Searching for best practices to build an inclusive intervention. The international project ENABLIN+ aproach

The project ENABLIN+ is an international partnership for the period of 01/01/2014 to 31/12/2016. It's addressed to the needs of children and youth with complex and intense support needs (CISN), their caregivers and supporters. It wants to develop a system of interdisciplinary in-service training, where professionals and parents of various professional backgrounds learn together, with the aim of improving inclusion, promoting de-institutionalization and enhancing quality of life of the children with CISN, at various age levels. ENABLIN+ promotes an inclusive intervention, not only in social life, but also in education. In this context, this work aims to present and discuss the concept of “best practices” in inclusive intervention based in real world cases. To study that subject we prepare a seminar, where 12 cases of “best practices” in inclusive intervention was presented.

Una retrospección y visión de futuro sobre el uso e implementación de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, para el aprendizaje virtual en el contexto de la División de Educología de la Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica

Division de Educología (School of Education for Secondary Level) of Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica, (UNA) has been aware of the necessary planning and thought of a future that demands a continuous reflection between what is possible and what is desirable. In this sense, the formation of future educators of the country in different specialties, should promote not only the use of the technology, but also the development of critical and objective thinking that will embrace its advantages and its limitations in the noble exercise of what is teaching and learning. Under the light of these precepts, in the year 2007, the educational research activity emerged by the name of Didactic Resources for Learning with a bimodal focus. The present article exposes the main ideas that have been matured after an experience of more than two years with this course, and it is also searching for recapturing a responsible way of planning, implementing and managing the policies of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) for the bimodal learning in the context of the Division de Educología (School of Education for Secondary Level) of UNA.

Work environments implementation for genomic reporting and analytics

A global italian pharmaceutical company has to provide two work environments that favor different needs. The environments will allow to develop solutions in a controlled, secure and at the same time in an independent manner on a state-of-the-art enterprise cloud platform. The need of developing two different environments is dictated by the needs of the working units. Indeed, the first environment is designed to facilitate the creation of application related to genomics, therefore, designed more for data-scientists. This environment is capable of consuming, producing, retrieving and incorporating data, furthermore, will support the most used programming languages for genomic applications (e.g., Python, R). The proposal was to obtain a pool of ready-togo Virtual Machines with different architectures to provide best performance based on the job that needs to be carried out. The second environment has more of a traditional trait, to obtain, via ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) process, a global datamodel, resembling a classical relational structure. It will provide major BI operations (e.g., analytics, performance measure, reports, etc.) that can be leveraged both for application analysis or for internal usage. Since, both architectures will maintain large amounts of data regarding not only pharmaceutical informations but also internal company informations, it would be possible to digest the data by reporting/ analytics tools and also apply data-mining, machine learning technologies to exploit intrinsic informations. The thesis work will introduce, proposals, implementations, descriptions of used technologies/platforms and future works of the above discussed environments.

Information and communication technologies in education – a web-based intelligent tutoring system on teaching and learning electrical project

Electrical activity is extremely broad and distinct, requiring by one hand, a deep knowledge on rules, regulations, materials, equipments, technical solutions and technologies and assistance in several areas, as electrical equipment, telecommunications, security and efficiency and rational use of energy, on the other hand, also requires other skills, depending on the specific projects to be implemented, being this knowledge a characteristic that belongs to the professionals with relevant experience, in terms of complexity and specific projects that were made.

Development of a data acquisition system to characterise sustainable energy technologies and to support Web-Based learning (DAQ-WBL)

Driven by concerns about rising energy costs, security of supply and climate change a new wave of Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET’s) have been embraced by the Irish consumer. Such systems as solar collectors, heat pumps and biomass boilers have become common due to government backed financial incentives and revisions of the building regulations. However, there is a deficit of knowledge and understanding of how these technologies operate and perform under Ireland’s maritime climate. This AQ-WBL project was designed to address both these needs by developing a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system to monitor the performance of such technologies and a web-based learning environment to disseminate performance characteristics and supplementary information about these systems. A DAQ system consisting of 108 sensors was developed as part of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s (GMIT’s) Centre for the Integration of Sustainable EnergyTechnologies (CiSET) in an effort to benchmark the performance of solar thermal collectors and Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP’s) under Irish maritime climate, research new methods of integrating these systems within the built environment and raise awareness of SET’s. It has operated reliably for over 2 years and has acquired over 25 million data points. Raising awareness of these SET’s is carried out through the dissemination of the performance data through an online learning environment. A learning environment was created to provide different user groups with a basic understanding of a SET’s with the support of performance data, through a novel 5 step learning process and two examples were developed for the solar thermal collectors and the weather station which can be viewed at http://www.kdp 1 .aquaculture.ie/index.aspx. This online learning environment has been demonstrated to and well received by different groups of GMIT’s undergraduate students and plans have been made to develop it further to support education, awareness, research and regional development.

