Session details: Using Visual Studio.Net in the classroom

Objective To compare the difference among changes of the visual quality index that before and after 90 minutes of visual task under four kinds of fluctuation depth lighting environment, to find relationship between visual fatigue and human wave-front aberration. Methods In this research study, 85 adults divided into four groups [5% (20 cases), 15% (22 cases), 30% (23 cases) and 50% (20 cases) fluctuation depth lighting environment] to underwent visual task, the changes of modulation transfer function(MTF), higher order aberrations before and after the visual task were calculated and recorded. Data were analyzed using ANOVA. Results Under 50% fluctuation depth lighting environment, the change of MTF before and after visual task was maximum, visual fatigue degree was highest, and the difference was significant compare with 5% group (P<0.05). The differences of changes of 5th aberration before and afer visual task among the 4 groups were significant (F=2.222, P<0.05). After visual task under 50% fluctuation depth, vertical coma aberration increased, the difference of change before and after visual task were significant compare with 5% group (P<0.05). Visual fatigue score of 50% group were highest. Conclusion Under 50% fluctuation depth lighting environment, visual fatigue score is highest; MTF changes obviously, so we guess MTF may could reflex human visual fatigue status. Key words: Flicker; Fluctuation depth; Classroom lamp; Wave-front aberration; Asthenopia

Students on the autism spectrum can find the mainstream classroom environment challenging, and there is a need for effective strategies to support these students within the mainstream context. Staying on task and transitioning independently between tasks have been identified as activities that can be particularly difficult for students on the spectrum. This thesis presents a research project that aimed to develop and evaluate an intervention based on two structured teaching strategies – visual schedules and work systems – which have demonstrated potential in supporting students on the spectrum to stay on task. Whereas other research has mainly evaluated these strategies in special educations or autism specific settings, or outside the classroom, this project examined their use as inclusive, whole-class practices to support students on the autism spectrum in mainstream classrooms. The research presented here involved a mixed-methods design over three distinct phases. In Phase 1, a case-study approach was used to trial the intervention as well as to test and refine research methods for use in the study that followed. In Phase 2, a multiple baseline design was employed to evaluate the use of visual schedules and work systems to support students on the spectrum to stay on task in mainstream settings. Finally, in Phase 3, an online survey and interviews were used to investigate the attitudes of mainstream teachers toward the intervention package. The pilot study established the feasibility of using visual schedules and work systems in mainstream settings, and facilitated the development and refinement of research methods suitable for use in the mainstream classroom. The evaluation of the strategies during Phase 2 demonstrated that their use had a positive and significant impact on the on-task behaviours of students on the spectrum. In Phase 3, teachers who had viewed and trialled the intervention package reported that it was suitable for use in mainstream classrooms. Together, these studies provide evidence that visual schedules and work systems can be effectively implemented by teachers to support students on the spectrum to stay on task in mainstream settings. The research presented here has contributed to efforts to bridge the research-to-practice gap by evaluating these strategies in ecologically valid settings.

Medicine intertwines with arts as part of the wider field of humanities since its origin; they integrate creating a new synergy. Clinical diagnosis involves the observation, description and interpretation of visual information. These skills can be developed and trained by analysing visual art works. Visual thinking strategy (VTS) has been recognized as a legitimate cognitive tool (1,2). Thanks to a collaboration between our medical faculty (Sant’Andrea Hospital) and the Borghese Gallery and Museum we are piloting an innovative experience with small-group interactive sessions within the course of Methodology (3rd-year students). This activity is carried out under the tutelage of art education curators and faculty members. Sessions focused on the analyses of selected original paintings. Students were evaluated through pre- and posttest questionnaires and with short oral presentations. Discussion was warm and enthusiastic and students appreciated the interaction with faculty on a non-medical level. By engaging with art works, students learn a broader conception of human-ness, enhancing mindfulness, rendering learning enjoyable and meaningful. Museums as teaching labs are valuable resources for enhancing learning beyond the classroom walls. VTS in medicine encourages critical thinking and problem solving, thus improving clinical abilities by means of observation and clinical reasoning, promoting empathy and getting used with team work. These activities can be integrated with art works shown in the classroom as clinical triggers: several figurative paintings are shown within our course of human and clinical anatomy (first and second-year students), i.e. self-portraits of Piero della Francesca and Mantegna’s “Virgin and child” well illustrate goiter; Raphael’s La Fornarina and Rubens’ “The three graces” show breast cancer. Rombouts’ “Allegory of the five senses” is a nice introductory image for the sense organs as Bigot’s “A doctor examining urine” for the urinary tract. An art-based approach to teaching observational skills should be included continuously within required courses in the medical curriculum.

