmopolitanism. The result of these trends may be that the type of cosmopolitan sentiment exhibited in western countries is an ersatz, emptied out variety with little political-ethical robustness.