bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How have Japanese primary care physicians carried out vaccinations against COVID-19? : Attempts at making the non-scalable ‘scalable’
Authors: Kimura Shuhei , Horiguchi Sachiko , Goto Ryohei , Iida Junko , Ozone Sachiko , Kaneko Makoto , Teruyama Junko , Hama Yusuke , Haruta Junji , Miyachi Junichiro
Published: February 2023

Vaccine rollouts have been underway to combat the COVID-19 pandemic globally. Based on ongoing interviews with ten primary care physicians ‘in the field’, this paper elucidates how in practice the vaccinations were carried out in Japan in 2021 from a cultural anthropological perspective. We examine what the primary care physicians did to prepare for the rollouts, what problems they faced, and how they responded to these problems. Large-scale vaccination projects are supposed to proceed smoothly and quickly, or to have what Anna Tsing calls ‘scalability’. In practice, however, they required a variety of tasks for coordination, information sharing, and promotion. Despite feeling stressed by the lack of information and exhausted by the work overload, the primary care physicians carried out the vaccinations as an important service to their patients and communities. The findings of this paper will provide valuable materials for improving future vaccine rollouts.
The perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical students’ future careers
Authors: Mahjoub Heba , Vasavda Chirag , Bertram Amanda , Davison Ashwini , Sozio Stephen
Published: February 2023

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted medical education on multiple levels, and medical students have been forced to adjust to distance learning, altered clinical opportunities, and standardized testing inconsistencies. We sought to identify the effects of these dramatic deviations on medical students’ career plans.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of medical students between July 13, 2020, and September 9, 2020 in order to assess the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ career decisions. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables.

Results: Of the 585 eligible medical students, we had a final sample of 76 responses (n=76) (13% response rate). Students felt neutral regarding having more time to explore research projects (Mean ± SD; 3.06 ± 1.18) and hobbies (3.43 ± 1.28). Most survey respondents somewhat disagreed that they considered quitting medical school during the pandemic (1.55 ± 1.10). Students somewhat agreed that they view the field of medicine more positively since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (3.60 ± 1.09). Respondents somewhat agreed that they would be unable to explore other specialties and find their best fit (3.55 ± 1.32). We found that the minority (4/66, 6%) of students had considered changing their specialty. Students felt neutral in terms of their Step 1 (3.25 ± 1.05) or Step 2 (2.81 ± 1.02) score deterring them from future career opportunities.

Conclusions:  Most medical students have experienced barriers in their career pathway as a direct cause of COVID-19 restrictions on medical education, including the ability to explore different specialties to discover their best fit or find a chance to network with mentors. However, despite these obstacles, most students remain committed to medicine.
The genome sequence of the Marmalade Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus (De Geer, 1776)
Authors: Hawkes William L. , Sivell Olga ,   University of Oxford and Wytham Woods Genome Acquisition Lab,   Natural History Museum Genome Acquisition Lab,   Darwin Tree of Life Barcoding collective,   Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life programme,   Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: DNA Pipelines collective,   Tree of Life Core Informatics collective, Wotton Karl R. ,   Darwin Tree of Life Consortium
Published: February 2023

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Episyrphus balteatus (the Marmalade Hoverfly; Arthropoda; Insecta; Diptera; Syrphidae). The genome sequence is 535 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into five chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the assembled X sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.8 kilobases in length.
The genome sequence of the Fulvous Clothes Moth, Tinea semifulvella (Haworth, 1828)
Authors: Boyes Douglas ,   University of Oxford and Wytham Woods Genome Acquisition Lab,   Darwin Tree of Life Barcoding collective,   Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life programme,   Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: DNA Pipelines collective,   Tree of Life Core Informatics collective, Boyes Clare ,   Darwin Tree of Life Consortium
Published: February 2023

We present a genome assembly from an individual male Tinea semifulvella (the Fulvous Clothes Moth; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Tineidae). The genome sequence is 596.6 megabases in span. The whole assembly is scaffolded into 45 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the Z sex chromosome assembled. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.8 kilobases in length. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl has identified 11,516 protein coding genes.
FLEXIBILITY AND CREATIVITY INDESIGNING COURSE NOTES THROUGH VIRTUAL CAMPUS
Authors: Alexe Maria , Almasan Beatrice
Published: February 2023

