A global perspective on an emotional learning model proposal

Existing literature argues that emotions have a significant impact on the majority of human activities and functions. The learning process is one of the activities on which emotions have a direct influence. Thus, understanding the manner in which emotions change the students’ learning process is not only very important but it can also allow to improve the existing learning models.Currently, in the majority of situations, the teacher serves as a facilitator between the student and the learning course, and through a constant analysis of the student’s behaviour, emotions and achievements, he constantly performs adjustments to the teaching process in order to meet the students’ needs and goals. Thus far, in online learning environments there is no easy way for teachers to analyse students’ behaviour and emotions. A possible solution to this problem can be the development of mechanisms that enable computers to automatically detect students’ emotions and adapt the learning process in order to meet students’ real needs.An emotional learning model was described and a software prototype was developed and tested, in order to find out whether it performs live identification of the students’ emotions, by using affective computing techniques, and whether it automatically performs adjustments to their individual learning process. Through a deeper analysis and multidisciplinary discussion of the achieved results it is possible to acknowledge that not only emotions impact students’ learning, but also that an application that performs live emotion recognition and which integrates this feature with adjustable online learning environments will trigger improvements in students’ learning.     

Developing ecological index for identifying roles of ICT industries in mobile ecosystems: The inter-industry analysis approach

With the convergence of information and communication technology (ICT) industries in the mobile communication sectors, new actors have started emerging such as mobile contents and media service industries. The traditional distribution of power in ICT industries of mobile communication sectors has significantly changed based on relations with the new actors. Recently, the concept of a “mobile ecosystem” which embraces this environmental shift is highlighted. The traditional industries such as hardware and network-based firms and new ICT industries such as software and service-based firms grow up simultaneously creating the mobile ecosystem. In this respect, this study aims to explore ecological indexes for identifying roles of ICT industries in the mobile ecosystem. To be specific, the ecological indexes are proposed to take new roles and position of ICT industries in the perspective of ecosystem into account. For this, the inter-industry analysis, which includes the physical flows between industries, is mainly used since the ecosystem is operated by streamlining physical flows. First, the mobile ecosystem is structured by using physical input-output flows and industrial relationships. Second, to explore roles of ICT industries in the mobile ecosystem, four ecological indexes have been developed and combined based on the result of inter-industry analysis: productivity, size, spillover effect, and coverage. As a result, we identified six roles for ICT industries and their relationships: commodity, landlord, controller, keystone, facilitator, and dominator. Regarding these ecological roles and relationships in ICT industries, strategic and policy implications are also suggested to improve the health of the mobile ecosystem.     

Family Life in the Digital Home — Domestic Telecommunications at the End of the 20th Century

This paper describes results from the first stage of a long-term study of people's use of ICT (information and communications technology) products and services in the domestic environment. It is part of BT's ongoing commitment to understanding, modelling and meeting the needs of its residential customers. At one level the research has already generated significant knowledge that has led directly to commercial benefit; at a second it has validated a number of research methods needed to capture the data to build a rich picture of people's actual as well as reported behaviour. At a third level it has also generated significant new scientific knowledge about the use of ICT products.The next step is to build on these successes using a 1000 strong UK househo d panel to build an unprecedented and unparalleled understanding of how and why people purchase, adaptand adaptto ICT as UK society moves into the 21st century.     

Family life in the digital home — domestic telecommunications at the end of the 20th century

This paper describes results from the first stage of a long-term study of people’s use of ICT (information and communications technology) products and services in the domestic environment. It is part of BT’s ongoing commitment to understanding, modelling and meeting the needs of its residential customers. At one level the research has already generated significant knowledge that has led directly to commercial benefit; at a second it has validated a number of research methods needed to capture the data to build a rich picture of people’s actual as well as reported behaviour. At a third level it has also generated significant new scientific knowledge about the use of ICT products. The next step is to build on these successes using a 1000 strong UK household panel to build an unprecedented and unparalleled understanding of how and why people purchase, adapt and adapt to ICT as UK society moves into the 21st century.     

浅谈航海类专业英语教师的全面发展

教育体系运行的情况与教师直接相关, 而教师的能力对学生的学业水平也有直接影响。要发挥好高校教师 应有的作用, 就需要创造条件使其全面发展。航海类高职院校英语教学有着鲜明的职业特色, 航海技术从 业人员服务于高度国际化的航运业, 对异国文化也有着迫切的了解需求。航海专业及其英语教学特点要求 航海类高职院校英语教师要从通识技能、语言文化、专业知识三方面全面发展。     

Assessing Teacher’s Performance Evaluation and Prediction Model Using Cloud Computing Over Multi-dimensional Dataset

