scholarly journals OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY AS AN OPTION FOR AN ALBANIAN UNIVERSITY WITH NO ONLINE PLATFORM: CAN IT BE USED TO IMPROVE LEARNING?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 782-784
Author(s):  
Gerda Sula

Online platforms are a worthy opportunity for extended learning, peer collaboration, and joint efforts outside the university classroom. However, in order to offer such a pedagogical tool, the online environment needs to be designed for teachers and students alike. The University of Tirana does not offer such platforms and hence, this study explores whether other open source platforms could be used to fulfill the aims and objectives of the subjects offered at this university. The results of this research, comparing two groups of students’ performance of the Curriculum Design class, one with no online platform access, and the other with platform access, showed that students’ understanding was heightened significantly in the group with online access. In this paper, the benefits of such opportunities in developing countries with no technological platform are discussed. Furthermore, recommendations for the researcher or teacher are shared regarding the planning and management of resources, such as time, discussion, and conclusions for others interested in embarking on the same path.

Author(s):  
Patrick Griffin ◽  
Esther Care ◽  
Pam Robertson ◽  
Judith Crigan ◽  
Nafisa Awwal ◽  
...  

This chapter shows how the online environment is used to promote quality teaching within a research project conducted by the Assessment Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. The project investigates how teacher teams use assessment data to inform teaching decisions and extensive efforts are made to check their learning through performance assessment procedures that monitor their discipline and pedagogy skills development. Teachers from the project are involved in a professional development course. The ways in which they adopt the knowledge, skills, and attitudes addressed by the course are tracked, along with assessment data from their students. The online environment is used to deliver the professional development course and to deliver online assessments for students and teachers. The authors are careful to ensure that the online experience for both teachers and students reinforces the ideas of the project. These include the notions of developmental approach rather than deficit, evidence rather than inferential decision making and collaboration rather than isolation.


2014 ◽  
pp. 360-375
Author(s):  
Patrick Griffin ◽  
Esther Care ◽  
Pam Robertson ◽  
Judith Crigan ◽  
Nafisa Awwal ◽  
...  

This chapter shows how the online environment is used to promote quality teaching within a research project conducted by the Assessment Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. The project investigates how teacher teams use assessment data to inform teaching decisions and extensive efforts are made to check their learning through performance assessment procedures that monitor their discipline and pedagogy skills development. Teachers from the project are involved in a professional development course. The ways in which they adopt the knowledge, skills, and attitudes addressed by the course are tracked, along with assessment data from their students. The online environment is used to deliver the professional development course and to deliver online assessments for students and teachers. The authors are careful to ensure that the online experience for both teachers and students reinforces the ideas of the project. These include the notions of developmental approach rather than deficit, evidence rather than inferential decision making and collaboration rather than isolation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Kimmo Koskinen ◽  
Markku Roinila ◽  
Kati Syvälahti

Academic libraries play a pivotal role in promoting open science, providing essential services for opening research and education. The library has also a key role in increasing awareness of open educational resources and practices. Editori is an open journal service at the University of Helsinki designed with an educational focus, providing simultaneously a contribution to the rising trend of university-based and library-based publishing. We show how this service, based on Open Journal Systems (OJS), can be applied as a pedagogical tool for teaching scholarly publishing skills to university students. In 2019 Helsinki University Library initiated a pilot project together with the Working Seminar of Doctoral Programme in Philosophy, Arts and Society of the Arts Faculty of the University of Helsinki. We outline expected pedagogical outcomes from the project, relating to scholarly communication skills, report feedback from teachers and students and discuss implications for future service development. In sum, students and teachers found the Editori platform intuitive and easy to use, although the learning curve for course leaders was considered steep in the initial phase.


Author(s):  
Amine V. Bitar ◽  
Antoine M. Melki

Social computing systems such as Social Network Sites have become more powerful. In some universities, SNSs have been adopted as a communication method between teachers and students. In addition, educational institutions have started the initiative of using open source social networking application. This chapter discusses the benefits of adopting open source SNS in education. It is organized as follows: 1) a literature review to properly define the terms, 2) a discussion of the effect of open source social networking technologies on education systems, 3) an overview of Elgg, followed by a comparison with different social learning platforms, 4) a case study of implementing Elgg at the Computer Science Department at the University of Balamand, 5) an exhibition of the requirements for the Next Generation SCORM, 6) a case study using Tin Can API with open source SNSs (Elgg), and 7) a conclusion wrapping up the chapter.


Author(s):  
Elena Ortega ◽  
Rosario Lucas ◽  
Rubén Pérez ◽  
Antonio Cobo ◽  
Nicolás Glibota ◽  
...  

