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This article explores the ways in which popular musicians in Malaysia learn the craft of Western popular music-making in comparison to those in the United Kingdom. Literature that studied popular musicians and their practices had largely focused on communities within Anglosphere regions, and there are insufficient understandings of the journeys of non-Anglosphere popular musicians to determine if their experiences coincided with those from Anglosphere nations. In this mixed method study, popular musicians from Malaysia and the UK completed online questionnaires that enquired into their experiences with formal learning, as well as the practices they engaged in. Secondary data was also harvested from literature based on UK musicians for triangulation purposes. Though the findings indicated numerous overlaps in the experiences of popular musicians from both countries, there were areas of distinction. Malaysian popular musicians were more inclined than their counterparts in the UK, to engage with formal popular music learning, to cultivate a reliance on notation, and to experience instrumental lessons that comprised more features of informal learning. Implications from this article include the need to further investigate the factors behind the disparities, and to afford increased attention towards the learning cultures of non-Anglosphere popular musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faculty members play a valuable role in the reputation of higher education institutions and adult learners' academic success. It is imperative for faculty members to be adept at using the institution's learning management system to maintain their instructional materials and teach using a technological system. The purpose of this study was to examine the learning experiences of faculty at a state technical college who were required to participate in a new technology adoption of the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS). A qualitative case study design was used that consisted of semi-structured interviews with eight participants, document review, and observational memos. The findings revealed that the initial training meeting was basic, the training packet was burdensome to complete, the institution's webinars and tutorials were underutilized, and participants designed their own training strategies to learn the system. Two conclusions emerged that indicated: (1) the formal learning methods were insufficient and sufficient and (2) faculty's informal learning strategies created a process of self-directed and collaborative learning approaches that more directly served their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite research indicating the advantages of collaborative learning, most formal music education continues to be in an individual format. However, collaborative strategies have been observed in other musical cultures. Through this research, we wished to study the differences in the management of group practices between three musical cultures (classical, modern, and flamenco), checking whether they originate in the formal/informal nature of their cultural tools or their mode of musical production. For this purpose, we analyzed three musical groups belonging to these three musical cultures. Each group comprised four musicians. Recordings of the rehearsal sessions and three dimensions of learning (outcomes, processes, and conditions) were categorically analyzed using the system for the analysis of instrumental learning developed by our research group. Chi-square and adjusted standardized residuals analyses demonstrated that the learning outcomes in each culture differed according to the cultural tool used (literacy, orality, or mimetic), but that the processes and social interaction differed according to the mode of musical production. The findings suggested that those who approach music from open production structures, such as modern musicians, are more collaborative than those who approach it from closed structures, such as classical and flamenco musicians. We conclude by reflecting on the origin of these production structures, highlighting the need to work from different modes of musical production in educational spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explored the relationships between the learning experiences and musical proficiencies of a formal and an informal popular musician in Malaysia. The presence and impact of formal popular music education within popular music culture is become increasingly harder to ignore, and while this phenomenon had been examined by numerous popular music scholars, there is a lack of attention towards the implications of learning experience on acquired musical proficiencies. In this study, participants took part in semi-structured interviews that enquired about their music learning histories and musical skills tests that examined their sight-reading, play by ear, and improvisation proficiencies. The aim was to compare and ascertain the disparities between both musicians' learning histories and musical proficiencies, as well as to identify any potential relationships between learning methods and musical proficiencies. The findings showed that the musicians developed contrasting habitual music-making practices, attitudes and dispositions and musical proficiencies. Furthermore, the informal musician outdid the formal musician in almost all aspects examined in the musical skills tests. Implications from this article include the need for providers of formal popular music education to approach the study of popular music on its own terms, and develop methods of structured learning that enhances the development of virtuosity within the culture of popular music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Participation in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) supports the development of vocational teacher competencies. However, it is often not clear what learning methods vocational teachers use in their CPD. This study therefore investigated the CPD practices of vocational teachers in Kenya, with a specific focus on the formal and informal learning methods used. Approach: The study used a questionnaire survey to collect data from TVET teachers randomly drawn from six Technical and Vocational Colleges in Kenya's Nairobi Metropolitan Area. Descriptive and inferential analysis of the data was used to determine how frequently different learning methods are used and to identify associations between CPD practices and teacher characteristics. Findings: TVET teachers in Kenya were found to use different learning methods depending on the availability of the learning methods and the learning goals teachers have. Formal academic learning and discussions with colleagues are frequently used while collaborative learning methods and practice-based learning activities are less frequently used. Rarely used are written reflections about practice and its outcomes. Despite viewing Lecturer Industrial Attachment (LIA) as important and therefore wishing to attend LIA, more than a third of the participants indicated that they had never attended LIA. The use of professional literature is restricted to text books with limited use of primary and secondary literature. CPD activities such as mentoring, supervising other teachers, and school visits were found to form a unique category of CPD activities that is more frequently used by teachers with administrative responsibilities. Conclusion: The limited use of active learning methods that involve critical evaluation of practices and their outcomes risks limiting the ability of vocational teachers in Kenya to transform and adopt better practices. It is recommended that vocational teachers in Kenya are encouraged to adopt a broad conception of teacher CPD that embraces collaborative, reflective, and practice-based learning.

