Articles released by The CITE Journal, Volume 16, Issue 2 (2016)

I hope you would like to read these interesting articles released by CITE Journal as below.
Don't miss these articles.

Photo: GraphicStock.com

Students’ Guided Reinvention of Definition of Limit of a Sequence With Interactive Technology
By Alfinio Flores, University of Delaware & Jungeun Park, University of Delaware. 

Abstract  
In a course emphasizing interactive technology, 19 students, including 18 mathematics education majors, mostly in their first year, reinvented the definition of limit of a sequence while working in small cooperative groups. The class spent four sessions of 75 minutes each on a cyclical process of guided reinvention of the definition of limit of a sequence for a particular value, L = 5. Tentative definitions were tested systematically against a well-chosen set of examples of sequences that converged, or not, to 5. Students shared their definitions and the problems they were having with their definitions with their peers through whole class presentations and public postings on a course electronic forum. Student presenters received feedback from their peers both in person and through the forum. The approximation, error, error bound framework was used to help structure students’ thinking. The use of interactive examples with epsilon bands and movable N values, in which students could zoom in to adjust the value of epsilon or zoom out to find a value of N, proved especially helpful in the process. The changes in their tentative definitions show the difficulties students had as well as the learning that occurred.

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Enabling Collaboration and Video Assessment: Exposing Trends in Science Preservice Teachers’ Assessments
By Mike Borowczak, Erebus Labs and Andrea C. Burrows, University of Wyoming 

Abstract 
This article details a new, free resource for continuous video assessment named YouDemo. The tool enables real time rating of uploaded YouTube videos for use in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and beyond. The authors discuss trends of preservice science teachers’ assessments of self- and peer-created videos using the tool. The trends were identified from over 900 assessments of 170 videos, with over 131 unique users. Included in this data set is a 2-year study focusing on 27 preservice science teachers (from a 5-year study of 76 total science preservice teachers) and their use of the tool. The authors collected both quantitative (numerical scores) and qualitative data (open-ended questions) from the 27 participants. Findings show that (a) rating two metrics had a non-zero bias between the two metrics; (b) preservice teachers found continuous video rating beneficial in enabling video assessment, promoting critical thinking, and increasing engagement; and (c) preservice teacher’s self-assessment was uncorrelated with their peers’ assessment. Additionally, the elements to enable skill improvement were met, including (a) a well defined task, (b) a challenging task, (c) immediate feedback, (d) error correction, and (e) practice. Implications include improvement in preservice teacher reflection and discussions, especially related to STEM content and pedagogy.
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Commentary: Building Web Research Strategies for Teachers and Students

By Robert W. Maloy, University of Massachusetts Amherst 

 

Abstract  

This paper presents web research strategies for teachers and students to use in building Dramatic Event, Historical Biography, and Influential Literature wiki pages for history/social studies learning.  Dramatic Events refer to milestone or turning point moments in history.  Historical Biographies and Influential Literature pages feature historically prominent people, both real and fictional. As teachers and students research these topics, they practice accessing and assessing online information while expanding web research and digital literacy skills.  They discover how the interactive capacities of wiki technology present people, events and literature in multimodal ways that engage students in deepening history learning. The paper includes sample event, biography, and literature pages hyperlinked to Resources for History Teachers, an award-winning open educational content wiki maintained by the History Teacher Education program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  These model wiki pages incorporate primary and secondary materials, multimedia resources, and multicultural topics for teaching and learning.  Students and teachers can use these model pages to construct their own wiki pages tailored to local and state history/social studies curriculum.

