Kinematic Test in Multimedia Formats: A Preliminary Validation

In physics, computer-based tests have been widely developed, however, the questions are only presented in textual and pictorial representations. We have developed a kinematic test in the multimedia format, which is so called multimedia-based test (MBT). For comparative study purposes, two groups of students were alternately set to take the MBT and paper-based test (PBT). From the statistical analysis, it is revealed that there was no significant difference between the MBT and PBT. Therefore, the MBT can be used for reliable assessment tool. We also found that students were more motivated to work on multimedia format.

Sea Prayer: An Illustrated Literary Narration on the Afflictions of Refugees

Children have been the most sought-after artist, sculptors, creators, innovators, poets, builders, and are likely to practice many professions and become one. As curious learners from their toddler life, they try to grab any object that is around and make some sense out of them. For instance, playing on a heap of sand they construct their dream homes, getting hold of their dad’s stethoscope they try to feel the ‘lub dub’ beat on the chest of their parents; playing with the cooking vessels that they stealthily take it from their mother’s kitchen and play the role of a cook and chef by heating water on a toy gas stove etc. These little incidents in their life, as little ones, have given a giant leap for mankind in the field of discovery and inventions. Many scientists like James Watt (watching the boiling kettle in his mother’s cottage), Archimedes (incident in his bathing tub), Isaac Newton (falling apple) and many other such scientists have invented something or the other, through observations and experiences. These inventions are taught to children in their science classes according to their syllabus that are graded by the education department and syllabus makers. This article will make an attempt to cater interest among students to get into the picturesque and fascinating world of children’s Nursery Rhymes to understand and learn many scientific and engineering concepts from it. Through the pictorial representations found in the nursery rhymes, many engineering concepts can be taught to children between the ages of six to fifteen. This can be seen as one of the innovative methods of revealing the great wonders of science through the Nursery Rhymes.

Review of Single National Curriculum with Perspective of the Education of Children with Visual Impairment at Primary Level in Punjab Pakistan

Purpose: The Single National Curriculum (SNC) is one of the basic items of manifesto of ruling party in Pakistan. The academic capability of Children with Visual Impairment (CWVI) is usually considered as that of non-disabled students due to their good cognitive skills. Directorate of Special Education Punjab adopted the same curriculum for CWVI. This study is an effort to identify the standards, benchmarks and SLOs which are difficult to accomplish for CWVI. It was a qualitative study by method and curriculum review/document analysis technique was applied to study the SNC. The complete curriculum of seven key learning areas at early childhood level and following six subjects of English, Urdu, Mathematics, General Knowledge, Islamiat and General Science were studied at primary level. The data was retrieved from the website of National Curriculum Council, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Islamabad, Government of Pakistan. Collected information was coded, major themes were derived and interpreted. Results revealed that a large number of standards, benchmarks and Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) were easy to accomplish for CWVI as non-disabled children but many standards, benchmarks and SLOs were not easy to accomplish for CWVI due to their visual limitations and lack of sufficient need based support. The study recommended that proper adaptations, modifications and accommodations should be made for CWVI especially to attain the geometry, science and geography related standards, benchmarks and SLOs including adaptations proposed by Directorate of Special Education Punjab. Pictorial representations and visual tasks should be substituted with some other learning tasks for CWVI.

Drawing places, recreating spaces: visual voices from at-risk children

Drawing is a highly participatory mode of communication, particularly suited to allowing children to express their knowledge and ideas about various aspects of reality. It is necessary to ascertain whether children are able to master drawing sufficiently to place it at the service of their representational intentions, and whether they possess the pictorial flexibility needed to articulate and differentiate their graphic representations. The presence and development of this important cognitive–symbolic ability are investigated. This exploratory study aimed to investigate, in children living in socioeconomic and cultural disadvantaged conditions, (1) the emergence and development of the pictorial flexibility needed to effectively represent and differentiate the building in which they live from the building in which they wish they lived; and (2) the patterns in the number and quality of pictorial differentiation strategies adopted for representational purposes. Two-hundred 8-to-12-year-old Brazilian children living in a favela were asked to produce two specific thematic drawings, representing their real house vs. their desired house. The children’s pictorial representations were coded according to their communicative efficacy (allowing the viewer to distinguish, in each pair of drawings, between the real house and the one desired by the drawer) and according to the number and type of pictorial strategies used to diversify the two types of buildings. The children were had sufficient representational flexibility to effectively perform a pictorial differentiation task, and express their point of view on the environment in which they live, and imagine alternative scenarios, adopting a variety of painting strategies. Drawing, prompted with a contrastive task, has proven to be effective in allowing even disadvantaged children to differentiate their real and desired urban environments. Children’s pictorial flexibility manifests itself through a wide range of strategies, varying in number and quality according to the age of the artists. As such, its use can be encouraged by educational interventions aimed at broadening the expressive potential of children, and as a tool for fostering resilience.