The main objective is to create a secured classifier for datasets based on clustering algorithm. K-means algorithm is one of the efficient techniques for mining large databases based on cloud computing platform to store large database with least cost. Cloud computing allows users to outsource their data. For multi-dimensional data the clustering technique is implemented which performs clustering of related elements without advance knowledge. The K-nearest neighbor classification is analyzed by using dataset under different conditions of parameters. In view of the above, the development of data management with a cloud computing is gaining more attention towards multi-dimensional datasets. It is a challenging task to obtain secured data in evolution of data mining technique based on cloud computing employed using classifier techniques. Quality of education depends largely on teacher’s ability, performance, knowledge, assessment and prediction on the basis of data mining techniques and clustering. These approaches permit the educational institution to decide and evaluate the classification rule to determine and recruit the best teacher based on knowledge by using cloud database which is a challenging task. The proposed technique provides secured cloud computing details regarding teacher’s recruitment, privacy of user’s input query, selecting the best teacher and hides the access patterns on cloud. The proposed idea is computed by extracting the data and proves that it provides better accuracy for selecting the best teachers and also improves the speed and constancy of recruitment application. The teacher’s recruitment is used in evaluating the ranks based on performance so that, the institution takes a better decision for recruitment.

     

行动学习理论下的高职青年教师教学能力提升路径研究

行动学习理论是以实际的工作任务或问题为导向, 以完成任务或解决问题为主线, 以个人能力为基础, 通 过在实际工作过程中对固有知识的质疑与反思, 以及团队支撑和同伴支持, 来提升自身的能力与水平。青 年教师是高职院校教师队伍的主力军, 其教学能力的高低对学校教学的影响较大, 需要学校给予更多的关 注。因此, 学院要根据青年教师的教学能力、专业背景、个人意愿, 以行动学习理论为指导, 以制度引领 为基础, 以专业支撑为核心, 以平台搭建为载体, 以自我提升为关键, 探寻提升高职青年教师教学能力的 路径与方法。     

Does ICT promote democracy similarily in developed and developing countries? A linear and nonlinear panel threshold framework

This paper assesses the impact of ICT adoption on democracy for a panel of 70 countries over the period 2000–2017. We consider two different measures of ICT and check for the stability of the relationship for different levels of economic development. Our findings show that both internet and mobile technologies increase the level of democracy in our sample countries. When considering the level of economic development, divergent results are reported for developing and developed countries. Developing countries most commonly have autocratic political regimes where internet and mobile content is monitored by government authorities. More ICT diffusion produces in these cases a negative impact on their level of democracy. Moreover, these countries do not show any presence of a threshold of ICT use necessary to enhance their level of democracy. Our findings however report the presence of a nonlinear relationship in developed countries, suggesting that the effectiveness of ICT in enhancing democracy increases as more users are connected to ICT networks. Our findings also show that unlike developing countries, press freedom and ICT adoption are complementary in developed countries. That is, when developed countries are better endowed with ICT, they can enhance the freedom of their press and therefore their level of democracy.     

Being a “Good Parent” in Parent–Teacher Conferences

This research advances our understanding of what constitutes a “good parent” in the course of actual social interaction. Examining video‐recorded naturally occurring parent–teacher conferences, this article shows that, while teachers deliver student‐praising utterances, parents may display that they are gaining knowledge; but when teachers' actions adumbrate student‐criticizing utterances, parents systematically display prior knowledge. This article elucidates the details of how teachers and parents tacitly collaborate to enable parents to express student‐troubles first, demonstrating that parents display competence—appropriate involvement with children's schooling—by asserting their prior knowledge of, and/or claiming/describing their efforts to remedy, student‐troubles. People (have to) display competence generically in interaction. By explicating how parents display competence, this article offers insights for several areas of communication research.     

The influence of social and cultural factors on mothers’ domestication of household ICTs – Experiences of Chinese and Korean women

ICTs such as television, the Internet and mobile phones are assuming a growing presence within the modern homestead and are having an indelible impact on family dynamics and parenting. While gender studies have sought to understand ICT domestication from the perspective of mothers, the influence of social and cultural factors on the adoption and appropriation of ICTs has not been as widely studied. So as to better explicate the influence of socio-cultural factors on mothers’ domestication of ICTs, this article studies the experiences of mothers in China and South Korea and compares its findings against studies of ICT domestication by mothers in other countries. Based on ethnographic interviews with mothers in media-rich families in Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul, the article explores how mothers incorporate ICTs into their household routines and how they utilise ICTs as they fulfil their maternal duties of managing the home, coordinating schedules, fostering family interaction and supervising their children. It also pays particular attention to how they oversee their children’s ICT use. The article finds that cultural conceptions of motherhood and maternal responsibility, the premium placed on academic achievement by children, as well as the two societies’ highly positive outlook on technology, greatly influence how Chinese and Korean mothers use and supervise their children’s use of ICTs. It also finds that the mothers are creative in deploying ICTs in coordinating schedules with, disciplining and monitoring their children, but also find the perpetual mothering which is enabled by always-on ICT-mediated connections to be burdensome and stressful.     