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Technological Modeling: Faculty Use of Technologies in Preservice Teacher Education from 2004 to 2012

By Joan E. Hughes, The University of Texas at Austin; Sa Liu, The University of Texas at Austin; & Mihyun Lim, The University of Texas at Austin 

Abstract 
This 7-year, cross-sectional study of a 1:1 laptop teacher preparatory program in the United States examined the nature and change in faculty technological modeling. Using survey methods, preservice teachers (n = 932) reported their faculty’s use of technological activities in coursework. Through descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and qualitative analysis, researchers found change in the number of faculty members incorporating presentation, word processing, email, learning management systems, and digital video activities in coursework. Emergent activities with low but increasing use included digital audio, social networking, text messaging, and blog activities. Less widely reported activities included social bookmarking, desktop publishing, webpage creation, and games. Overall results indicated all students did not report similar faculty technological modeling, which also meant that students had divergent technological experiences from which to base their future teaching. The discussion outlines an expansion of educational technology integration across teacher education methods/content courses to increase systematic and contemporary coverage of technological advancements in education through codeveloped curriculum and coteaching by educational technology and teacher education faculty.
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Enjoy your reading!   

Source: The CITE Journal

Popular MITx philosophy MOOC introduces instructor grading | MIT News

Photo: Maria Cruz Lopez

"If one of the core philosophies of online learning is to democratize education, then a new verified certificate option for a philosophy course on MITx on edX — the massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by the Institute — brings the concept full circle." summarizes Maria Cruz Lopez, Office of Digital Learning.

In an MITx Philosophy MOOC, online learners can have their work graded and commented upon by professional philosophers.

Starting Aug. 29, Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness will enable students to obtain a verified ID certificate and have their work graded and commented upon by professional philosophers. Learners from any background, anywhere in the world, can pursue the certificate option to add credibility and value to the accomplishment of completing the course.

“This is a big deal — the first MITx humanities course to offer students the chance to write a paper and have it carefully reviewed by instructors,” says Caspar Hare, who will be running the popular MOOC for the third time. “Listening to lectures and reading books is great, but philosophy is all about taking complex ideas and organizing them in a simple way. You learn by writing, specifically writing to someone.”

By writing philosophy papers and interacting with instructors online, students develop the critical reasoning skills necessary for success in any field or for an advanced degree. In fact, philosophy majors consistently outperform all other majors on the GRE, coming out on top in two of the three components of the grad school exam — Analytical Writing and Verbal Reasoning — while also excelling in Quantitative Reasoning. Philosophy majors also tend to earn more, with mid-career salaries in the 90th percentile when comparing all majors, and way ahead of all other humanities.
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Source: MIT News

Chemistry prof fired up by the unexpected | The Straits Times

Photo: Yuen Sin

"Most people prefer it when things go according to plan. But it is precisely the spark of uncertainty in the study of chemistry that holds allure for Dr Leong Weng Kee." notes Yuen Sin.

Dr Leong was conferred a Doctor of Science degree by Cambridge University in July last year for his significant contribution to his field of research.
PHOTO: GIN TAY FOR THE STRAITS TIMES

 "One of the joys of doing research in this area is that you don't know what the outcome would be. You can plan ahead on a piece of paper, draw things out and think... but it's usually more exciting when the unexpected happens," said the associate professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
The 56-year-old might not have aced his chemistry undergraduate studies at Cambridge University and gone on to do a doctorate right after graduating in 1982.

But Dr Leong, who received a doctorate in chemistry from Simon Fraser University in Canada in 1996, was conferred a Doctor of Science degree by Cambridge in July last year for his significant contribution to his field of research.

He is believed to be the first Singaporean to win this honour from Cambridge.

Over the course of his academic career, which also included about 13 years of teaching at the National University of Singapore (NUS), he has authored 180 papers, some of which explore chemical reactions to understand how chemical production can be made more efficient, or how chemical compounds can be used for applications in the biomedical field.

Currently, he is hoping to set up a company that produces diagnostic kits for dengue fever.

The kits may be able to detect dengue fever in patients even at low levels of antibodies, allowing the disease to be detected and fought earlier than can be done under current systems.

Learning to embrace the unexpected has similarly taken Dr Leong, a former Raffles Institution student, to interesting places in his own life.

In 1978, the second child of a carpenter and a housewife made the pragmatic choice of applying to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for a scholarship to study chemical engineering overseas. He was pleasantly surprised when he was granted permission to study the natural sciences, which included physics, chemistry and biology, on the condition that he become a teacher and serve an eight-year bond .