The dynamics and competitively of contemporary labour market is asking for up-to date and pragmatic university courses. A good course is no longer relaying just on the tutor decision, it has to take into consideration a lot of factors, among which the students’ opinions as well as their background are among the most important. In order to design a competitive course a real dialogue between the two factors: tutors and students should be initiated from the very beginning. Dialogue and discussions are attitudes that always stimulate and improve didactic strategies, but establishing a constructive dialogue is not a very easy task, especially when working with students enrolled in distance learning courses. Generally speaking, students, mainly in the first year are quite redundant in expressing their opinions and facing their needs. Most of need analysis designed in the first course turned into formal attitudes.
Taking into consideration the above aspects and being aware of the importance of using the new pedagogical and philological support in distance learning environment we thought that some facilities of the virtual campus can be used in order to reinforce students’ role in designing a course and clarifying the its main objectives. This paper presents the way in which we used existing facilities of the Credis Virtual Campus and the way in which we want to develop it order to establish a real dialogue with our students, as a leading step in designing a competitive course. Due to the fact that they belong to the faculty of Nursery and Primary School Pedagogy our aim is to teach them not only our particular academic curricula, but also how to use those facilities for their future students.
THE IMPORTANCE OF USING THE COMPUTER IN ACQUIRING MATHEMATICAL NOTIONS AT THE PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION LEVEL
Authors: Caprioara Daniela
Published: February 2023

The main role of the pre-school education is that of socializing, of child’s opening to the world and to the inner as well. The essence of this delicate process is the human communication between the participants at the educational act: the children and the pre-school teacher. From this point of view, using the computer as a didactic strategy is not justified, in fact it is not advisable. On the other hand, children at this age get acquainted with the first mathematical notions which represent the basis of the future mathematical knowledge during school years. At this level, the emphasis is mainly more on the formative element and less on the informative one. Among the mathematical concepts introduced in the pre-school years, the natural numbers and the arithmetical operation with natural numbers ( addition and substraction ) are the most important. The underlying idea is the action that has the result the transformation from an initial state to a final one. Unlike the other didactic methods, the educational soft has the capacity to illustrate this dynamics. Moreover, it integrates the three obligatory stages of the notion forming at this age, namely concrete, iconic and abstract.
Based on a thorough analysis of the educational activity in kindergarten, this paper aims to justify, from a double viewpoint (mathematical and methodical), the advantages of using the educational soft in forming the notion of natural number and mathematical operation. It addresses to the pre-school teachers, parents, pedagogy students and to the educational soft makers as well.
IN-FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES IN BLENDED AND E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Authors: Caraivan Maria  luiza
Published: February 2023

The paper analyses the role of formative, constructive assessment techniques in higher education taking into account the teaching-learning process in the context of the blended and e-learning environments. It also considers the strong relationship between universities and the competitive job market due to the fact that all the beneficiaries of the education system need to be aware of what skills and competences are built and evaluated in higher education and how assessment is conducted in order to obtain relevant results. In this respect, assessment is viewed both as formative and informative and it is “tailored” for the blended and e-learning environments.
The paper also identifies some critical issues as far as assessment in blended and on-line environments is concerned, and provides some possible answers to questions such as: What is considered as “cheating” in assessments conducted in an e-learning/ blended environment? How can employers receive the results of formative and informative assessments? How relevant is this type of assessment if we take into consideration the fierce competition for jobs with good career prospects?
The answers to these questions are related to some methods applied in a Business Communication course to assess students’ skills when communicating for business purposes. We have created a simulated enterprise which has been connected to a travel agency and a tour-operator in order to offer students the possibility to face real business situations. All their online tasks have been assessed by their fellow students, by a teacher and by representatives of the business environment in an attempt to complete the circle. The paper presents some of the outcomes of this simulated yet practical experience.
A TRANSVERSAL MEHTOD OF TEACHING USING MOODLE
Authors: Herman Cosmin , Vaju George , Ursache Liliana , Donici Catalin
Published: February 2023

Lately our society is based on huge amount of informations. Handling, storing and connecting the information is more and more demanding to become a good teacher or trainer. The crossing domains of knowledge shares a lot of data that has to be linked together to provide a good process of teaching and learning. Technology comes in our help to apply pedagogical methods using e-learning platforms, games, role play, scenarios, interactive communication between teacher and pupils. Moodle offers may ways of communication sincron and asincron to have a complete cross section scheme of data shown as a map. Using Resources and activities matching the study of a specific subject the teacher applies his own perspective on a lesson, by interaction with the students and students among them the process becomes transversal. In this scenario the main pon is the teacher. First step is establishing the target group: - we chose the pupils between 12 to 18 years old - they have experience in using the computer - knows the principles of communication in social networking Second step is organizing the information: - for this specific group is important computer science, math, geography, history, foreign languages, etc. Third step is applying the scenarios: - using initial questionnaires - evaluation / quizzes - workshops - virtual classrooms - forums - online social games - offline activities - assignments - role play The result in applying this method will reveal the necessity of using cross domains knowledge, technical and human, to engage pupils in learning activities. The authors applied many methods in the teaching process using Moodle as a complex tool has increased the interest of the young generations. Moodle as a social constructivist platform uses 100% the engagement of human touch.
EDUCATING NET GENERATION STUDENTS: IS "GUTENBERG TEACHING APPROACH" ENOUGH?
Authors: Nedelcu Anca
Published: February 2023