Does the digital divide matter? Factors and conditions that promote ICT literacy

Individuals’ computer skills have long been noteworthy for both education and the labor market. Although the support provided through curricula in schools develops these skills to a certain extent, digital divide still exists for individuals with different socio-demographic characteristics. The concept of digital divide, used to define individuals who do not have equal access to digital technologies, has started to be seen as a determining factor for digital competencies with its expanding scope. The current study aims to take a perspective to investigate the effect of socio-demographic variables, which may cause digital divide, on students' ICT literacy. With this study, it is sought to explain the effect of current inequalities regarding digital access on students' ICT skills. To this end, the socio-demographic characteristics of the students in the sample of Korea and Chile from the participating countries of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) were examined in the context of ICT literacy. The characteristics of the models created were compared for both countries. While parents’ level of education variable stands out for the Chilean model, the internet connection variable is remarkable for the Korean model. It is anticipated that the findings of the research will contribute to understanding the dynamics of the digital divide and its possible consequences, and can be a source for preventive policy steps to be developed.     

ICT and environmental sustainability: A global perspective

The positive and negative environmental impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are widely debated. In theory, ICT is among the sources contributing to the increasing levels of CO₂ emissions in terms of production of ICT machinery and devices, energy consumption, and recycling of electronic waste. However, ICT is also expected to reduce CO₂ emissions on a global scale by developing smarter cities, transportation systems, electrical grids, industrial processes, and energy saving gains. These two effects work in opposite direction, creating an inverted-U relationship between ICT and CO₂ emissions. The aim of this study is to investigate this non-linear relationship between ICT and CO₂ emissions on a global scale. Given that global warming is a global issue, it is necessary to look at this relationship in countries at all levels of development. To this end, we use a panel data set consisting of 142 economies, split into 116 developing and 26 developed countries, over the period 1995–2010. The results of our empirical study confirm that the relationship between ICT and CO₂ emissions is an inverted U-shaped relationship. Moreover, while for the sample of developing countries, the ICT turning point is well above the mean value, the opposite is true for the sample of developed countries. This implies that many developed countries have already attained the level of ICT development, at which CO₂ emissions decreases as the level of ICT development improves further.     

Mapping ICT use at home and telecommuting practices: A perspective from work/family border theory

This study draws on the work/family border theory to investigate the role of information communication technology (ICT) use at home in shaping the characteristics of work/family borders (i.e. flexibility and permeability) and consequently influencing individuals’ perceived work-family conflict, technostress, and level of telecommuting. Data were collected from a probability sample of 509 information workers in Hong Kong who were not self-employed. The results showed that the more that people used ICT to do their work at home, the greater they perceived their work/family borders flexible and permeable. Interestingly, low flexibility and high permeability, rather than the use of ICT at home, had much stronger influences on increasing, in particular, family-to-work conflict. As expected, work-to-family conflict was significantly and positively associated with technostress. Results also showed that the telecommuters tended to be older, had lower family incomes, used ICT frequently at home, and had a permeable boundary that allowed work to penetrate their home domain. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Nuances of development contexts for ICT4D research in least developed countries: An empirical investigation in Haiti

While technology and internet has a riveting presence for most in the urban settings and developed areas, it remains at a distant periphery for many in the under-served pockets of the world. To link the appropriation of ICT for development (ICT4D) in least developed countries (LDCs) and its achievement of the development goals, we propose a citizen-centric capacity development (CCD) framework. We use the framework to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of ICT for education (ICTE) artifacts in Haiti. To understand the contextual factors influencing participant’s intentions to use ITCE, we develop an integrated theoretical model that draws upon a popular information systems (IS) theory (UTAUT) and a behavior change model (HBM) from the public health domain. Data from 222 users is used to assess individual perceptions of ICTE benefits and barriers, and personal motivations to use ICTE. Compared to UTAUT, the results of our model better explain variations in behavior intentions of ICTE use. For practitioners, the study offers insights on what drives ICT use in LDCs. For researchers, the study generates discussion on the importance of understanding interdependencies between technology and development context. We argue that understanding these interdependencies are crucial if ICT4D interventions are to be meaningful and impactful.     