During his days as a "pretty pathetic" undergraduate at Cambridge, which included a year where he shared a room with playwright Tan Tarn How at Peterhouse College, the minefield of distractions posed by the opportunity to live and study overseas proved difficult to resist.

Said Mr Tan: "Weng Kee was not the typical Singaporean scholar who did nothing but study.

"He had a good sense of humour and was always kidding around. He also had a lot of interests - he liked classical music, and bought a lot of vinyl records."

After "disastrous" results in physics in his first year, Dr Leong decided to major in chemistry instead, graduating with a second lower honours degree in 1982.
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Source: The Straits Times  

How Machine Learning And Mobile Are Working Together | The Daily Star-Journal

"Machine Learning sounds like something out of an 1980s movie about a deceiving robot we end up fighting against to defend the existence of the planet." continues MoodleNews.
 

Photo: MoodleNews

That may explain the distrust people have with it. How understandable is this distrust? Computers monitoring and absorbing information, learning and adapting to become better? For an unknown end? Add to this distrust the purported technological singularity: the moment when artificial intelligence surpasses the human in any practical competency. Will they write better music than Mozart? The prospect feels grisly… but what if it is beautiful in ways we cannot guess today?

Reality is a lot less dramatic. We are not yet at a level where robots are capable of learning behaviors and emotions the way humans do. Talking about Machine Learning today is a less colorful discussion. It involves programs and functions that take a large heap of information to suit our needs in more useful ways. It is a lot less “AI”, and much more “Big Data.”

Machine learning today might sound not as apocalyptic, but it is still revolutionary. Never before could a system capture our past habits to maximize our satisfaction with such potency. We live in a new age of user experience; not one that thinks for itself, but one that absorbs massive volumes of data, performs operations millions of times per second, test and dismisses patterns according to thresholds set by humans, and incorporates them into the programs and tasks we decide.

The term “machine learning” is used just about wherever a slightly resembling tech comes up. The mobile devices spectrum, with IoT and smartphones, is a prominent example. But mobile, as it turns out, is poised to be the next ecosystem where computer-fueled user experience will evolve. An increasingly prominent place for people to interact with companies, services, products and knowledge, mobile is becoming a key element in all communications strategies. And with machine learning, there is a clear leap forward to a valuable, easier and more user-friendly experience...

Machine Learning and Mobile
Which is why it is no secret mobile is the new king. A category where unmanned vehicles, like drones and cars, also belong. Running learning algorithms, a multi-layered neural network for example, consumes 90 percent less power than what was previously possible. The implications are endless as we consider what we want to accomplish with machine learning. 
Here are some examples:
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Source: MoodleNews

Lifelong Learning topic music | The Daily Star-Journal

"Warrensburg – Lifelong Learning at the University of Central Missouri presents Allison Robbins, an assistant professor of music, to start the seventh year of free programming." inform Daily Star-Journal.

Dr. Allison Robbins will discuss music.

Robbins will offer an explanatory prelude to the music performed in the Provost’s Faculty Showcase. 

“In Robbins’ fast-paced, 45-minute preview, she will provide you with background information on the pieces that will be performed later that evening, including information about the composer and the context in which the piece was written,” UCM information states. 

Free tickets for the concert will be distributed at this presentation.

The introduction begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug, 24, in UTT 100 at UCM.

The Provost’s Faculty Showcase follows at 7:30 p.m. at Hart Recital Hall.

A scholar of music, dance and media, Robbins received her PhD in critical and comparative studies in music at the University of Virginia. Her research interests include Broadway and Hollywood musicals, film music, and music from the American West. She has presented her research at several national conferences and has published articles in the Journal of Society for American Music and Studies in Musical Theatre.

Before coming to UCM, she taught at the University of Tennessee and the University of Virginia.

Source: The Daily Star-Journal

Health benefits for seniors learning to play musical instruments | SBS

Photo: Peggy Giakoumelos

"Singing in a choir or playing a musical instrument can result in significant physical and mental benefits for people aged over 65." reports Peggy Giakoumelos, presenter and multimedia journalist with SBS World News and on SBS Radio.

