Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) hold great potential for people With autism. An exploratory empirical study Was conducted to determine if children and youth With autism could understand basic emotions as represented by a humanoid avatar. Thirty-four participants (ages 7.8—16 years) reported to have autism interacted With a softWare program designed to evaluate their ability to identify and make inferences from facial expressions. Over 90% of the participants accurately recognized emotions displayed by avatar representations. These findings support the optimism that CVEs can be used effectively as an assistive technology, as an educational technology, and as a means of helping address potential theory-of-mind impairments.
This paper reports an investigation of the impact of students' cognitive style on their effective use of educational text-based computer-mediated conferences. The research centres on an empirical study involving students from three courses run by the British Open University. Statistical analysis of the data does not suggest that cognitive style has a strong influence on student participation in the conference, but does suggest that, contrary to expectations, 'imagers' may send more messages to conferences than 'verbalisers'. The data also suggest a possible link between certain cognitive styles and course completion, and that the interaction of different styles within a group, as described by Riding and Rayner's (1998) team roles, may have an indirect influence on task completion.
The drape attributes of fabrics, number of folds, depth of folds and evenness of folds were measured together with the drape coefficient. The relationship between these measurements and the subjective evaluation of the fabric drape were modelled for each end use on a neural network using back propagation, which can correctly predict the grades of 90% of the samples. The relationship between the drape attributes and fabric bending, shear and weight was also modelled using neural networks. It was found that using the natural logarithm of the material property divided first by the weight of the fabric produced the most predictive model. Together, these models provide a powerful predictive tool to determine both the drape attributes and the drape grade from the mechanical properties of a fabric. The accuracy of the prediction of this system was found to be 83% overall. Combining this with a novel feedback system (Stylios and Cheng, in preparation), the drape grade or drape attributes of a fabric can be modified to fit customer requirements and then the changes to the material properties required to achieve them can be determined.
The drape attributes of fabrics, number of folds, depth of folds and evenness of folds were measured together with the drape coefficient. The relationship between these measurements and the subjective evaluation of the fabric drape was modelled for each end-use on a neural network using back propagation, which can correctly predict the grades of 90 per cent of the samples. The relationship between the drape attributes and fabric bending, shear and weight was also modelled using neural networks. It was found that using the natural logarithm of the material property divided first by the weight of the fabric produced the most predictive model. Together, these models provide a powerful predictive tool to determine both the drape attributes and the drape grade from the mechanical properties of a fabric. The accuracy of the prediction of this system was found to be 83 per cent overall. Combining this with a novel feedback system, the drape grade or drape attributes of a fabric can be modified to fit the customer requirements and then the changes to the material properties required to achieve them can be determined.
This paper explores some of the issues associated with teaching computer science to students with dyslexia. Issues associated with both student learning generally and computer science specifically are considered. The accessibility of teaching materials made available through virtual learning environments (VLEs) is addressed. Twelve resulting guidelines particularly relevant to students with dyslexia are outlined. More specifically to computer science, the issues associated with programming are explored through the development of a mapping of the features of dyslexia to the tasks involved in writing a computer program. Preliminary evidence, from both the wider dyslexia community with computer programming experience and some early interview results, are presented to both support the mapping and draw out other important issues.
Four different instances of enquiry-based learning (EBL), developed in a School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, are described. Key decisions in the design of these activities are detailed, emphasising fl exibility in approach. Although the activities took place in broadly the same environment, the local contexts required subtle tailoring. The design decisions taken in each case are described and general overviews from integrative evaluations are provided. An emergent distinction between the forms of EBL developed was between those that focused on generic or specifi c skills and those that focused on content knowledge; these may be termed project-based learning and problem-based learning respectively. The infl uence of the focus of the activity on the design decisions is described.This paper reports on some of the teaching and learning developments that arose, at The University of Manchester, from a collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) initiative, supported by the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England). 1 PBL is an instance of enquiry-based learning (EBL), where students' enquiry into a topic is triggered by an initial problem or scenario. 2 The students following this enquiry engage in the subject matter at a deeper level than in traditional teaching methods, whilst gaining professional, personal and life-long learning skills, in a process integrated with their core subject learning that is well aligned with constructivist models of learning. 3,4 A recent IET survey of employers reported that electrical engineering graduates were very knowledgeable technically; 1 however, they had diffi culty in problem solving and translating theory into practice. This is in line with studies in America and Australia 5 and mirrors the situation facing medicine in McMaster University in Canada, which prompted the development of PBL. 6 MethodologyFour case studies of implementing EBL are described, all based in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. In each case the PBL activity had to fi t into at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on July 14, 2015 ije.sagepub.com Downloaded from N. J. Powell et al.International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education 45/2 an established timetable, constructed for modules delivered in a traditional manner through lectures and tutorials.The key decisions made to implement these EBL activities are described, refl ecting the rationale and the infl uence of the local context that shaped them. These decisions include:Structure: how many problems or scenarios will there be, of what size will these problems be and how do they relate to the rest of the module structure? Timing: when in the module do they occur and how much time is given over to them? Problems and scenarios: what is the nature of the problems or scenarios and how will they be presented? Resources: what resources will be provided and how? Facilitation: how are the groups going to be facilitated and by whom?Learning space: what type of environment will the ses...
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