Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
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Technology Education for Teachers
Get PDFEvery so often a book is published that makes a significant
contribution to bringing up to date the literature
supporting teachers developing their professionalism. This
is such a book. It will have a place internationally on the
reading lists of both initial teacher education courses and
those concerned with continued professional
development but should also be read by those occupying
positions of influence and responsibility for curriculum
development in their respective institutions. As stated by
Marc J. De Vries, technology educators are constantly
required to justify the place of their subject in the
curriculum both in terms of content and practice. No other
subject has to do this
The Quality of Design in 9th Grade Pupils’ Design-and-Make Assignments in Craft Education
Get PDFThe aim of the present study was to analyse the
performance of grade 9 pupils (15-16 years old) on a
design-and-make assignment, which was a part of the
assessment of learning outcomes conducted by the
Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) in crafts. A
sample of the students’ work on the assignments (N=
169) was analysed from the viewpoint of visualization and
operationalisation of the design ideas. Further, the
functional and aesthetic aspects of end products were
evaluated. The method of qualitative and quantitative data
analysis of the pupils’ design-and-make assignment is
explicated in detail. The results showed that pupils had
difficulties designing on paper; they executed only very
basic line-work for the designed products, and only some
details were illuminated in their visual representations. The
poor quality of visual and technical designing revealed that
the objectives of the National Core Curriculum in craft
education have not yet been attained. Further, these
results also indicate that the pupils’ skills in clarifying their
visual designs do not necessarily directly relate to the
functionality of what they have concretized in the end
products. The implications of the study for craft education
are discussed; brief recommendations are made on how
craft should be taught at school and what should be
emphasized in the courses’ content
Geometric Reasoning and Drawing
Get PDFThe research described in this essay, taken together with similar topics addressed throughout this edition of TRACEY, suggests the potential for a paradigm shift to a more central role in education given to drawing, in its myriad forms, as a means of visualising, representing, and communicating complex ideas
Towards Supporting Interactive Sketch-Based Visualisations
Get PDFThe goal of the information visualisation community is to develop interactive visualisations of abstract data to aid in cognition. While most information visualisation research approaches this from a data-driven or a task-driven perspective, our objective is to gain a better understanding of how people already use visuals in their everyday thinking processes and to apply this understanding to create new information visualisations. To this end, we have performed three observational studies: one, looking at the lifecycles of sketches and diagrams used by software developers, another looking at the visual constructs on knowledge workers’ whiteboards, and a third examining how people might interact with a pen-and-touch based system for data exploration using charts. In this paper we group the findings of these three studies to develop a fuller picture of the ways in which people use sketching for visualisation tasks
Report from the Second European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL), Dubrovnik, Croatia. 20-23 October 2014
No full textBilingual workplaces: integrating cultural approaches to information literacy into foreign language educational practices
Get PDFThis paper explores how a foreign language librarian investigated workplace information environments of bilingual (Spanish/English) professionals in the United States in order to design more relevant information literacy (IL) instruction. Drawing from interviews and participant observations of professionals whose careers correspond with Spanish language student graduate opportunities, the primary goal of the paper is to provide an initial understanding of the information environments of professionals in bilingual workplaces. The paper will then describe how this data will be used to design appropriate learning opportunities for Spanish undergraduates. Through reflecting on these multilingual information experiences, the paper also considers the role of workplace IL within higher education as well as contributing more broadly to studies on cultural approaches to IL. Accordingly, this paper will be of interest to foreign language librarians, as well as librarians who work with global studies, international relations or bilingual and international populations
Experiences of Classroom Techniques and Learning Outcomes
Get PDFThis article is a part of a research project that is aimed to
explore how the background variables of learning are
related to learning outcomes in a Sloyd subject,
internationally referred to as Craft, Design and Technology.
The research question of this article is: “How are ninth
grade pupils’ experiences of classroom techniques related
to their learning outcomes?”
The empirical data is based on an evaluation by the
Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE). The data (n
= 4,792) was collected by stratified sampling from 152
schools. The data of pupils’ experiences of classroom
techniques was gathered in a specified questionnaire
using a narrowed sample (n = 1,548). Three main
orientations for learning were found: Learner-Centred
Learning, Teacher-Directed Learning and Collaborative
Learning. Furthermore, two orientations were formed of
technical and textile technology areas of the subject.
Analysis revealed that participating in either classes of
technical technology area or textile-technology area
predicted success in the other area as well. Thus, learning
outcomes in one area correlate with the learning
outcomes in the other. Due to this result, the effects of
learning orientations were analysed separately for both
technology areas. Experiences of Learner-Centred Learning
predicted success in technical technology area while
experiences of Teacher-Directed Learning predicted
success in textile technology area. Collaborative Learning
didn’t predict success in either of the areas. The results
can be applied in developing the subject more towards
the learners’ point of view
Drawing In-situ
Get PDFThis article describes the author’s current in-situ drawing practice and the importance he attaches to perspectival space and morphology in the context of landscape