This article explores the ramifications of deploying free and open source software (F/OSS) for technical communication program development. Against the backdrop of the recession, the article draws on empirical research to examine how different stakeholders understand the F in F/OSS, its relationship with proprietary software, and the institutional contexts surrounding these technologies. It contributes four recommendations for working with F/OSS that might help programs shore up in tough times and thrive postdownturn. 相似文献
Israel suffers from a growing problem of socio-economic gaps between those who live in the center of the country and residents of outlying areas. As a result, there is a low level of accessibility to higher education among the peripheral population. The goal of the Sidney Warren Science Education Center for Youth at Tel-Hai College is to strengthen the potential of middle and high school students and encourage them to pursue higher education, with an emphasis on majoring in science and technology. This study investigated the implementation and evaluation of the enrichment science academic program, as an example of informal learning environment, with an emphasis on physics studies. About 500 students conducted feedback survey after participating in science activities in four domains: biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science. Results indicated high level of satisfaction among the students. No differences were found with respect to gender excluding in physics with a positive attitudes advantage among boys. In order to get a deeper understanding of this finding, about 70 additional students conducted special questionnaires, both 1 week before the physics enrichment day and at the end of that day. Questionnaires were intended to assess both their attitudes toward physics and their knowledge and conceptions of the physical concept “pressure.” We found that the activity moderately improved boys’ attitudes toward physics, but that girls displayed decreased interest in and lower self-efficacy toward physics. Research results were used to the improvement of the instructional design of the physics activity demonstrating internal evaluation process for effective intervention. 相似文献
Learning to read becomes a difficult task for many children, particularly if they have not been reared in early childhood settings where literacy-based activities, interactions, or materials are prevalent. This study examined the impact that providing a college-level course in research-based instructional strategies for literacy development to early childhood educators had on the development of early reading skills in the preschool children they taught. In addition, impact on children’s rates of literacy skill attainment was examined when a coaching component (i.e., a Literacy Coach) was added. 相似文献
This study examines whether children's decontextualized talk—talk about nonpresent events, explanations, or pretend—at 30 months predicts seventh-grade academic language proficiency (age 12). Academic language (AL) refers to the language of school texts. AL proficiency has been identified as an important predictor of adolescent text comprehension. Yet research on precursors to AL proficiency is scarce. Child decontextualized talk is known to be a predictor of early discourse development, but its relation to later language outcomes remains unclear. Forty-two children and their caregivers participated in this study. The proportion of child talk that was decontextualized emerged as a significant predictor of seventh-grade AL proficiency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, parent decontextualized talk, child total words, child vocabulary, and child syntactic comprehension. 相似文献
Educational technology research and development - Given the great importance of integrating computers into kindergartens and the fact that today such integration has been implemented only... 相似文献
The seven articles that comprise this Special Issue examine the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators across different contexts and different foci of who is the teacher educator being studied. Despite these differences, a common thread running throughout these seven articles is the need for learning to be situated in collaboration with others. In this final article, we examine the contribution of these articles through two perspectives: that of the collaborative contexts supporting the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators, and the role of disciplinary knowledge as part of the purpose for teacher educators’ professional growth. We notice that collaboration can take on very different structures in supporting teacher educators’ professional learning due to the different purposes and roles of the teacher educators in the studies. We also notice that while collaboration figures as an important component in all of the studies, the disciplinary specific aspects of collaboration, i.e., how collaboration might be negotiated differently by teacher educators in mathematics and science, is still not well understood. Overall, these articles provide important insights that help to shed new light on the complex and multifaceted nature of teacher educators’ learning and growth and provide productive avenues for future research.