Context: Participation in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) supports the development of vocational teacher competencies. However, it is often not clear what learning methods vocational teachers use in their CPD. This study therefore investigated the CPD practices of vocational teachers in Kenya, with a specific focus on the formal and informal learning methods used. Approach: The study used a questionnaire survey to collect data from TVET teachers randomly drawn from six Technical and Vocational Colleges in Kenya's Nairobi Metropolitan Area. Descriptive and inferential analysis of the data was used to determine how frequently different learning methods are used and to identify associations between CPD practices and teacher characteristics. Findings: TVET teachers in Kenya were found to use different learning methods depending on the availability of the learning methods and the learning goals teachers have. Formal academic learning and discussions with colleagues are frequently used while collaborative learning methods and practice-based learning activities are less frequently used. Rarely used are written reflections about practice and its outcomes. Despite viewing Lecturer Industrial Attachment (LIA) as important and therefore wishing to attend LIA, more than a third of the participants indicated that they had never attended LIA. The use of professional literature is restricted to text books with limited use of primary and secondary literature. CPD activities such as mentoring, supervising other teachers, and school visits were found to form a unique category of CPD activities that is more frequently used by teachers with administrative responsibilities. Conclusion: The limited use of active learning methods that involve critical evaluation of practices and their outcomes risks limiting the ability of vocational teachers in Kenya to transform and adopt better practices. It is recommended that vocational teachers in Kenya are encouraged to adopt a broad conception of teacher CPD that embraces collaborative, reflective, and practice-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: Understanding pupils’ conceptualization of robots and programming can help teachers to avoid a disconfirmation experience by selecting more appropriate educational tools, robot designers in improving the robot design, and researchers in further improvement of the field. Background: Human–robot interaction (HRI) is affected by the actual but also expected robot’s appearance and capabilities. Multiple factors, such as age, gender, media exposure, ICT exposure, or culture, influence mental models regarding robots; therefore, it is important to investigate those for a specific cohort in the designated geographical area. Research Questions: The mental models regarding robots and programming, and the way they are possibly biased by popular culture, exposure to ICT or parental influence were studied. Research questions concerned cognitive elements of mental models, namely, definitions and knowledge of robots, and programming and how those progress in time. Also, the research studied a figurative aspect of mental models regarding robots, with a focus on anthropomorphic features. Methodology: To research the influence of the short-term HRI, four classes of eight to nine years old elementary school pupils were included in a workshop where pre and postquestionnaires were used as research instruments. Besides pupils, later in this two-phase longitudinal research, after a year of formal education in Informatics, research instruments also included teachers and parents, to investigate their influence on children’s mental models. Findings: The change of mental models under the influence of the one-time workshop was not permanent. However, a combination of maturation with informal and formal intervention supports the conceptualization of programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on how the various actors involved in a short stay abroad deal with the possibilities of learning in formal and informal situations that exist in all possible spaces and temporalities. First, we try to identify the general configuration of a short academic mobility stay. We note that formal learning takes place in parallel with informal learning. Secondly, we look at the question of their assessment based on the case of short stays in a Japanese university. These examples suggest a default assessment of learning during mobility. In the third part, we recommend rethinking the configuration of short mobility as an experience constructed by the interrelations of the actors, providing the basis for the assessment of all mobility earning without distinction of their nature.