&lt;pre&gt;Vocational High School aims to produce graduates who have certain skills so that they can improve their quality of life. One of the important competency to be mastered is in 2 Dimensional Animation Engineering subjects in multimedia Vocational School is the application of the principles of animation. The principle of animation will deliver the audience to be able to understand and enjoy an animated product. Competence in applying the principle of animation is important to be owned by vocational students majoring in multimedia, but in 2016 the results of practical tests showed that only about 25% of students achieved minimal completeness in the competence of applying the principle of animation. The lack of practical learning materials in applying the principles of animation and lack of learning hours in school are some of the problems that exist in the animation learning lack of student competence. The results of interviews with teachers showed that the teaching materials available were insufficient for teaching needs, so they felt the need for additional teaching materials. The three animation teachers hoped for an integrated learning module with audio visual to support the learning process in the classroom. The researcher intends to provide solutions to problems by developing learning resources in the form of learning modules that are integrated with audio-visual media, which will be used as material for learning carried out by teachers in the classroom. Audio visual modules and media were developed with Lee and Owen&#39;s multimedia development methods, namely through a series of stages starting from needs analysis, final preliminary analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. The results of the effectiveness test from the use of integrated audio visual media modules by 30 students, showed a significant increase based on the results of the t-test with a significance level of 5%&lt;/pre&gt;

This research investigates the students' perspectives on using educational games in a language classroom in the conduct of Remedial Instruction among English students in the School of Education (SOE) during the first semester of AY 2018-2019 at Emilio Aguinaldo College. It summarizes games as useful tools in language classrooms. The investigation utilizes a small-scale research documentary analysis wherein former studies were compared, analyze and reflected on. To validate the qualitative questionnaire, a random interview was conducted to find out if games are relevant, suitable, and effective in grammar, vocabulary, speaking, and among other language skills. It resulted to students suggestions of some useful classroom games. The outcomes further show that educational games could be applied mostly in spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, and reading, listening and speaking. However, not all games are applicable to all types of college students. It is additionally perceived that there could be numerous educational games that may increase collaboration and creativity among learners. They pointed out that they tend be beneficial or well-adjusted with the support of other available teaching methods. Generally, respondents show positive attitude towards using games in language classrooms. It is recommended that teachers should consider factors such as students’ different learning styles with sensitivity, creativity and flexibility to sustain higher engagement. Article visualizations:

The purpose of this study was to develop an instructional project of international education issue integrating into Art and Humanist Learning Area. The researcher as a visual arts teacher, had adopted action research approach and taught visual arts including the design of the national flags and the national emblem of five Olympic host countries, as well as the introduction of the mascots as a theme. The research object was 41 sixth grade students from a private elementary school in a metropolitan city of northern Taiwan. Learning activities are designed for 20 40-minute sessions. By collecting and analyzing the data such as students’ international knowledge test, visual communication design ability assessment, classroom observation records, learning feedback sheets and teaching reflection notes, the researcher is able to explore the teaching and learning effectiveness of international education issue integrated into Art and Humanist Learning Area. In order to introduce the history, culture, people and background of Olympic host countries, their national flags, national emblems and mascots are presented, to guide students to gain more interests and knowledge in these countries’ culture, and to develop their international view. By learning the history and culture of Taiwan and Taipei, all aspects of elements of design, students were encouraged to design the mascot of 2017 Universiade. The study findings are summarized in the following conclusions: 1. The development of “Designing the mascot of Universiade” instructional project was based on four foundations such as “White Paper on International Education of primary and secondary schools in Taiwan.” 2. After the instructional project, students improved significantly on the international knowledge and visual communication design ability. 3. The researcher grew professionally on four things such as her improvement of the knowledge of five countries. She also had six reflections such as international education issue could be integrated into Art and Humanist Learning Area. Based on the above conclusions, the researcher has made five recommendations for teachers, such as when deciding the instructional theme, teachers could consider students’ needs, students’ interests, emerging issues and current affairs. The researcher also made one recommendation to future researchers, i.e., integrating teaching strategies and developing the media for international education.