Photo: SBS

Researchers at the Western Sydney University's MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development say even a small amount of musical training can have long-lasting effects, particularly for seniors.

They say playing a musical instrument in retirement is one of the best ways to stay mentally and physically agile.
 
Music and psychology researcher with the institute, Dr Jennifer MacRitchie, has been studying the benefits of learning an instrument for the first time in people aged over 65, with her most recent study focusing on the piano.

She said that while many people are under the misconception that learning a musical instrument was only for young people, emerging knowledge about the brain's ability to learn demonstrates this is not the case.

After a six-week course of music lessons earlier this year, Dr MacRitiche looked at how the lessons affected hand function in daily life and said the results were positive.

"They did show increases in their processing speed being able to do tasks a little bit faster and we also saw that the connection between their brain and their hand muscles was a lot stronger," she said.

Dr MacRitchie said playing a musical instrument was a complex task that the body interpreted as a form of exercise.
"Playing the piano - you're using your fingers an awful lot and you don't obviously know that that's what you're doing because it's quite enjoyable," she said.

"So really it's something similar to doing your hand exercises, but because it's a lot of fun and because you're getting other benefits out of it, it's a bit more subconscious."

"Some of the things that people believe about playing a music instrument is that if they've never done it in childhood it's passed them by," she said.

"What we know is that the ageing brain is plastic and we can still learn new skills as we get older.

"So what I wanted to do was a research study looking at people over the age of 65 to see if they could learn to play the piano over a period of six weeks and how that would help their hand function in daily life."

Study participant Mary Webb, 78, has always wanted to play the piano. Through the study completed earlier this year, she finally got her chance.

"It got my brain going a bit more - you know my fingers, because I have trouble with my fingers and it was good."
 
Ms Webb said there were also social benefits for her in attending the group lessons.

"Just the enjoyment of music you know, and meeting the other people too," she said.
 
"That was good because we were in a group and I really enjoyed it."
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Source: SBS

Take Note: Strategies to Develop Student Note-Taking Skills | Faculty Focus

"Here’s how to turn your students into competent, motivated note-takers"  inform Faculty Focus.
 
Most students aren’t particularly effective note-takers. They don’t know the best way to go about it, they’re not often challenged on the quality of their note-taking, and they prefer to copy word-for-word what the teacher says or has on the PowerPoint slides.

But note-taking is an important, often-overlooked skill that can help students in the classroom and beyond.

• Exercises that demonstrate to students the value of taking notes
• In-class methods to reinforce diligent note-taking
• Assignments that improve students’ note-taking skills
• Strategies to help students take better notes on reading assignments
• Tips for encouraging effective note-taking during classroom discussions

In a video-based course developed by Maryellen Weimer, PhD, you will learn how to improve your students note-taking skills. Highlighting techniques derived from sound research and decades of classroom experience, the longtime editor of The Teaching Professor newsletter and blog shares:
Tips for encouraging effective note-taking during classroom discussions With an emphasis on connecting note-taking directly to classroom success, Dr. Weimer provides the means to inspire students to make note-taking a priority. And because classroom time is at a premium, the ideas and tools she offers will help you improve student note-taking without taking valuable time away from course content.

As a Faculty Focus reader, you can get $200 off this product. Simply order online from Magna Publications and use coupon code FF2016NOTES. Don’t delay. This offer expires Friday, August 19, 2016.
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Source: Faculty Focus

The Tyranny of Simple Explanations | The Atlantic

Philip Ball, writer based in London summarizes, "The history of science has been distorted by a longstanding conviction that correct theories about nature are always the most elegant ones."

A memorial to Nicolaus Copernicus in Warsaw, Poland
Photo: ldambies/Shutterstock

Imagine you’re a scientist with a set of results that are equally well predicted by two different theories. Which theory do you choose?
 