This paper examines the role played by the learning environment, particularly in the context of guided autonomous learning as developed in language resource centres, in order to support the autonomisation process of learners involved in such training at university. How can we guide without constraining and, above all, how can we support learning that takes place increasingly outside the formal framework of the institution? What reflective tools can we offer to help learners make the link between the different learning spaces that they occupy and develop individualized paths that meet their specific needs and profiles? The focus is on learning methodology and metacognition in addressing these questions.

Learning process development, both in individual and organizational levels, does not occur only in education institutions, but from older people's experience, sharing their knowledge through the reflection stemming from Storytelling in an informal way. Faced with this context, we have analysed the contribution of Storytelling to the reflection process as a way of Organizational Learning, resulting in the proposal of a framework named ERSML Cycle of Organizational Learning (Experience, Reflection, Sense, Meaning and Learning). The results have pointed that in storytelling practices listeners are motivated to reflect through the told and recalled experiences. The ERSML Cycle represents the Reflexive and Experiential Organizational Learning, in which the interaction between the individual and the collective is generated by stories, urging reflection and resulting in learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practitioners designing for mobile learning (mLearning) and scholars exploring the same are faced with the challenge of planning for and understanding a variety of ways and places of learning. This study focuses on one crucial distinction concerning this; that of formal and informal learning. Through the analysis of contemporary research literature, we found that informal learning is represented as more enriching than formal learning. We also identified that some representations of informal learning, such as subconscious and tacit, actually gainsay the idea of designing the learning process. Based on these results we propose a number of implications to enhance pedagogical sustainability in mLearning design. We argue that in order to fuse informal and formal learning, mLearning designers need to offer more clear definitions of the concepts "formal" and "informal"; they need to omit some design aspects to the learners themselves, or to offer a design in form of a learning path that students themselves can customise according to their learning habits, routines, and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine how African American grandmothers caring for their grandchildren promoted literacy for themselves and for the children in their care. A descriptive-qualitative approach to collecting and analyzing data was deemed most appropriate for addressing the study questions. In-depth interviews were held with eight grandmothers, ranging from 46 to 70 years who identified as primary caretaker of their grandchildren. The conceptual frameworks for this study were adult learning and the theory of kin keeping. During the analysis process, a line-by-line thematic analysis was conducted. The major themes that emerged from the data analysis were formal learning and informal learning. Implications and conclusions from the study's findings are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative study contributes to new knowledge on how digital inclusion can be supported in two differently designed school settings through the meaningful use of technology to enhance the students' learning and their overall skills development. This study is a comparative, empirically grounded case research conducted over a one year period in two primary schools in Poland. Our research involved a number of methods, including video-ethnography and interviews, which were used to gather qualitative data from headteachers, teachers, students and parents. The results problematise the issues of the digital divide in teaching and learning practices in both formal and informal contexts. We have checked in what way both OPD and BYOD influence the existing divides in the area of learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For musicians, learning to improvise requires individual and collaborative skill and knowledge that in experts is acquired over years of immersion and enculturation. Learning formally, informally or a combination of both, improvisers 'learn to learn' by evolving meta-cognitive capabilities necessary to develop and refine improvisational expertise. This qualitative study explores the learning of musical knowledge across the lifespan by five prominent Australian improvising musicians. Using the conceptual lenses of practice, community and identity, this study investigates formal and informal ways of acquiring skill and knowledge, and the ways interpersonal and collaborative activity shape metacognitive processes, beliefs and understandings of improvised music making. