Speak, memory: the postphenomenological analysis of memory-making in the age of algorithmically powered social networks

This paper explores the productive role that social network platforms such as Facebook, play in the practice of memory-making. While such platforms facilitate interaction across distance and time, they also solidify human self-expression and memory-making by systematically confronting the users with their digital past. By relying on the framework of postphenomenology, the analysis will scrutinize the mediating role of the Memories feature of Facebook, powered by recurring algorithmic scheduling and devoid of meaningful context. More specifically, it will show how this technological infrastructure mediates the concepts of memory, control and space, evoking a specific interpretation of the values of time, remembering and forgetting. As such, apart from preserving memories, Facebook appears as their co-producer, guiding the users in determining the criteria for remembering and forgetting. The paper finishes with suggestions on how to critically appropriate the memory-making features of social network platforms that would both enable their informed use and account for their mediating role in co-shaping good memories.

Investigation of Reflections from the Digital Game-Based Learning Environment in Higher Education

With this research, it is aimed to reveal the reflections of the digital game-based learning environment. The study group of the research consists of 28 mathematics teacher candidates studying at a state university. In the research conducted within the scope of the case study, the data were collected through worksheets used in the process of playing digital games, the opinion form for the games and observations. The research constitutes the 3 week part of the Teaching Mathematics by Game course, which is conducted for 14 weeks, 2 hours theoretical per week. In the designed learning environment, digital games were introduced to pre-service teachers, they were asked to play the games, take notes regarding the game during the game play, and reveal the mathematical results behind the games. After the game activities, teacher candidates were asked to evaluate the games. The data obtained were evaluated qualitatively and the thinking styles of the teacher candidates in the process of playing games and their views on games were presented with direct quotes and screenshots. The findings of the research revealed that the designed learning environment offers prospective teachers unique opportunities to think about mathematically strong contexts and to experience different methods of teaching and learning mathematics. The learning environment provided opportunities for teacher candidates to get to know, play, and understand and evaluate the mathematics behind the games, as well as discuss, think and collaborate in a meaningful context. In the study, it was concluded that educational digital games can become a powerful tool and an effective learning environment for learners, and prospective teachers need a radical approach that makes mathematics teaching interesting.

(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)

(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)This article analyses the social dynamics observable in a conversation with a minoritized language activist about the neighbouring speech communities. The study demonstrates that the local variety, along with its socially meaningful context, can be an important factor for the interactionally constructed local identity. The interviewee is a member of the community of practice of A Fala de Xálima, a Galician-Portuguese Romance minoritized language with about 5,000 speakers; they live in the Spanish province of Cáceres (on the border with Portugal). The analysis applies the ontological and epistemological principles of sociocultural linguistics in order to identify some indexical interactional orientations, such as stance and ideology. (Nie)ostrość tożsamości na pograniczu hiszpańsko-portugalskim – przypadek społeczności językowej A Fala de Xálima (Hiszpania)Celem artykułu jest analiza dynamik społecznych, które można zaobserwować w konwersacji z aktywistą na rzecz języka mniejszościowego, prowadzonej na temat sąsiednich społeczności językowych. W dalszej kolejności, celem jest ukazanie, że lokalna odmiana językowa, brana pod uwagę wraz ze swoim społecznie znaczącym kontekstem, może znacząco wpływać na lokalną tożsamość językową, budowaną w sposób interakcjonalny. Rozmowa została przeprowadzona z członkiem wspólnoty praktyki A Fala de Xálima – języka mniejszościowego należącego do galicyjsko-portugalskiej grupy języków romańskich – która liczy ok. 5000 użytkowników mieszkających w hiszpańskiej prowincji Cáceres (na granicy z Portugalią). W analizie autor posługuje się zasadami ontologiczno-epistemologicznymi tzw. językoznawstwa społeczno-kulturowego i przy ich użyciu opisuje wybrane orientacje indeksykalne o charakterze interakcjonalnym, takie jak pozycjonowania społeczne (ang. stance) i ideologie.

Eating Healthy: Understanding Added Sugar through Proportional Reasoning

Research suggests that integrated STEM activities can best support students in developing their mathematical and scientific understanding. On one hand, while science provides mathematics with real-life authentic problems to investigate, mathematics provides science powerful tools to explore those problems. In line with this call, in this study, we designed an integrated lesson at the cross-section of proportional reasoning and added sugar present in food products to explore how added sugar provides students with a meaningful context to engage in proportional reasoning and how proportional reasoning helps students identify the quantity of added sugar present in different food products and provides students with a platform to initiate a conversation around quality of food products. Developed on the theoretical framework of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), this lesson was remotely implemented on three middle school students. The result section highlights the design principle of the lesson that provided students with an opportunity to construct an understanding of both the disciplines through a mutual interaction.

Developing Language Skills through Students’ Quality Circle (SQC) Way: An Innovative Approach to Language Teaching and Learning

This article proposes SQC framework for English language education. The meaningful context in which the language activities take place as the students work through the cycle of problem solving provides rich opportunity to develop their language skills. Theoretical, conceptual and historical background and framework, stages of SQC case study, tools and techniques used in problem solving to develop the students’ personality, language and SQC interface and sample SQC case study have been discussed in this paper. The potential of SQC leading to TQC for professional development and its potential to inform and refine the ELT curriculum has been proposed. The systematic and scientific approach that SQC adopts has tremendous future potentials in academia.