A significant part of building a valid learning process, in any kind of environment, is to know and understand the learners. Starting from their needs and abilities, from their aspirations and interests, a successful learning process can be built for the mutual benefit of all school actors and wider community.

Consequently, an important pre-action for any educational reforming process is to visualize and understand the real profile of nowadays students as a basis for generating improved actions. Therefore, how are these students? Are they different from other cohorts, are they unlike any others teachers have ever interacted with? If “yes”, if their new lifestyle, abilities, learning and communication styles represent a powerful demarcation from the predecessors, is school prepared enough to manage these changes? Do teachers find the right approaches to facilitate students’ learning? Is the book the only source of knowledge reliable in school context? Is, for example, book and textbook based “Gutenberg teaching style” powerful enough to address the diversified learning needs of Net generation students?

These are, in fact, the basic questions addressed by the present paper; the intention is to identify the challenges addressed by what Marc Prensky calls "digital natives" students on teaching provided by adult educators, usually “digital immigrants”. The approach aims to analyze the “meeting” between the two generations placed alongside the intergenerational digital divide (Prensky), students and teachers, with the goal of mediating the possible gap. For illustrating the approach, examples from different researches on nowadays students and teachers’ didactical approaches will be taken into consideration.
ONLINE PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING OF THE PREGNANT TEENAGER
Authors: Simigiu Aurora
Published: February 2023

Over 27000 teenage births are registered in Romania annually, ranking our country on the second place in Europe after Great Britain, and the number of births in the case of teeangers under 15 years has increased up to 50% after the year 1990. This phenomenon is caused by the decrease of pubertal age on national level together with the failure of sexual education in school and family.From this point of view statistics shows that the situation becomes critical and urgent measures of rising of educational influences are required. In Romanian school sexual education is not a compulsory subject as it is in other countries. Sexuality is still a taboo topic what requires an alternative approach.
The article aims to provide a model of good practices describing a site that offers online counseling to the teenagers, concerning educational topics such as sexual health.
The site we are about to present offers teenagers accurate information concerning human sexuality and a forum location.We suggest a way of online counseling just to encourage teenagers to express their fears by protecting their identity.
Online environment is considered to be much more accessible to young generation and the presentation of a psychological counseling model is useful.
This way we hope that we will reduce school abandonment, we will prevent teenagers’ premature births and we will lower extremely high social costs taking into consideration that teenagers’ babies will be probably socially assisted by the Romanian governement.
E-learning solution for teenagers’ sexual education that we suggest comes to parents and teachers’ assistance not only by the information offered but also by testing the problems they rise.
DIMENSIONS OF CURRENT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS: E-LEARNING WITHIN CONTINUOUS TEACHER TRAINING
Authors: Tausan Liana
Published: February 2023

The current educational systems which are adapted to the specific needs of the school population have been devised according to the ideas and principles of contemporary pedagogy. These are characterized by the following dimensions: reconsideration of the role of the student who becomes the subject of education; using information technology in education (the computer, the Internet, virtual classes) in planning teaching, guiding learning, monitoring the didactic act; learning through problem-solving, stimulating critical thinking; preoccupation to form skills, greater interest shown to interactive experiences, reconstructing the school environment in order to favour interaction, cooperation, experience interchanges, opinions, active listening.
Among the objectives set by the Lisbon European Council for a "knowledge based society" there also lies promoting new technologies for teaching and learning: modern computing and communication methods, new teaching materials.
Training and continuous professional development of teachers is done in order to develop professional skills, by improving teaching and learning methods, but also to adapt to the demands of new generations of students. Essentially, this involves activities conducted within the educational content of education to adjust / self-regulate the educational process, along with training and developing skills required by the new technologies.
Developing skills in information and communication techniques applied in teaching and learning, in the institutional management and data management, skills adapted to the specific requirements of the teaching profession, the types and levels of competences with the European framework operating qualifications Framework (EQF) and the National Framework of qualifications in Higher Education is one of the goals of current programs of continuous training of teachers.
Computer operating skills and access to communication networks, computer use in the preparation of design, portfolio, other materials, the use of electronic information platforms for documentation, interactive solving tasks, evaluation are aimed at developing professional skills of teachers.
WHO’S AFRAID OF UBIQUITY? OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN SCHOOL CONTEXTS
Authors: Ulrich Catalina
Published: February 2023