Mise en Place d’un Dispositif de Formation a Distance a l’universite du Cap-Vert« e-learning » :Les Technologies de L’information et de la Communication dans L’enseignement du Français Langue Etrangere

Ce mémoire est l’occasion de partager le résultat de la mise en place de ce dispositif de formation à distance que nous avons mené dans l’université du Cap-Vert. Dans la première partie, nous décrirons la nature de la politique éducative au Cap-Vert. Nous contextualiserons les principes de l’installation de l’université publique dans ce pays, ainsi que les intentions d’innovation pédagogique de cette université. La deuxième partie portera un regard complémentaire sur l’utilisation des TIC et de l’internet dans l’enseignement/apprentissage d’une langue, cas du français langue étrangère, et nous nous inspirerons des théories constructiviste et socio-constructiviste. Finalement, la troisième partie détaillera toutes les étapes de la conception et de la mise en place du dispositif de formation à distance. Dans cette troisième partie, nous aborderons dans un premier temps la question des enjeux et des risques du e-Learning et nous présenterons notre mission dans le projet « e-Learning.cv » mené par l’université. Puis, dans un deuxième temps nous analyserons quelques cours que nous avons mis en ligne, en sachant qu’un cours en ligne n’est pas la simple reproduction d’un support pédagogique imprimé mais il offre à l’apprenant un environnement multimédia et interactif. Finalement dans un troisième temps nous essayerons de prendre un peu de recul pour faire une analyse critique de ce que nous avons réalisé et essayer par là même de dégager les perspectives pour améliorer le travail effectué.

La Incidencia de las nuevas tecnologías en los hábitos formativos de los estudiantes de magisterio = The Impact of new technologies in the learning habits of teacher students

Este trabajo persigue dos objetivos: el primero es analizar el uso de las TIC en un grupo de estudiantes de segundo curso de Magisterio de la Universidad de Girona; el segundo es analizar los documentos normativos legales que establecen el currículum de educación primaria en Cataluña para observar qué tipo de papel juegan las TIC en las nuevas programaciones educativas. La primera parte se ha llevado a cabo mediante una encuesta, cuyos resultados permiten observar tres aspectos distintos: el primero, que una parte considerable del grupo considera las TIC más como un complemento para el aprendizaje que como una forma de aprendizaje; el segundo, que a pesar de hacer un uso considerable de las TIC, el conocimiento que tienen de ellas es muy básico y utilizan aplicaciones muy genéricas; y el tercero es que una parte de sus propuestas didácticas para el uso de las TIC son propuestas tradicionales simplemente adaptadas a un nuevo instrumento, sin buscar realmente la innovación que puede suponer la incorporación de las TIC. En la segunda parte del artículo, a partir del análisis e interpretación de los documentos legales que establecen el currículum de Educación Primaria, se observa que en un mismo documento conviven aserciones sobre las TIC como complemento al aprendizaje de contenidos con otras formulaciones que consideran las TIC como constructoras de conocimiento. A partir del perfil de los estudiantes y del estado de los documentos legales, al final del artículo se hacen propuestas para formar al futuro maestro teniendo en cuenta las TIC como herramientas básicas de conocimiento

Towards adoption of eLearning technologies at Lappeenranta University of Technology: Understanding Teachers‟ Adoption of Blackboard Learning System

The electronic learning has become crucial in higher education with increased usage of learning management systems as a key source of integration on distance learning. The objective of this study is to understand how university teachers are influenced to use and adopt web-based learning management systems. Blackboard, as one of the systems used internationally by various universities is applied as a case. Semi-structured interviews were made with professors and lecturers who are using Blackboard at Lappeenranta University of Technology. The data collected were categorized under constructs adapted from Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and interpretation and discussion were based on reviewed literature. The findings suggest that adoption of learning management systems by LUT teachers is highly influenced by perceived usefulness, facilitating conditions and gained experience. The findings also suggest that easiness of using the system and social influence appear as medium influence of adoption for teachers at LUT.

Design and use of mobile technology in distance language education : Matching learning practices with technologies-in-practice

This thesis focuses on the adaptation of formal education to people’s technology- use patterns, theirtechnology-in-practice, where the ubiquitous use of mobile technologies is central. The research question is: How can language learning practices occuring in informal learning environments be effectively integrated with formal education through the use of mobile technology? The study investigates the technical, pedagogical, social and cultural challenges involved in a design science approach. The thesis consists of four studies. The first study systematises MALL (mobile-assisted language learning) research. The second investigates Swedish and Chinese students’ attitudes towards the use of mobile technology in education. The third examines students’ use of technology in an online language course, with a specific focus on their learning practices in informal learning contexts and their understanding of how this use guides their learning. Based on the findings, a specifically designed MALL application was built and used in two courses. Study four analyses the app use in terms of students’ perceived level of self-regulation and structuration. The studies show that technology itself plays a very important role in reshaping peoples’ attitudes and that new learning methods are coconstructed in a sociotechnical system. Technology’s influence on student practices is equally strong across borders. Students’ established technologies-in-practice guide the ways they approach learning. Hence, designing effective online distance education involves three interrelated elements: technology, information, and social arrangements. This thesis contributes to mobile learning research by offering empirically and theoretically grounded insights that shift the focus from technology design to design of information systems.

The impact of new technologies on distance learning students

This is a European Commission Leonardo da Vinci Reference Material project on the impact of new technology on distance learning students. It is known that all the Ministries of Education of the 27 European Union countries pay millions of Euros annually in the provision of educational technology for their schools, colleges and universities. A review of the literature of the impact of technology, however, showed that the research in this field was unacceptably fragile. What research there was focused on the impact of technology on children in American schools. The project set out, therefore, to measure the impact of technology on adult education, lifelong learning and distance education, with a particular focus on adult distance learning.

Learning&Information Technologies Cartography

Nowadays, many researches focus their efforts in studies and applications on the Learning area. However, there is a lack of a reference system that permits to know the positioning and the existing links between Learning and Information Technologies. This paper proposes a Cartography where explains the relationships between the elements that compose the Learning Theories and Information Technologies, considering the own features of the learner and the Information Technologies Properties. This intersection will allow us to know what Information Technologies Properties promote Learning Futures.