A utilização da informática como instrumento de ensino tem se disseminado na educação. Este estudo teve como objetivo verificar como o computador está sendo usado em escolas da região metropolitana de São Paulo, avaliando o grau de considerações sobre ergonomia na introdução dessa ferramenta. A ergonomia compreende o conjunto de conhecimentos científicos visando o conforto, segurança e eficácia dos produtos. Participaram 126 escolas, 37 delas do ensino fundamental, de 1ª à 4ª série, com 21.824 alunos; 49 escolas do ensino fundamental, de 5ªà 8ª série, com 29.851 alunos e 40 escolas do ensino médio com 31.516 alunos. A maioria das escolas informou utilizar o computador como ferramenta auxiliar das matérias curriculares a partir de 1995. O uso do computador predominou, no período de 5ª à 8ª série, nas escolas particulares; com um computador para cada 2 ou 3 alunos e com a duração semanal das aulas de até 1h59min. Nas salas de informática instaladas nas escolas, predominou a ausência de mesas e cadeiras com ajustes de altura para as características antropométricas dos alunos. As orientações sobre ergonomia da computação foram fornecidas em 30% das escolas. Na maioria das escolas não se observou queixa de desconforto visual ou muscular sofridos pelos alunos durante a utilização do computador. Esse fato pode estar relacionado ao pequeno número de horas de utilização do computador. Concluímos que a aquisição de mobiliário e equipamentos para as salas de informática deve incluir a consulta a banco de dados antropométricos e à percepção de conforto dos estudantes.

This paper examines the important role of the school environments to facilitate English program in Indonesian primary schools. The school environment here refers to the environment inside the school: principal, teachers, and foreign language (FL) classroom; and outside the school: the students’ parents and the school community. Researchers have investigated teaching English as foreign language (TEFL) in primary schools from different perspectives, such as curriculum, teacher’s role, and materials; however, little attention is paid to examine school environment as an important factor to improve the quality of TEFL in Indonesia. The data is taken from the results of my Masters study investigating the implementation of Indonesian language as LOTE program in Kingsbury Primary School (KPS), Bundoora, Melbourne, Australia. Interviews, questionnaires, and observations were employed to obtain the answers as to why Indonesian language was selected as the LOTE program in KPS. The study found several factors supporting the program, and one of the findings relevant to this present investigation was the positive attitude given by the environments. The main reason why Indonesian language was taken as the LOTE program was because there were many Indonesian people who lived around the school and frequently involved in the school activities. This was believed by the school council as important linguistic evidence to establish the program. All the members of the school environment were very supportive. The non-LOTE teachers, for example, occasionally attended the course and watched their children learning Indonesian language. The purpose of doing that, according to the non-LOTE teachers, was to motivate their children to learn it seriously as the children also saw their teachers came and learnt it. The LOTE program was also made possible by the availability of a representative classroom which was fairly large for doing class activities. This classroom was designed especially for the LOTE program and it was completed with printed materials such as books, comics, posters, short stories, and audio visual aids to show the Indonesian family, life and culture. The principal, the LOTE teacher, and LOTE coordinator claimed that having such particular classroom was significant to build the students’ motivation to practice the target language when coming into the LOTE classroom because they were immersed with the atmosphere inside the room in which they could read anything written in Indonesian language. Keywords: language, literature, pedagogical approaches, non-native learners.