Ubiquitous learning and project approach are genuinely connected. Project work has strong potential to provide both powerful contextual learning experiences and serendipitous exploration and discovery of the connected nature of information in the real world. Such promising features could equally be seen as challenges. More specifically, teachers struggle with technology resources’ accessibility and skills, lack of predictability in students learning endeavors, pressure of content-driven and standard-based instruction, mono-disciplinary curriculum and de-contextualized learning tradition, time as a limited resource, high stake testing and poor collaboration among teachers.
E- LEARNING TOOLS FOR COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN OF KNITTED FABRICS
Authors: Anaramona Ciobanu , Blaga Mirela
Published: February 2023

The main objective of the laboratory classes that take place in educational domain is to learn new content through practical methods. Computers programs or other electronically devices that are accompanying most of the nowadays equipments are beginning to be more and more indispensable tools in technology field. Learning their practical handling, starts to become a necessity in order to accomplish the tasks that are required to achieve new knowledge.
Knitting is a well-known technology in making clothing products but also for producing industrial apparel (medical, sport, protective articles, geotextiles, car upholstery, etc.). From simple to complex designs, the patterns can be created with the help of the computers, with so called CAD systems (Computer Aided Design). Their role is to provide, by using its input tools, the easiest way to create the desired knitted pattern with various shape and delivering output information, required for the knitting machine programming.
The most important skills that the students must achieve in the laboratory classes, are concerning the: designing structures, creating fabric shapes, setting the knitting parameters, and programming the knitting machine, for gaining the final product.
The learning rhythm and the way how of achieving new knowledge differs from one person to another. The paper presents an interactive lesson, developed by using the “Course Lab" educational platform. The subject is dealing with the CAD stages for designing a 3D weft knitted fabric, produced on the computer controlled double needle bed flat knitting machines, CMS 530 E6.2, Stoll Germany. The lesson content is presented to the student as printed information, accompanied by images and videos, that can be instantly accessed by the students.
The process of learning is sustained by using a simulation of the knitted structure in the real shape, doubled by the knitted sample. Each step from the knitting programming is demonstrated by videos, which contain commands and tools that must be followed by the learner in order to perform the task. Used as video tutorials, the steps can be easily accessed by the users accessing the sliding sidebar, which has all the lesson’s content as hyperlink. In this way, the students are engaged to interact with the content in every step of their work. Consequently, a systematic and logical content is distributed to the student, to be used in his own way, without been stressed by the learning rhythm of the others.
MULTIMEDIA EDUCATIONAL CONTENT IN HOME ENVIRONMENT
Authors: Beldiman Liviu , Carcel Eugenia , Jascanu Nicolae
Published: February 2023

Children and elderly represent segments for which education is extremely important. It is a known fact that they are major consumers of information, especially from television. New technologies like NetTV will facilitate the distribution of multimedia educational content. In the context of the European ITEA2 Guarantee project, we consider it as an opportunity to correlate the educational content with the information received from sensors.
The purpose of the educational animation is to educate the behavior. The system will offer multimedia educational content on specific behaviors: behave properly, socialize, rest frequently, check health, verify the merchandises expiration dates, get medication on time, be organized, do not forget to turn off appliances, etc. The content is also a form of communication between the children or elder and family or friends. Through animations, the family could educate and adjust behavior, show love and respect, could encourage communicating using new media channels, or could remember family moments, etc.
The educational content has an emotional target. We want to capture the attention and we want the animation to be effective. In order to educate the rest frequently behavior, the system will generate several animations each with a different emotional target. The system will deliver the animations to NetTV or other devices on a regular basis. If the feedback from the sensors is positive, the system will deliver educational animations with a moderate emotional target. If the feedback is negative, such as the elder is not resting enough, the animations will have a higher emotional target.
The paper will present an overview of the platform for delivering multimedia educational content in home environment, its role inside Guarantee architecture and how it could be integrated in future Ambient Intelligence solutions.
NEW MONITORING TEHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING THE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY
Authors: Dina Razvan , Onete Bogdan cristian , Plesea Doru alexandru , Negoi Remus
Published: February 2023