Resumen Habiendo detectado la necesidad de actualizar las técnicas docentes empleadas por el profesorado universitario, estamos desarrollando, en colaboración con el Departamento de Ciencias Naturales del Colegio Cristo Rey de Jaén, el proyecto titulado “Transferencia de prácticas docentes de trabajo cooperativo del ámbito pre-universitario a la docencia práctica de asignaturas de Grado y Postgrado en la Universidad de Jaén”, concedido en la Convocatoria de Proyectos de Innovación e Incentivación de las Buenas Prácticas Docentes en la Universidad de Jaén y que implica a cuatro áreas de la Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales. En concreto en el área de Microbiología hemos desarrollado un bloque de prácticas mediante la técnica de Aprendizaje Basado en Problemas y el resto mediante la metodología tradicional de explicación previa del profesor y desarrollo de la práctica. Tanto la motivación del profesorado como de los estudiantes ha mejorado tras la aplicación de esta técnica docente. La adquisición de competencias también ha sido superior en las prácticas desarrolladas con esta metodología, en comparación con las desarrolladas por el método tradicional. Concluimos que esta metodología docente se puede adaptar perfectamente a la enseñanza universitaria, puede facilitar la comprensión del fundamento teórico y la adquisición de competencias en algunas clases prácticas, además de mejorar la motivación tanto del profesorado como de los estudiantes. Abstract Pre-university teachers have probed experience in applying new and innovative teaching methods, so we have been guided by professors from the High School “Cristo Rey Jaén” to develop these techniques in the scope of applicability of a Teaching Innovation Project titled “Transfer of collaborative teaching techniques from pre-university levels to practical classes at the University of Jaén”, that we obtained from this University and that implies the joint effort of four areas of knowledge in the Faculty of Experimental Sciences at the University of Jaén. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), a pedagogical approach and curriculum design methodology often used in higher education, has been used in practical classes in the Microbiology Unit. We have detected higher drive in both, teachers and students in those practical classes conducted with this methodology, when compared to traditional techniques. Proficiency acquired by students was also higher when applying this methodology, so we conclude it can be perfectly transposed to University in order to improve the understanding of the theoretical basis of practical classes, the competence acquisition by students and to increase the motivation of both, teachers and students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kruger

The University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) ‘Cyber News Verification Lab’ was founded in June 2016, as a focused, experiential project developing undergraduates’ online verification skills. It has been hailed as ‘ahead of the curve’ in online and social media fact-checking education by the industry’s pioneering social media open source technologists and verification experts. In September 2016, Meedan (a founding partner of First Draft News including Google News Labs) joined the experiment by providing access and technical support to their open source verification platform called ‘Check’. The project led to a significant increase in the quality of verification techniques and critical thinking actions by students. This article discusses the curriculum design and initial findings from the Cyber News Verification Lab implemented into news literacy courses at HKU in Semester 2, 2016–2017. The article also outlines current developments towards a news literacy verification rating scale—that arose from measures created by the instructor to assess student outcomes from the experiential project.


Author(s):  
Jorge Daher Nader ◽  
Amelia Patricia Panunzio ◽  
Marlene Hernández Navarro

Research is considered a function aimed at obtaining new knowledge and its application for the solution to problems or questions of a scientific nature, The universities framed in the fulfillment of their social function have a complex task given by training a competent professional who assumes research as part of their training and who learns to ask questions that they are able to solve through scientific research.  Scientific research is an indicator of the quality of processes in the university environment, so it must be increased by virtue of the results of the work carried out by research teachers and students the objective of this work is to know the perception of the teachers of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Guayaquil about the scientific activity. Objective: to know the perception of the teachers of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Guayaquil about the scientific activity. Methods: theoretical and empirical level were used, a questionnaire with closed questions aimed at knowing the opinions on the research activity in this institution was applied. Result: that of the sample analyzed 309 (39.3%) said they agreed with the training for the writing of scientific articles. 38.6% said they agree with the training on research projects. Conclusion: that teacher’s research should be enhanced to ensure the formation and development of research skills in students.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-244
Author(s):  
Elena A. M. Gandini ◽  
Tania Horák

AbstractThis contribution reports on the developing and piloting of a computer-based version of the test of English as a foreign language produced by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), where it is currently used for the admission of international students and the subsequent evaluation of their language progress. Among other benefits, computer-based testing allows for better and individualised feedback to both teachers and students, and it can provide a more authentic test experience in light of the current digital shift that UK universities are undergoing. In particular, the qualitative improvement in the feedback available for test-takers and teachers was for us a crucial factor. Providing students with personalised feedback, that is, directly linked to their performance, has positive washforward, because it means we can guide their future learning, highlighting the areas they need to work on to improve their language skills and giving them suggestions on how to succeed in academia. Furthermore, explaining the meaning of test results in detail improves transparency and ultimately washback, as teachers can use the more accessible marking criteria, together with information on how their students performed, to review plans and schemes of work for subsequent courses.


Slavic Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-333
Author(s):  
Erin Katherine Krafft

Folding together elements of anti-oppressive pedagogies and collaborative curriculum design, this contribution illuminates several possibilities for practicing anti-racism in the classroom while working with texts from Russian literature and history that do not necessarily center race. The identities and experiences of our students and ourselves, as well as the diverse forces that act upon us, are as important in the classroom as the texts in front of us, because our identities and experiences form the lens through which we interpret and interrogate. By framing this dynamic as a pedagogical tool, this contribution demonstrates that by engaging with Russian history and literature, students may gain critical perspectives on hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nation in their own lives and contexts while simultaneously discovering histories that they would not otherwise encounter, thereby broadening and deepening their sense of both global and national landscapes and their own positions and movements within them.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


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