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is used to examine the understandings of how expert improvisers think about the ways they acquire knowledge, skills, and negotiate within shared, situated learning environments. Findings suggest informal approaches to skill development and experiences engage processes that lead to independent, co-operative and collaborative expertise. This study informs educators who work with young musicians about expert improvisers' experiential formal and informal learning, critical thinking, and evolution of creative and metacognitive processes. A model of formal and informal learning traits in improvisation/jazz education informs educators in developing formalised informal learning, and nuanced aspects of optimising meaningful educational practice in improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers’ innovative work behavior and professional development is receiving more attention lately. More precisely, it is argued that teachers’ formal and informal learning is crucial to anticipate and deal with continuous changes and innovations in technology and didactics, for example. Therefore, this study researches the teachers’ innovative work behavior by studying relations between (in)formal learning activities, employability (i.e. five competences: occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, personal flexibility, corporate sense and balance) and innovative working behavior (IWB, i.e. ideas generation, promotion and realization). Furthermore, the mediating role of employability between learning and innovative working behavior is studied, too. Based on path analysis conducted on questionnaire data from 301 primary and secondary school teachers from the French-speaking community of Belgium, findings conclude that employability competences are related to both formal and informal learning, but the relationship between informal learning and employability is stronger. Next, making a distinction between the frequency and use of social informal learning is relevant given the differentiated role the different components play. Feedback use in particular seems to play an important role in teachers’ employability and IWB. Finally, it can be concluded that employability partially mediates the relation between the undertaking of (in)formal learning activities and dimensions of innovative working behavior. Results imply that schools should pay more attention to supporting teachers’ informal learning since it’s crucial for improving their ability to innovate and to be able to deal with changes in the dynamic world of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a socio-cultural discourse model of literacy, whereby literacy events are regarded as being situated within social practices, creating various formal, informal, and non-formal literacy events that are part of multiliteracies. The aim of the research was to analyze primary pupils' literacy practices (8-12 years) from the perspectives of 1,354 primary pupils, 1,020 family members, and 96 teachers in Costa Rica, using an ex-post facto design and a survey method. The findings indicate that the three groups of participants (pupils, family members, and teachers) have different views on and conceptualizations of literacy practices in school and in the community. The results show that young learners develop their literacy practices according to their different communicative needs inside and outside school. A multimodal literacy is promoted outside school to meet students' daily communicative needs. However, the school promotes a monomodal literacy, which allows pupils to respond essentially to school needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community garden activities can play a significant role in bridging formal and informal learning, particularly in urban children’s science and environmental education. It promotes relational methods of learning, discussing, and practicing that will integrate food security, social interactions, community development, environmental activism, and cultural integration. Throughout the last five years of my community garden activities, I have learned that community garden-based practices adhere to particular forms of agency: embracing diversity, sharing power, and trust building as a part of everyday learning. My auto-ethnographic study provides valuable insights for environmental educators whose goals include, incorporating ethnic diversity as well as engaging children in research, ultimately leading to community action.

Sensors for environmental radioactivity based on two novel setups using photodiodes, on the one hand, and an advanced tablet-based hybrid pixel detector, on the other hand, are presented. Measurements of four kinds of terrestrial and every-day radiation sources are carried out: Airborne radon, a mineral containing traces of uranium, edible potassium salt, and an old radium watch. These measurements permit comparisons between different types of ambient radioactive sources and enable environmental monitoring. Available data comprise discrimination between α - and β − -particles in an energy range of 33 keV to 8 MeV and under ambient air conditions. The diode-based sensor is particularly useful in portable applications since it is small and sturdy with little power consumption. It can be directly connected to a smartphone via the headset socket. For its development, the low-cost silicon positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diodes BPX61 and BPW34 have been characterised with capacitance versus voltage (C-V) curves. Physical detection limits for ionising radiation are discussed based on obtained depletion layer width: ( 50 ± 8 ) μ m at 8 V. The mobile and low-cost character of these sensors, as alternatives to Geiger counters or other advanced equipment, allows for a widespread use by individuals and citizen science groups for environmental and health protection purposes, or in educational settings. Source code and hardware design files are released under open source licenses with this publication.