Education is a complex system embedded in a political, cultural and economic context, but Internet break all the barriers making information to enter everywhere, to everyone, so quality of educational activity will be improved.
Teaching methods and ways of interaction between student and teacher have undergone a profound transformation with the increasing use of information technology. The teacher must change their work instructions, methods, or tools in order to decrease the rate of failure and increase the quality of education. The frequent use of various forms of teaching -learning software, presentation and methods of e-learning - felt the need for better monitoring of student activity, and thus arose a series of computer methods for monitoring and evaluation of the activity of students.
Concepts used by Web 2.0 have radically changed the philosophy of Internet communication by integrating innovative methods and tools.
Applications such as Wiki, Glossary, Web Calendar, Blog, Forum, Chat, etc.., led to substantial improvement of teaching quality, making them indispensable for achieving a modern and efficient teaching process, making them common tools in teaching process. Besides ease of communication, them offer and trace route of work made by each student, providing a mirror of the evolution of each student, in this way this instruments can become a method of evaluation.
In this work, based on theoretical concepts we try to determine how could be implemented these methods and how they are perceived among students. For this we made a research applied to students enrolled in an online master program at ASE Bucharest.
EUROPEAN TRENDS IN THE USE OF ICT IN DELIVERING COUNSELLING SERVICES
Authors: Iacob Mihai
Published: February 2023

Career counselling services have benefited considerably from the advent of new technologies, but it seems that for the better part of the last two decades introducing ICT to counselling was more of a happenstance process rather than a coordinated effort. The new technologies have offered quick and cost effective solutions to a large array of problems from data management to guidance in the transition from school to the labour market.
Despite diverging practices, several trends have emerged at European level in the use of ICT in delivering counselling services. Based on a Europe wide survey conducted in the second half of 2011 we point out common practices and phenomena related to this area. Training courses for practitioners are high on the agenda of institutions employing their services, with the development of counselling tools (e.g. questionnaires, self-evaluation tools, data bases, etc.) equally important.
We are witnessing a shifting paradigm, from facilitating access to self-help tools and raw information, to an active relation between client and counsellor, as well as the establishment of communities for clients with similar interests.
While the community of practitioners has been quick to embrace the new environment, clients are slower in accessing web based counselling. This seems to be in correlation with the use of ICT within the general population o a certain country or region. There is a growing need for web based counselling services, but even the most developed counselling systems in Europe still report low numbers of clients compared to face to face counselling.
Financing seems to be the mediating factor for the adoption of ICT tools within the different counselling systems. Countries that devote larger grants to research and development in this area have acquired purpose built tools, while lower investment has meant having to adapt the applications designed for general use in education or other areas.
Facilitating the exchange of tools and practices would be a cost effective way to encourage the use of ICT while maintaining an adequate quality standard. Networks like Euroguidance and ELGPN have been successful in promoting cooperation on a Europe wide scale.
ASSESSING STUDENT RETENTION AND PROGRESSION: A MULTI-MODAL APPROACH
Authors: Ice Phil
Published: February 2023

Student retention and progression are important measures of success for postsecondary education. They are key factors by which online programs, in particular, are currently scrutinized. This presentation reviews a successfully implemented, multi-modal approach that leverages data mining and quantitative analysis, supported by text analytics.

American Public University System, began assessing student retention with an exploratory model utilizing regression analysis with 32 variables from the student information system. Quickly, the initiative expanded include the use of data mining across all campus systems touched by students and the integration of criterion nodes into neural network models. Despite an 87% degree of accuracy in predicting retention within a 125 hour window across 187 variables, the issue of causality remained opaque.

Incorporation of text analytics to student input provided a means of ontological ordering of qualitative data that could then be converged back onto relevant data points across high probability nodes of disenrollment. The merging of these techniques has provided APUS with both a means of creating actionable business intelligence to assist in retaining students, as well as a causal understanding of systemic issues.

As previously noted, the merging of data mining, neural network analysis, conventional regression analysis and text analytics has provided a robust framework for intervention at both the short term and long term horizons. Through actionable intelligence, provided by the explanatory data derived from text analytics and semantic analysis, the APUS data team has been able to provide insight to the instructional design team, faculty members and administrative stakeholders. This has translated into a richer basis for continuous quality improvement of course materials, pedagogical strategies and student services. The impact on retention and student satisfaction has been considerable with 31% and 19% increases respectively since implementation.