Exploring the Role of Technological Representations to Facilitate Mathematics Learning In E-Class

This paper explores the role that is played by technological representations used in e-classes during pandemic, in promoting interactions among peers and teacher & students in order to provoke mathematical understandings. The analysis is based upon the theoretical framework as the Johonson Mathematical Representation Model which is an extension of Lesh’s Multimodal model of translations amongst the representations. Findings of the study suggest that Constructive tasks which used dynamic pictorial representations were successful in capturing the interest and curiosity among students and provided ample of opportunities to students to interact and think mathematically.

Using Number Talks to Support Students With High-Incidence Disabilities in Mathematics

Number talks are increasingly used in general education mathematics classes to engage students. Yet, and despite the potential benefits, number talks are given limited attention for students with high-incidence disabilities in special education settings. This article presents special education teachers with both the why and, more importantly, the how for implementing number talks to support students with high-incidence disabilities in special education settings. Specifically, the authors address how number talks can serve as both a formative assessment and an intervention for fluency and activating students’ background knowledge to be successful in general education settings. The article also provides suggestions for implementing number talks with fidelity and flexibility (e.g., use of manipulatives, pictorial representations, and teacher explicit instruction of numerical strategies).

Morale Operations and Talking Their Way Into Japan

The Morale Operations section of the OSS recruited Asian Americans with the requisite skills in media communications. They hired individuals to help with propaganda materials aimed at two targets. One was to the Chinese public, to help stiffen their resolve to resist the Imperial Japanese forces. The other was aimed at the Japanese public and Imperial Japanese military personnel, to weaken their morale and willingness to continue with the war. The means of communication was in print or over the radio. For the former, some were graphic artists and employed to design cartoons and other pictorial representations for those not sufficiently literate in the Chinese language. Others were experienced typesetters and printers. Still others were writers who produced propaganda leaflets that Morale Operations distributed throughout the countryside in China.

ShapoGraphy: a glyph-oriented visualisation approach for creating pictorial representations of bioimaging data

Intuitive visualisation of quantitative microscopy data is crucial for interpreting and discovering new patterns in complex bioimage data. Existing visualisation approaches, such as bar charts, scatter plots and heat maps, do not accommodate the complexity of visual information present in microscopy data. Here we develop ShapoGraphy, a first of its kind method accompanied by a user-friendly web-based application for creating interactive quantitative pictorial representations of phenotypic data and facilitating the understanding and analysis of image datasets (www.shapography.com). ShapoGraphy enables the user to create a structure of interest as a set of shapes. Each shape can encode different variables that are mapped to the shape dimensions, colours, symbols, and stroke features. We illustrate the utility of ShapoGraphy using various image data, including high dimensional multiplexed data. Our results show that ShapoGraphy allows a better understanding of cellular phenotypes and relationships between variables. In conclusion, ShopoGraphy supports scientific discovery and communication by providing a wide range of users with a rich vocabulary to create engaging and intuitive representations of diverse data types.

Διερεύνηση γεωμετρικών γνώσεων μαθητών με ήπιες εκπαιδευτικές ανάγκες

Geometry is a structural component of mathematics, with increased spatial and design requirements that cannot be easily met by students with mild disabilities. Systematic investigation of the difficulties encountered by students with mild disabilities in their effort to learn Geometry is a prerequisite for the implementation of effective intervention programs. However, research on this issue is relatively scarce. The aim of the present study was to assess the geometric knowledge of 54 students with mild disabilities (learning disabilities or ADHD) who attended the two last classes of elementary school. Participants were asked to recognize, describe and categorize geometric shapes and solid bodies that were presented in tactile mode and through pictorial representations. Semi-structured clinical interviews were used for gathering the data in the context of Curriculum Based Assessment and the Van Hiele’s model of geometrical thinking. Participants of both categories of mild disabilities presented difficulties in distinguishing shapes and bodies, properly using the terminology, and formatting inductive geometrical reasoning. Participants with learning disabilities had higher achievement when dealing with haptic relative to pictorial representations of geometric shapes and bodies. Sixth graders performed better than fifth graders. Results are discussed in terms of the differences between the two categories of mild disabilities as well as with regard to the implementation of intervention programs.