Purpose: This pretest–posttest study examined the effectsof a professional development training on five volunteerinstructors’ (VIs) utilization of language and literacy facilitation strategies within interactive shared book readings with low income preschool children. The training specifically targeted the VIs’ use of wh-questions, expansions, and references to story grammar elements (SGEs) with use of a corresponding visual aid.Method: VIs participated in a 3-hr training composed oflecture, video models, role playing, four opportunities toexplicitly practice the target strategies, and four opportunities to receive immediate feedback from the investigators. The VIs led storybook readings that were video-recorded for comparison prior to and after the training sessions (two pretraining, two posttraining). The investigators analyzed the VIs’ language and literacy strategy usage in the readings. The investigators compared the raw number of wh-questions asked, expansions of child responses or comments, the number of references (out of 20) to SGEs, and use of the visual aid pre- and posttraining.Results: After the training, four of the five VIs increased thenumber of wh-questions asked during readings, and one VImaintained a large number of questions asked, compared topretraining readings. All VIs provided an increased numberof references to SGEs (character, setting, problem, fixingproblem, solution) in a variety of capacities (name, definition,book-specific element, visual aid use) to reinforce narrativeconcepts. VIs had inconsistent increases in expansions ofchild responses or comments posttraining.Conclusion: Results revealed the VIs generally increasedtheir facilitation of language and literacy strategies afterparticipating in a professional development training,suggesting utilization of volunteers as instructors maybe a valuable area to explore, especially in low-incomeenvironments where children are at risk for language andliteracy delays.Supplemental Material S1. Demographic questionnaire.Supplemental Material S2. Pretraining/posttraining survey.Supplemental Material S3. Powerpoint training.Supplemental Material S4. Posttraining reflection.Schmitt, J., & Gillispie, M. (2020). The untapped potential of preschool classroom volunteers in language– literacy instruction: A feasibility study. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_PERSP-20-10002

Las matemáticas contribuyen al desarrollo integral de los estudiantes para su integración a la sociedad; en el departamento del Quindío en los últimos años, se evidencia en los resultados de las Pruebas Saber de grado 3° y 5° que los estudiantes presentan diversas dificultades en matemáticas, una de las causas es la dificultad que les genera enfrentarse a la resolución de problemas. Esto se debe a que muchos docentes en ocasiones dan poca trascendencia a ciertos procesos como sucede con los procesos de visualización, como lo señala Zimmermann y Cunningham (2013, citado por Martinovic, Freiman y Karadag p. 213) la visualización en los procesos de aprendizaje de la matemática contribuye al desarrollo de una comprensión más profunda y significativa tanto de las ideas matemáticas y las relaciones entre los conceptos matemáticos, o desconocen el potencial que poseen los ambientes de aprendizaje y la integración de las TIC, que hacen trascender el aula física, enriqueciéndola con nuevas alternativas pedagógicas y dando a los estudiantes experiencias significativas y mejores oportunidades de aprendizaje. Por lo anterior se desarrolló la investigación bajo una metodología cualitativa de tipo interpretativa (Sampiere, Fernandez y Batista 2010), cuyo objetivo fue analizar incidencias de los procesos de visualización apoyados con ambientes TIC, en la resolución de problemas de matemáticas, por estudiantes de la educación básica primaria, encontrándose mediante la implementación de los software educativos que la visualización juega un papel muy importante en cuanto a los estilos de resolución de problemas de los estudiantes, de acuerdo a la categorización de las tareas propuestas.

This paper aims at discussing the use of advertisements (ads) in English Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and focuses on some of the appealing uses of language, visual elements, and culture in advertising, and on how language teachers could exploit them in their classes. Advertisers have creative ways to use ads to attract people’s attention and to be memorable by exploiting the language code, paralanguage, illustration and culture value. The ways of advertisers to use the language, illustration, code, and culture could be considered by the language teachers in teaching. Language teachers appears to be very little exploitation of the fascinating uses of language and visual elements in advertising, and this paper attempts to present EFL practice by providing an overview of some of the interesting uses of language, culture, and visual elements in ads, and suggesting ways of exploiting them in classroom. Keywords: advertisements, language code, illustration, culture value.

