Bill Anderson

Teaching and Learning with an Interactive Whiteboard: A Teacher's Journey

A self‐study methodology is used to explore the impact of introducing interactive whiteboard technology to a primary school classroom. Several key insights, described as ‘nodal moments’, provided the impetus for the teacher to review her practice, reconsider her students’ learning approaches and explore the relationship between the introduction of a new technology and the teaching and learning that was occurring in her classroom. In particular, she considers the nature of engagement and the ways in which the technology initially moved her away from an active pedagogy.

Ethical issues in online education

Teaching at a distance raises ethical issues particular to the distance context. When distance teaching is also online teaching, the situation is even more complex. Online teaching environments amplify the ethical issues faced by instructors and students. Online sites support complex discourses and multiple relationships; they cross physical, cultural and linguistic boundaries. Data of various kinds are automatically recorded in a relatively permanent form. In a discussion of the practices and welfare of staff and students, we highlight ethical issues related to matters of equity and diversity, surveillance and consent, identity and confidentiality. Rather than attempt to resolve issues raised in this discussion, we pose questions to encourage exploration of those issues.

Non‐individual approaches to understanding human development

There have been many attempts to nudge the study of human development out of a familiar “science” rut and place it within a wider social context. These approaches refocus the lens through which we look. Instead of seeing an individual standing against an indistinct and blurred background, the depth of field is increased. However, whilst such approaches may broaden the perspective, they often still fall back onto an essentially individualist notion of being human. It is as if the body boundaries are also the boundaries of our minds, our emotions, our thoughts and our selves. At both the levels of common sense and of refined knowledge there are intuitive and evidential examples that lead us to suggest that these individualistic (albeit socially placed) pictures are inadequate for enabling us to make sense of who we are. In short, they fail to capture the dynamic nature of the interactive events which characterise our participation in human life. In the present paper we provide a framework within which a non...

Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Research

We present here because it will be so easy for you to access the internet service. As in this new era, much technology is sophistically offered by connecting to the internet. No any problems to face, just for this day, you can really keep in mind that the book is the best book for you. We offer the best here to read. After deciding how your feeling will be, you can enjoy to visit the link and get the book.

Conditions, Provisions and Decisions in the Study of Human Development.

We begin by assuming there are real events in the world, like the speed of light, spirals, symmetry and instincts. Developmental conditions establish for a species those events which enhance reproductive potential, and thereby transform universal invariants into common affordances. Through the medium of language and particularly of metaphor humans negotiate which common affordances provide social worlds. Within these social worlds individuals may become active agents establishing their own private realities. These are derived from opportunities made available from both common and local affordances. Our primary aim is to identify areas of ambiguity, and to enhance productive debate in the study of human development.

Speaking personally—with Janet K. Poley

Dr. Janet Poley is president and chief executive officer of ADEC, a national distance education consortium of state universities and land-grant institutions. She is a leader in developing collaborative distance education initiatives, both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the World Campus Advisory Committee at The Pennsylvania State University, and is part of the planning committee for the University of Wisconsin-Madison annual international conference on Distance Teaching and Learning. Dr. Poley is interviewed here by Bill Anderson, a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand and a doctoral candidate in the Adult Education program at The Pennsylvania State University.

Navigating human development

This paper sets out to examine the role which affect may have in the understanding of human development. An ecological approach to perception provides a base from which which to discuss issues concerning both the adaptive function of affect as well as the role it plays in events, affordances and attunements. A contextual metaphor is employed to show what typically happens with human interactions. The role of affect in development is explored and a metaphor of “navigation” is put forward as an appropriate means for describing purposive negotiations of whole events.

Views of memory and the self

Examining the metaphoric base of dominant current theories of memory enables clarification of views about the self which such theories entail. When the need for memories is examined in its contextual richness a different view of the self arises. Beings participating in mutual inter‐relationships with an environment do not need memories. Instead they are involved in remembering as part of their continual adaptation within that environment.

CETI. Metaphor and universal language

Are we alone in the Universe or are we but one of many advanced technical civilizations? Assuming that we are not alone and wished to make contact with our galactic neighbours how could we do so? When humans communicate, meaning comes from written and verbal language embedded in metaphor. However, the public nature of metaphoric language reduces the personal essence of individual experience during translation into words. The delusion of shared metaphor being obtained through written and verbal language distorts our views of reality, it impairs our ability to empathise with others, and it disharmonizes our attempts to attune to any invariants and affordances of universal language. This paper attempts to identify some of the elements of universal language and probes the limitations of the communication metaphor as a way of empathising between humans and other intelligent life. Our investigation suggests that if Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI) is to become realised then a new paradigm...

Computer-Using Students: Working in a Metacognitive Environment?

Abstract Advocates of the use of computers as learning tools in education suggest that ‘higher order’ thinking skills can be developed through such use. Perkins (1985) argues that these skills can only be developed when students are working in a metacognitive environment. Based on the methodology employed by Barnes & Todd (1977), the study reported here investigates metacognitive strategy use by a pair of students working with a computer database. Strategies are inferred from analysis of the discourse and features of a metacognitive environment are discussed.