Participants will be introduced to the data collection, federation and modeling techniques utilized at APUS. This will include exploration of methodology and required technical infrastructure. The presentation will be in case study format with numerous examples and resource links. Participants will be encourage to raise questions at any point and to consider how similar techniques might be used at their institution. Significant coverage will be given to exploration of perceived problems associated with both technical infrastructure and stakeholder buy-in.
FACEBOOK AS A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION AMONG STUDENTS
Authors: Ivanic Ivana , Ursulescumilicic Rodica , Spariosu Laura
Published: February 2023

The aim of this paper is to analyze the mode of communication and exchange information of students of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad on the social network Facebook. Exchange of information among students at the social networking takes place in two distinct groups: Student Alliance of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Philosophy Novi Sad. Groups are formed by students who are also administrators of the same. In the paper we will present the subjects of the discussion (registration exam, purchase literature, entrance exams, exams, problems faced in college, job advertisements, scholarships, international cooperation and exchange of students, experience, important events, parties, promotions, etc.), mode of communication (formal and informal speech), as well as time of day when students are most active on the network. The intention of the authors is to point out the fact that the daily number of users and the topics are increasing. According to research from 2009. (based on data that users have left on their profiles) the largest number of users in Serbia is between 18 and 34 years (61%).Based on preliminary results of this research, conclusion is that Facebook is much more used by the student population for the exchange of information related to studying, instead of forums and the official site of the Faculty. Social networks attract a large number of young people, so it is necessary for teachers to support the development of new technologies which can help in learning, even at the highest level of education. Also, it was concluded that students of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, social networking site Facebook encourages in a variety of discussion, voting, leaving comments, giving feedback and sharing among stakeholders.
FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDIED THROUGH ONLINE PRACTICES, A STEP FORWARD TO LIFELONG LEARNING
Authors: Nicolaescu Cristina
Published: February 2023

My paper is a research-informed presentation of online practices in higher education, as a new pedagogic paradigm, in the information age. I would describe e-learning as a pathway for the future, not replacing the traditional forms of education, but supporting and completing them, in an interactive, collaborative manner. The Faculty I work for has designed the educational process as a combination of theoretical and practical study of foreign languages assisted by computers. This corresponds to a learning need within the space of democratic discourse and a globalizing process.
My research is concisely described by exemplifying with a case study – commenting on the monitoring steps, results and conclusions in the view to expanding these practices and enhancing their effectiveness, corresponding to a growing demand. I also discuss the role of Web technologies in promoting life-long learning and streamlining knowledge management and diverse forms of applications, the factors that impinge on learning through the life course, and the social and the economic rationale for lifelong learning. By creating scenarios for a future use, the impact of e-learning on the educational environment is examined, with encouraging results in the sense that learners acquire new competences, in the particular field of foreign languages, pointing out the most important links between Lifelong Learning and adult education. I will explain a learning unit to show the practical application of cooperative methods. Based on a research project on learning with technology, the results prove the positive changes in languages acquisition by practical experience for the advancement of pedagogical techniques adult education.
The suggestions will be gathered and tested for further learning scenarios and so on, steadily promoting and implementing sustainable learning.
SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS E-LEARNING WITH THE HELP OF WEBLOG
Authors: Nicolau Felix
Published: February 2023

E-learning swiftly evolved to m-learning, which relies on mobile technology. Thus, the weblog continuously contains the blogger and education becomes edutainment (education + entertainment) (Morgan-Klein & Osborne 2007). Teachers can permanently maintain contact with their students offering feed-back on their blogs and initiating discussions. If coordinated, the activity on personal blogs becomes reflection in action (Kidd & Keengwe 2010). The blog functions as a platform of interaction and becomes an e-portfolio. The new type of portfolio implies personalization and assimilation of different types of media (texts, video, MP3 and so forth). Starting from a customary virtual environment, which is to be transformed into a highly personalized one, students share their creative involvements with the rest of the weblog and with larger socializing sites. The electronic personal diary permits an interdisciplinary approach (Liebowitz & Frank 2011) and proves its efficiency if included in the creative writing strategies. Creativity is enhanced and held accountable for its products owing to the fluidity of the weblog. Additionally, the team spirit is shaped by blogging into groups, together with the technology literacy. The use of blogs for educational purposes saves students’ time and teaches them how to manage their resources. With the help of mobile technologies, bloggers can easily improve the content of their e-portfolios and take account of every valuable suggestion they receive. In their turn, as members of a large creative community, they are supposed to offer feed-back to their colleagues’ uploaded materials. As the weblog is an open sphere, almost everybody can interact and take part at different debates, irrespective of age and professional background. Such openness encourages students to defend and consider their intellectual output.
ADAPTATION TO LEARNERS’ LEARNING STYLES IN A MULTI-AGENT E-LEARNING SYSTEM
Authors: Quang dung Pham , Magda florea Adina
Published: February 2023