Orientation and Mobility is a uniquely crafted pedagogical practice blending specific microteaching skills to enable students with vision impairment to achieve functional interpretation of extra-personal and peri-personal space. Linked to student wellbeing, social participation, employment and self-determination, Orientation and Mobility is a cornerstone of equity and access for students with vision impairment. Despite this, in mainstream primary education little is known about Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching and how it aligns with the Australian Curriculum. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching is examined from the perspectives of three female primary school students with vision impairment, a parent, a teacher, the researcher, and a panel of Orientation and Mobility specialists. These perspectives are interwoven with a detailed reflexive interrogation of the Orientation and Mobility lessons over one school semester within the contexts of the Far North and North Queensland Department of Education regions and the Australian Curriculum. This study explores how one Queensland Orientation and Mobility teacher, the researcher, explicitly communicates nonvisual, visual, tactile, and auditory concepts to primary school students with vision impairment. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory, the Orientation and Mobility learning experiences are captured through an interpretative methodology comprising narrative inquiry and autoethnography, both underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology. Insider researcher data are gathered from semi structured interviews, online panel responses, and audio recordings of the Orientation and Mobility lessons. Autoethnographic field notes, document materials, and reflexive teaching journals are used to support the thematic and discourse analysis. Results confirm that for the non-expert participants there was a substantial lack of awareness of the impact of vision impairment on learning and development, and the potential contribution of Orientation and Mobility. Systemic and cultural barriers to equitable inclusive education for these North and Far North Department of Education students with vision impairment were uncovered. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching was clearly shown to overlap with and embed content from the Australian Curriculum. A key finding was the isolation of a core set of micro-teaching skills pertinent to Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. These skills were identified as: Orientation and Mobility teacher attention to dialogic language and feedback, extended interaction wait times, and shared attention to spatial and contextual environments within the Orientation and Mobility lesson. As this skill set can be used to design Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching experiences that explicitly scaffold the development of non-visual, visual, tactile, auditory, and kinaesthetic pre-cursor concepts, it was given the appropriated name of practice architecture. An important practical outcome of the research was the formulation of an ontogenetic model of Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. This model, which closely follows the natural development of each student with vision impairment, may serve as a tool that enables teachers to more systematically chart the biophysical attributes of the student with vision impairment. It thereby provides a learning and teaching framework for designing interactions with students with vision impairment. The ontogenetic framework has the potential to facilitate greater integration of what–and–how learning occurs in Orientation and Mobility with what–and–how learning might occur in the regular classroom.

There is an increasing use of and rapid advancements in technologies in education. In particular, there is a take-up of advanced calculators (graphing calculators and calculators with computer algebra system [CAS]) in senior secondary high-stakes examinations. Each year, tens of thousands of students in Australia, Singapore, and other regions, use advanced calculators in mathematics examinations that directly affect their entry into tertiary education. Thus, it was pertinent to investigate the ways in which students use these technologies when learning mathematics, and the factors that influenced them. This study was built upon a bricolage of theories from various fields such as mathematics education, educational technology, learning theories, learning styles, and gender studies. From a review of the literature in the different fields, it was hypothesised that factors such as students’ gender, beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics and technology, approaches to studying mathematics, and learning preferences, influence their ways of using technology. A mixed methods research design was used, consisting of two parts: a quantitative large scale online survey of 964 Singaporean and 176 Victorian senior secondary mathematics students, and a qualitative small scale study of nine students in a Singaporean school. There were several main results found in this study: (i) How students interact with advanced calculators was influenced by their beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics and their approaches to studying mathematics. Students’ ways of knowing and learning mathematics best explained their ways of interacting with the calculator. (ii) Students' learning preferences were situated, and the use of advanced calculators was associated with visual and kinesthetic modes and a preference to work cooperatively. (iii) There were regional differences (in favour of Victorian students) in how students use the advanced calculators and their attitudes toward calculators. (iv) There were gender differences (in favour of males) in students' attitudes toward mathematics and advanced calculators, and how they used the calculators. Although there were more student factors with gender differences in the Singaporean than the Victorian data, the effect sizes were larger in the Victorian sample. The findings have implications for mathematics teaching practice, in that deep understanding, intrinsic interest, beliefs about the creative, inter-connectedness and contextual aspects of mathematics are associated with using calculators as a partner and collaborator for learning. Additionally, students tend to employ visual and kinaesthetic modes when learning how to use the calculators. Students were also found to have a preference for working on the calculator cooperatively with friends. Therefore, teachers can employ methods such as encouraging students to try out the calculator keys and to work cooperatively in groups when learning how to use the calculators. Another significant contribution of this study was in the use of Facebook to recruit participants. More research can be done on the participation and response rates associated with this recruitment method. Further research can also be conducted to translate the implications of the study into practical classroom strategies and to investigate longitudinally the dynamic interplay between these factors and students’ interactions with the advanced calculators.