“Georeferencing” and Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s narrative strategy (on the material of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”)

The article approaches the narrative strategy employed by a famous American horror-writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft in his only novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” (1927) and introduces new terms – “georeferencing” and “georeference.” By the latter we mean a toponymical allusion, i. e. an implicit reference to the precedential text incorporated in a toponym (e. g. the author mentions Transylvania to make a georeference to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”). Lovecraft employs georeferencing and other forms of literary allusions to medieval legends, as well as to famous gothic novels written by his predecessors Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Gustav Meyrink, Bram Stoker, etc. to create a meaningful context for his own novel. His goal is to create a common hypertextual universe, which can and will be productively navigated by a prepared reader. This strategy makes it possible for the reader to uncover hidden logics behind the fragmentary discourse and even foresee the outcome of the central battle between the principal characters. Lovecraft’s sophisticated intention and expert plot-structuring allows us to view “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” as a daring Modernist writing of the period, as well as to reassess Lovecraft’s reputation and cultural impact on the US literature of his time.

The Effects of Using Socio-Scientific Issues and Technology in Problem-Based Learning: A Systematic Review

Currently, a growing number of learning institutions at all educational levels are including problem-based learning (PBL) in their curricula. PBL scenarios often utilise technology and socio-scientific Issues (SSI), which enables the simultaneous learning of content and creative thinking and working skills needed in generating new knowledge for the future. In this sense, using SSI and technological tools in PBL learning environments can be viewed as a starting point for acquiring and integrating new knowledge. However, there is no comprehensive knowledge regarding the possibilities of this approach. The objective of this systematic review is to produce this knowledge via the PRISMA method. The strategy is used to explore the effects of the described approach through implementations conducted at secondary and undergraduate levels. The data consisted of 33 research articles that were categorised via qualitative content analysis. According to the results, PBL scenarios exploit mainly local SSIs that link scientific knowledge with a meaningful context for students. Technology is principally used in offering technical support for teaching tasks. Lastly, these results are discussed from the technological pedagogical science knowledge (TPASK) framework perspective, which proposes guidelines for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Implementing Hierarchical Indoor Semantic Location Identity Classification: A Case Study for COVID-19 Proximity Tracking in the Philippines

Efforts toward COVID-19 proximity tracking in closed environments focus on efficient proximity identification by combining it with indoor localization theory for location activity monitoring and proximity detection. But these are met with concerns based on existing considerations of the localization theory like costly infrastructure, multi-story support, and over-reliance on sensor networks. Semantic location identities (SLI), or location data stored with additional meaningful context, has become a feasible localizing factor especially in locations that have multiple spaces with different usage from each other. There is also a novel method of classification framework, called hierarchical classification, that leverages the hierarchical structure of the labels to reduce model complexity. The research aims to provide a solution to proximity analysis and location activity monitoring considering guidelines released in a Philippine context that addresses concerns of indoor localization and handling of geospatial data by implementing a hybrid hierarchical indoor semantic location identity classification that focuses on observable events within context-unique locations.

Powerful Pedagogies in Times of COVID: An Online Pedagogical Collaboration Between EFL Students and ESL Teacher Candidates

In the context of the global covid-19 pandemic, educators at all levels had to re-imagine their teaching practices to respond to the necessity of conducting all courses on-line. This article reports on the collaboration of two university instructors to create a trans-national model of learning in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. By virtue of this collaboration, the efl students based at a large public university in Colombia were engaged in four online sessions and paired with teacher candidates taking an esl endorsement course in the United States. This online collaboration afforded the Colombian efl students an authentic opportunity to practice their English learning and the us teacher candidates a meaningful context in which to conduct authentic language assessments. Using interview and questionnaire data, this qualitative case study explored the experiences of the efl students. The data demonstrate that online exchanges can afford students meaningful opportunities for language development. The results further show that online learning can be enriched through mutually beneficial collaborations across universities and transnational contexts.

Receptive Vocabulary Acquisition in Pre-Primary Education through Soft-Content and Language Integrated Learning

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become the focus of Foreign Language (FL) research within the last decades. CLIL provides a more complete, naturalistic, and meaningful context to FL learning, which has proven to brings many benefits to learners, such as a higher motivation and promotion of creativity, and better results in receptive skills, vocabulary, morphology and fluency. Nevertheless, most CLIL research has focused on primary and secondary level students and, thus, more research is needed with younger learners, namely, pre-primary students. The present study examines the learning of FL vocabulary in pre-primary learners following a soft-CLIL program, as compared to their same age peers following Formal Instruction (FI) of English. Over the course of six months, pre-primary students of two grades, namely 4- and 5-year-old students (N=155), took part in such program, aiming at teaching two curricular preschool units, traditionally taught in the mother tongue (L1), in English in the FL sessions. A longitudinal study was conducted, and students were administered a general vocabulary level pre-test, as well as a target words receptive vocabulary post-test after the two units had been worked on. The focus of the research was on receptive vocabulary acquisition, but age and word frequency effects were also analyzed. Results showed positive tendencies in receptive vocabulary development through soft-CLIL, although not statistically significant. A significant frequency effect was found, indicating that high-frequency words are recalled more easily than lower-frequency ones, but no significant differences were found when comparing learners from the two grades.