Adaptation to learners’ learning styles can help education systems improve learning efficiency and effectiveness. This research orientation has been studying by many researchers lately, but most of existing education systems lack of adaptation in which every learner is delivered the same learning contents. Moreover, many researchers concluded that it is worth to apply automatic identification of learning style because of its advantages in precision and time saving. In our study, we concentrate on two main technologies to implement adaptation in education systems that are semantic web and intelligent agent. Using ontology with the Semantic Web services makes it faster and more convenient to query and retrieval educational materials. Intelligent agents can provide the learners with personal assistants to carry out learning activities according to their learning styles and knowledge level. In this paper, we present a domain ontology that is suitable for adaptive e-learning environments. The ontology describes the learning objects that compose a course as well as the learners and their learning styles. We also present a multi-agent e-learning system that supports pre-defining and re-estimating students’ learning styles during the course for a better personalization. In the system, learning style of each learner can be identified automatically and dynamically. We used a new literature-based method that uses learners’ behaviours on learning objects as indicators for this task. The evaluation showed a high precision in detecting learning styles and in delivering learning materials. Together with the mentioned benefits, this result indicates that our e-learning system is capable for wide use.
A SIMPLE GRAPHICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE ACQUISITION OF BASIC C PROGRAMMING SKILLS
Authors: Mihic Srdan , Ivetić Dragan
Published: February 2023

The introductory (and only) C programming course at the freshmen’s year of Animation Engineering (AE) degree proved to be a challenge, despite 20 years of experience in teaching programming courses. Examples of data abstraction and understanding of control structures and expressions in the C programming language had to be brought closer to students who have shown interest in computer graphics and animation, and thus have chosen to pursue AE degree. Instead of a classical first program - “Hello world”, their first program should show a simple graphical object even it is just a single point. Specifically, students will programmatically control the execution of C program from a console window, whereas graphical window will be used as program’s output. We have chosen to use the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 integrated development environment (IDE) for this course as it is commonly used in our other C programming courses. Therefore, it had to be adapted to the needs and skills of the AE students. This was accomplished by enabling students to draw graphical objects on a simple 2D graphics canvas but without the need to possess any knowledge of computer graphics. For that purpose, several graphical libraries, including: openBGI, GDI, OpenGL and DirectX, were considered to accommodate the graphical component in the chosen IDE. They were compared according to ease of use, debugging support and documentation availability, from the perspective of absolute programming beginners. We have found that none of them are suitable for first time programmers. Because of this, we have implemented a lightweight wrapper graphical framework that abstracts and hides the underlying complexity of libraries used for drawing on a graphical canvas and window management. The framework offers clean design and ease of use. It provides only a small subset of 2D drawing and window management functions. All framework functions have a reduced number of parameters compared to their underlying counterparts as they set as many parameters as possible to predefined values. In addition, the names of functions are shorter than their counterparts. This way, students have to memorize less and can produce working code faster which should enhance their productivity. This framework, combined with compelling examples and assignments, should help students learn programming with ease.
USING GBL IN ECDL COURSES
Authors: Dumitrache Anisoara , Logofatu Bogdan , Moldovan Ovidiu
Published: February 2023

The aim of this paper is to present the activities undertaken by the ECDL Credis Centre during the ProActive project (ProActive: Fostering Teachers Creativity through GBL is a European project (Lifelong Learning programme, KA3), Project Number: 505469-LLP-1-2009-1-ES-KA3-KA3MP). Nowadays teaching and learning are challenges for contemporary school, and for any other educational system. Within ProActive, trainers were, for a period of time game designers, creating their own educational resources. Also they had the opportunity to integrate video games in real learning contexts. This paper has as special focus on development of two games created in order to support teaching and learning for a module from ECDL certification. This module enables candidates to gain an understanding of the different parts of a computer, as well as some of the key concepts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), such as those relating to networks and security. Usually, the courses consist in transmitting theoretical information to the students which are in a position of passive receivers. The students are writing down all information and memorize it. For individual study, students have access to one online course. The game designer wanted to bring interactivity in class, which was not possible with the current curricula full of theoretical information. He was aware that his course could became boring, or with too much theory, being hard to keep students’ attention for a long time. These learning scenarios have been tested on many groups related to professional training.
The process of game design, created games and implementation in current educational practices are also included in the paper.
ASPECTS OF SG CURRICULUM INTEGRATION – A TWO-FOLDED APPROACH
Authors: Popescu Mariamagdalena , Roceanu Ion , Ott Michela , Earp Jeffrey , Ger Pablo moreno
Published: February 2023