This, it’s often said, is just where you need a hypothetical tool fashioned by the 14th-century English Franciscan friar William of Ockham, one of the most important thinkers of the Middle Ages. Called Ockam’s razor (more commonly spelled Occam’s razor), it advises you to seek the more economical solution: In layman’s terms, the simplest explanation is usually the best one.
 

Occam’s razor is often stated as an injunction not to make more assumptions than you absolutely need. What William actually wrote (in his Summa Logicae, 1323) is close enough, and has a pleasing economy of its own: “It is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer.”
 

Isaac Newton more or less restated Ockham’s idea as the first rule of philosophical reasoning in his great work Principia Mathematica (1687): “We are to admit no more causes of natural things, than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” In other words, keep your theories and hypotheses as simple as they can be while still accounting for the observed facts.

This sounds like good sense: Why make things more complicated than they need be? You gain nothing by complicating an explanation without some corresponding increase in its explanatory power. That’s why most scientific theories are intentional simplifications: They ignore some effects not because they don’t happen, but because they’re thought to have a negligible effect on the outcome. Applied this way, simplicity is a practical virtue, allowing a clearer view of what’s most important in a phenomenon.

But Occam’s razor is often fetishized and misapplied as a guiding beacon for scientific enquiry. It is invoked in the same spirit as that attested by Newton, who went on to claim that “Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain, when less will serve.” Here the implication is that the simplest theory isn’t just more convenient, but gets closer to how nature really works; in other words, it’s more probably the correct one.

There’s absolutely no reason to believe that. But it’s what Francis Crick was driving at when he warned that Occam’s razor (which he equated with advocating “simplicity and elegance”) might not be well suited to biology, where things can get very messy. While it’s true that “simple, elegant” theories have sometimes turned out to be wrong (a classical example being Alfred Kempe’s flawed 1879 proof of the “four-color theorem” in mathematics), it’s also true that simpler but less accurate theories can be more useful than complicated ones for clarifying the bare bones of an explanation. There’s no easy equation between simplicity and truth, and Crick’s caution about Occam’s razor just perpetuates misconceptions about its meaning and value.   

The worst misuses, however, fixate on the idea that the razor can adjudicate between rival theories. I have found no single instance where it has served this purpose to settle a scientific debate. Worse still, the history of science is often distorted in attempts to argue that it has.

Take the debate between the ancient geocentric view of the universe—in which the sun and planets move around a central Earth—and Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, with the Sun at the center and the Earth and other planets moving around it. In order to get the mistaken geocentric theory to work, ancient philosophers had to embellish circular planetary orbits with smaller circular motions called epicycles. These could account, for example, for the way the planets sometimes seem, from the perspective of the Earth, to be executing backwards loops along their path.
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Source: The Atlantic

Top 10 books writers should read | Books | The Guardian

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"Writing a novel from scratch, which is to say without training, was such an unexpected odyssey that I was prompted to recall the discoveries in my new book, Release the Bats – as much to remind myself where the power lay as to pass the keys on to others trying their luck." notes acclaimed novelist D.B.C. Pierre.

Useful pointer .... a fountain pen. 
Photograph: Vincenzo Lombardo/Getty Images

I didn’t read a lot before writing a novel, but I realise now that certain books helped set me up. Writing fiction means writing vibrant human characters, and luck is with us in terms of research, as we haven’t essentially changed since we came down from the trees. So the best grounding for a fiction writer must be one that explores human nature with gloves off. There’s nothing like literature from ancient Rome bemoaning consumer culture to show that nothing is new, or literature from Habsburg Italy telling how to hire nuns for sex from the mothers superior of convents to put Fifty Shades in perspective. Which is to say that if we haven’t figured ourselves out by now, there’s still time: we’re not going anywhere.