The wide use of e-technologies represents a great opportunity for underserved segments of the population, especially with the aim of reintegrating excluded individuals back into society through education. This is particularly true for people with different types of disabilities who may have difficulties while attending traditional on-site learning programs that are typically based on printed learning resources. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may therefore become a key factor in enabling people with different access needs to enjoy quality learning experiences and services. Another e-learning challenge is represented by m-learning (which stands for mobile learning), which is emerging as a consequence of mobile terminals diffusion and provides the opportunity to browse didactical materials everywhere, outside places that are traditionally devoted to education. Both such situations share the need to access materials in limited conditions and collide with the growing use of rich media in didactical contents, which are designed to be enjoyed without any restriction. Nowadays, Web-based teaching makes great use of multimedia technologies, ranging from Flash animations to prerecorded video-lectures. Rich media in e-learning can offer significant potential in enhancing the learning environment, through helping to increase access to education, enhance the learning experience and support multiple learning styles. Moreover, they can often be used to improve the structure of Web-based courses. These highly variegated and structured contents may significantly improve the quality and the effectiveness of educational activities for learners. For example, rich media contents allow us to describe complex concepts and process flows. Audio and video elements may be utilized to add a “human touch” to distance-learning courses. Finally, real lectures may be recorded and distributed to integrate or enrich on line materials. A confirmation of the advantages of these approaches can be seen in the exponential growth of video-lecture availability on the net, due to the ease of recording and delivering activities which take place in a traditional classroom. Furthermore, the wide use of assistive technologies for learners with disabilities injects new life into e-learning systems. E-learning allows distance and flexible educational activities, thus helping disabled learners to access resources which would otherwise present significant barriers for them. For instance, students with visual impairments have difficulties in reading traditional visual materials, deaf learners have trouble in following traditional (spoken) lectures, people with motion disabilities have problems in attending on-site programs. As already mentioned, the use of wireless technologies and pervasive computing may really enhance the educational learner experience by offering mobile e-learning services that can be accessed by handheld devices. This new paradigm of educational content distribution maximizes the benefits for learners since it enables users to overcome constraints imposed by the surrounding environment. While certainly helpful for users without disabilities, we believe that the use of newmobile technologies may also become a fundamental tool for impaired learners, since it frees them from sitting in front of a PC. In this way, educational activities can be enjoyed by all the users, without hindrance, thus increasing the social inclusion of non-typical learners. While the provision of fully accessible and portable video-lectures may be extremely useful for students, it is widely recognized that structuring and managing rich media contents for mobile learning services are complex and expensive tasks. Indeed, major difficulties originate from the basic need to provide a textual equivalent for each media resource composing a rich media Learning Object (LO). Moreover, tests need to be carried out to establish whether a given LO is fully accessible to all kinds of learners. Unfortunately, both these tasks are truly time-consuming processes, depending on the type of contents the teacher is writing and on the authoring tool he/she is using. Due to these difficulties, online LOs are often distributed as partially accessible or totally inaccessible content. Bearing this in mind, this thesis aims to discuss the key issues of a system we have developed to deliver accessible, customized or nomadic learning experiences to learners with different access needs and skills. To reduce the risk of excluding users with particular access capabilities, our system exploits Learning Objects (LOs) which are dynamically adapted and transcoded based on the specific needs of non-typical users and on the barriers that they can encounter in the environment. The basic idea is to dynamically adapt contents, by selecting them from a set of media resources packaged in SCORM-compliant LOs and stored in a self-adapting format. The system schedules and orchestrates a set of transcoding processes based on specific learner needs, so as to produce a customized LO that can be fully enjoyed by any (impaired or mobile) student.

Classroom Visuals