Over the years, there have been numerous definitions of curriculum integration,where the curriculum is interwoven, connected, thematic, interdisciplinary multidisciplinary, correlated, linked and holistic.(Robin Fogarty, 2007)
Curriculum integration is based on both philosophy and practicality, drawing together knowledge, skills, attitudes and values from within or across subject areas to develop a more powerful understanding of key information. Curriculum integration is best done when components of the curriculum are connected and related in meaningful ways by both students and teachers.With the large uptake of SGs in education nowadays, one must consider SGs curriculum integration an issue at large since effectiveness of SGs use in training and education is getting more and more proponents.
This paper looks at SGs curriculum integration issues from two perspectives- of the teacher connecting the content of the game and the learning outcomes into the whole educational context on the one hand, and of the researcher who sees the connection between the pedagogical state-of-art in SG and what realia can offer, on the other.
By drawing on the experience of three teams of researchers and educators from Romania, Italy and Spain, based on common activities conducted by same partners and others in the Games and Learning Alliance (GaLA), an EC-funded Network of Excellence on SGs, joint perspectives over curriculum integration will be presented, with a view to sharing the experience in order to give guidelines for future extension of SGs into education and training, into well built curricula. The situations presented of SGs curriculum integration in the three different educational contexts are to showcase the framework for building a SGs curriculum design , the way SGs are effective for instruction, to present forms of integrating a SG into curriculum- how,where, how long, and showcase trans- and inter-disciplinarity within SG curriculum integration.
A set of guidelines will be just a quick overview on what both practitioners, researchers and policy makers should consider for the near future in terms of SG currriculum integration, to enhance a lage-scale uptake of SGs into all levels of education and training, to better respond the 21st Century student and current social needs.
All the statements and observations will be outspoken based on genuine results of the experiments and long-term practice of the authors in the realm of SGs integration into the training programs.
STUDENTS TIME PERSPECTIVE AND ITS EFFECTS ON GAME BASED LEARNING
Authors: Unknown Unknown , Romero Margarida
Published: February 2023

Previous research in face-to-face learning modality demonstrated that students’ Time
Perspective is related to motivation and learning performance. In concrete, results show students
with a future oriented TP having higher motivation for learning, higher self-regulation and academic
performance. By contrast, students’ having a present oriented TP tend to engage in games and prefer
instant reward activities. Despite the wide corpus of research on TP and learning, albeit Serious Games
(SG) are widely used for professional development and lifelong learning, no studies have focused,
up to our knowledge, on TP in GBL. The present study aims to explore this new field of research. We
conducted a case study using the Serious Game MetaVals. Results of the experience show no significant
differences in game performance among individuals with different TP. Furthermore, students with a
future oriented TP foresee the future usefulness of the game compared to those focused on the present.
These results might be useful for instructional designers and teachers, outlining the benefits, in terms of
knowledge acquisition, of using GBL activities that could help different TP profiles to equally engage
and better perform in the learning processes.
ONLINE LEARNING FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS: USING SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR CREATING AUTONOMOUS PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORKS
Authors: Colibaba Anca cristina , Petrescu Lucia , Colibaba Stefan , Vlad Monica
Published: February 2023

This article presents the results of a research carried out in July-October 2011 throughout Europe for obtaining an overview on the usage of social networks (SNs) in the autonomous professional development of language teachers.

The survey aimed at obtaining results in the following areas: most frequently used SNs, the components of professional development in which they are used, advantages and disadvantages of SNs, gender-based preferences, extent to which teachers have created a personal learning network (PLN) through the usage of SNs, extent of participation in training sessions / webinars, following tutorials as a result of involvement in a SN, self-assessment of the influence of SNs on professional development.
The survey was answered by 174 teachers of mainly English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish as a foreign language.

The research has been performed within the aPLaNet project. The aPLaNet project,co funded by the European Union (grant agreement no. 511460-LLP-2010-TR-KA2MP / 2010 / 4139), focuses on enabling foreign language teachers to create their own PLN and to become more familiar with ICT tools that can be used both for professional development (establishing contacts with other colleagues and experts, using new tools) and also for classroom activities with learners. The project also makes available for foreign language teachers a mentoring programme for improving ICT and social networking skills. Based on the results of this research, a series of guides, videos and papers have been created that show language educators the meaning of PLNs at a personal level. The recommendations and guidelines on which these instruments have been created are presented in the final section of the article.