So my choice of books for writers is slanted towards those that expose our colours. For balance, I throw in a couple on writing as well.
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Source: The Guardian

IoT and the Campus of Things | EDUCAUSE Review

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Photo: Jason O. Hallstrom

The Internet of Things (or more commonly, IoT) is a vision of a world where everyday objects can sense, compute, and communicate with one another and other Internet-connected things, notes Jason O. Hallstrom, PhD, serves as director of the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering at Florida Atlantic University (I-SENSE@FAU) and as a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

This ecosystem of chattering objects will be incredibly diverse in its makeup, ranging from vehicles and roadways, to surgical tools and hospital beds, to forks and toothbrushes. The collective measurements and calculations provided by this new Internet tier will provide unprecedented, macroscopic visibility into a world filled with complex patterns and behaviors that heretofore were too large to see. These latent patterns and behaviors will be made manifest, and the everyday things that populate our homes, our businesses, and our schools will seamlessly coordinate to optimize our everyday experiences. Sensing, computing, and communication technology will be integrated everywhere, and we won't even know it's there.

This futuristic vision of an everything, everywhere, connected world, where technology silently recedes into the background, is hardly new. The vision stems from seeds planted nearly three decades ago by computer visionary Mark Weiser. Weiser articulated the computing paradigm known as ubiquitous computing: "It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere." In the late 1980s, when ubiquitous computing first emerged, the vision outstripped the technological foundation necessary to achieve it. But time is a wheel, and good ideas have a way of revolving until the foundations needed to realize them catch up. Sometimes, it takes multiple revolutions.

A decade after the birth of ubiquitous computing, in the same year that its progenitor passed away prematurely, the idea made another revolution, marked by another important extension to the computing lexicon. Kevin Ashton coined "Internet of Things" in 1999. A brand manager with Procter and Gamble, Ashton was intrigued by the idea of lipstick cases that could communicate their type and location to support inventory management across facilities. The planned implementation was simple, based on passive RFID tags that could transmit a small amount of static, preprogrammed information when activated by a network-connected reader – embedded, for example, in a display case. "I am Natural Blush 621!" "I am Crushed Shells 541!" "I am Wine to Five 538!" The approach became a blueprint for global retailers like Walmart, which rely on the simple, monotonous chatter of shirts, razors, and other goods to manage their global supply chain. This is a far cry from Weiser's vision of seamlessly integrated computational intelligence, but it provides a compelling business case for the power of communicating things.

The IoT fuse was lit at the beginning of a catalytic era for computing. The past 15 years have seen synergistic advancements across a number of domains on the critical path to achieving the ubiquitous computing vision. Among the most important, led through investments by DARPA and the NSF, was the development of robust, miniaturized, wireless sensing technology. Wireless sensors that vary from the size of a postage stamp to the size of a matchbox can be deployed to monitor a host of phenomena, ranging from volcanic activity to human physiology. At the same time, machine-to-machine cellular connectivity has expanded dramatically, with concurrent growth in global Internet connectivity. Coupled with the emergence of cloud computing and big data analytics, the technology ecosystem necessary to enable an Internet of Things was complete. A newfound industrial emphasis on the transformative power of data and the myriad process improvements it can inform served as the final catalyst. The IoT as a reality — not a phrase — was born.

Today, the IoT sits at the peak of Gartner's Hype Cycle. It's probably not surprising that industry is abuzz with the promise of streaming sensor data. The oft quoted "50 billion connected devices by 2020!" has become a rallying cry for technology analysts, chip vendors, network providers, and other proponents of a deeply connected, communicating world. What is surprising is that academia has been relatively slow to join the parade, particularly when the potential impacts are so exciting. Like most organizations that manage significant facilities, universities stand to benefit by adopting the IoT as part of their management strategy. The IoT also affords new opportunities to improve the customer experience. For universities, this means the ability to provide new student services and improve on those already offered. Perhaps most surprisingly, the IoT represents an opportunity to better engage a diverse student base in computer science and engineering, and to amplify these programs through meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration.

Universities must manage the significant capital assets required to support their research, teaching, and service missions. For large, research-intensive institutions, this management task can consume a nontrivial portion of the operating budget. Campus-wide IoT adoption can provide important benefits in this context, reducing operating costs through improved asset monitoring, and optimization of hands-on personnel time.
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Source: EDUCAUSE Review