Business undergraduates’ perceived use outcomes of Moodle in a blended learning environment: The roles of usability factors and external support

This study was designed to explore the effects or roles of usability factors (i.e., perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and satisfaction) and external support (i.e., teacher and peer support) on undergraduates’ use outcomes of Moodle in a blended learning environment. The research hypotheses derived from relevant constructs taken from the technology acceptance model, information systems continuance model, and the theory of reasoned action. The study’s dependent variable is use outcomes, which was conceptualized with factors such as academic performance, perceived learning assistance, and perceived impacts on learning. We conducted a cross-sectional survey and collected data from 126 undergraduate students attending a university in the Maritime region of Canada. The partial least squares technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships in the proposed research model. We found that usability factors have positive effects on students’ use outcomes; contrarily to predictions teacher and peer support did not. The findings of the study offer useful insights that can help HE administrators gain an understanding of antecedent factors likely to enhance students’ use outcomes of Moodle.     

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) International Spillovers

As information and communications technology (ICT) involves both traditional capital and knowledge capital, potential spillovers through various mechanisms can occur. Having tried to confirm the existence of ICT spillovers across country borders as Park et al. (Inf. Syst. Res., vol. 18, pp. 86-102, 2007), we investigate the patterns and mechanisms of international ICT spillovers. We use panel data on 37 countries from 1996 to 2004. We find that developing countries could reap more benefits from ICT spillovers than developed countries. We also find that the higher the Internet penetration rate in recipient countries, the more international ICT spillovers there might exist. Our findings are important for policy decisions regarding national trade liberalization and economic integration. Developing economies that are more open to foreign trade may have an economic advantage and may develop knowledge-intensive activities, which will lead to economic development in the long run.     

Learning knowledge representation with meta knowledge distillation for single image super-resolution

Although the deep CNN-based super-resolution methods have achieved outstanding performance, their memory cost and computational complexity severely limit their practical employment. Knowledge distillation (KD), which can efficiently transfer knowledge from a cumbersome network (teacher) to a compact network (student), has demonstrated its advantages in some computer vision applications. The representation of knowledge is vital for knowledge transferring and student learning, which is generally defined in hand-crafted manners or uses the intermediate features directly. In this paper, we propose a model-agnostic meta knowledge distillation method under the teacher–student architecture for the single image super-resolution task. It provides a more flexible and accurate way to help teachers transmit knowledge in accordance with the abilities of students via knowledge representation networks (KRNets) with learnable parameters. Specifically, the texture-aware dynamic kernels are generated from local information to decompose the distillation problem into texture-wise supervision for further promoting the recovery quality of high-frequency details. In addition, the KRNets are optimized in a meta-learning manner to ensure the knowledge transferring and the student learning are beneficial to improving the reconstructed quality of the student. Experiments conducted on various single image super-resolution datasets demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing defined knowledge representation-related distillation methods and can help super-resolution algorithms achieve better reconstruction quality without introducing any extra inference complexity.     

基于Web的教师信息管理系统的设计与实现

为改善当前高校对教师信息管理的现状,建立全新的教师信息管理模式,实现教师信息管理的系统化和网络化,设计了教师信息管理系统。本文详细介绍了教师信息管理系统所采用的B/S架构模式及关键技术,着重介绍了系统的需求分析和设计。实践证明,该系统操作简便、可靠性高,教学管理人员可快速的查询每位教师的各项信息,提高了学院的管理水平和效率。     

The effect of hard and soft information and communication technologies investment on manufacturing business performance in Greece – A preliminary econometric study

This paper presents the results of the first empirical investigation of the effect of information and communication technologies (ICT) investment on business performance in Greece. It investigates the effect of both ‘hard’ ICT investment (in ICT hardware, software and networks) and ‘soft’ ICT investment (in ICT human resources, skills and organization) on firm output. It is based on data from big Greek industrial firms, which have been collected via a questionnaire-based survey conducted in cooperation with the Federation of Greek Industries (FGI). Using these data, econometric models of output have been constructed based on the microeconomic production theory. Our analysis shows that the Cobb–Douglas production function can adequately describe the output, as compared to the more general transcendental production function. Using this type of production function it has been found that hard ICT investment in Greece makes a positive and statistically significant contribution to firm output; however its output elasticity is lower than the one of the non-computer capital and much lower than the one of the labour. Also, from the dimensions-measures of the soft ICT investment we examined, it has been found that the existence of a separate ICT department has a positive and statistically significant effect on firm output, which is of considerable magnitude of about two thirds of the effect of the hard ICT investment. The possibility of an effect of firm size on the structural stability of the econometric models we employed was also investigated; it was found that for firms with total sales above about €20 million the structure of the models is reasonably stable, and therefore the conclusions drawn from them are valid, at least for the range of firm sizes that our data cover.     

认知学徒制视角下的高职教师教育技术能力提升策略研究

文章在分析国内外教师教育技术能力培训现状的基础上, 从知识技能、培训需求等方面进行了教师教育技术能力问卷调查, 并从认知学徒制理论出发, 设计了培训流程与方法, 选取了具体案例进行了教学试验, 对参加教学试验的教师进行了访谈。访谈结果验证了该培训方法的有效性与科学性。