In the last four years, we have been researching how five groups of young people were learning inside and outside secondary schools. The novelty of this proposal was to invite these young people to act as researchers by carrying out their own ethnographic cases. As a result we produced 10 ethnographic reports – 5 prepared by students and 5 by the university research team. In this paper, we show part of the conversation between the five ethnographic reports written by us giving account of the processes and results of the studies implemented by students. This meta-ethnographic process tries to accomplish two main objectives: (a) to characterise the variety of youth’ learning experiences in their mobilities and transitions in and outside schools and the ways of giving account of them in the ethnographic reports; (b) reporting own learning about the possibilities and limitations of the meta-ethnographic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a design framework to support science education through blended learning, based on a participatory and interactive approach supported by ICT-based tools, calledScience Learning Activities Model(SLAM). The development of this design framework started as a response to complex changes in society and education (e.g. high turnover rate of knowledge, changing labour market), which require a more creative response of learners to the world problems that surround them. Many of these challenges are related to science and it would be expected that students are attracted to science, however the contrary is the case. One of the origins of this disinterest can be found in the way science is taught. Therefore, after reviewing the relevant literature we propose the SLAM framework as a tool to aid the design of science courses with high motivational impact on students. The framework is concerned with the assumption that science learning activities should be applicable and relevant to contemporary life and transferable to ‘real-world’ situations. The design framework proposes three design dimensions: context, technology and pedagogy, and aims at integrating learning in formal and informal contexts through blended learning scenarios by using today’s flexible, interactive and immersive technologies (e.g. mobile, augmented reality, virtual reality). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the design of WISEngineering, a computer-based engineering design environment focused on helping learners in formal and informal settings engage in informed engineering design activities. This paper compares and contrasts results of implementing WISEngineering projects in both formal and informal learning settings. In particular, this paper reports on insights gleaned from implementing WISEngineering middle school science and math classrooms as well as in after-school settings with Boys and Girls Clubs. We discuss design principles guiding the development of WISEngineering for school settings and how these principles were adapted and refined for youth and facilitators in informal learning contexts. We provide implications for the design of technology-enhanced engineering learning environments across school and out-of-school time settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a university environment dominated by a traditional way of understanding knowledge, we argue that it is possible and necessary to foster capabilities among engineering students. Capabilities are understood as reasoned and substantive freedoms to lead the kind of life that people value, within a framework of respect for the core values of human development. In this sense, enhancing capabilities means fostering pro-public-good professionalism. With insight from an interview study conducted at the Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia, in Spain, we will argue how formal and informal spaces have the potential to foster capabilities such as participation, commitment, empathy, intercultural respect, critical thinking and self-reflexivity. These kinds of learning could be understood as a mixture of procedural know how and personal know how (Muller, Higher Education 70(3):409-416, ); as we will discuss in the last part of this paper, this kind of knowledge is difficult to assimilate within the framework of the terminology of skills and competences. Some recommendations for a capability-oriented curriculum are presented in the final section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I am a Chinese-Australian musician-educator of over three decades. In this autoethnography, I act as an agent of change by presenting my life as a social project. This assists understanding of a larger relational, communal and political world that moves us to critical engagement, social action and change. Evolutionary psychology asserts that language has evolved from the use of music. Empirical research maintains that children who start learning music early become better learners of languages. Music psychologists argue that music education is crucial in identity construction. Being a multi-lingual, multi-instrumental, and multi-occupational individual, I consider myself primarily a musician. My various identities in music as pianist-accompanist, singer, choral conductor, composer, and dance instructor informed and shaped my other identities as psychotherapist, interpreter-translator, author, teacher and academic researcher. The findings of this study suggest that formal/informal musical engagement fosters executive brain functions that determine my learning outcomes. My research contributes to the national debate about the benefits of music in education. It addresses a research gap identified about the effect of musical engagement on identity formation, and learning in other curriculum areas. The findings can assist music advocacy and provide insight to the preparation of future educators for multicultural Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion of digital games and the trend of gamification in various fields have increased scholars' attention on how digital games or their elements can be introduced into formal and informal learning practices. Majority of the research in this field has been conducted in economically developed regions and not so much in emerging economies. With this study the researchers focused on developing region of Southern African Development Community (SADC). World Heritage Awareness Campaign for Youth (WHACY) in SADC is a campaign dedicated to raise awareness and foster informal learning among Southern African youth about the heritage and sustainable tourism in the region. The campaign employed an online and offline gamified learning platform, which was supported by a dedicated website, Facebook page, wiki and offline materials. In one year of operation the campaign reached more than 100K audience. The purpose of this paper is to present the development, implementation, and evaluation of the campaign. The goals of the evaluation were dedicated to assess user experience in terms of engagement and conduciveness to learning as well as exploring the possibility of a gamified application to be integrated into the regular high school tourism curriculum. South African tourism students' and tourism teachers' perspectives were taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of this study was the inclusion of informal methods in the educational frameworks of architectural and urban design. The project used is based on the 3D representation of virtual models of new urban proposals in order to re-organize a local market in Tonalá, Mexico. Starting from a formal course, where the students had to develop solutions to real architecture and urban problems, a second phase was designed, based on feedback in an informal environment by the end-users (citizens and professionals). The key objectives of the experiment were to show students to connect and receive feedback through technology, evaluate how these interactions can define new informal ways of learning, and discuss how this informal data can be incorporated into an academic curriculum. The results confirm how the informal interaction constitutes a great contribution in the improvement of student's skills, even considering that the incorporation of informal data into their evaluation still remains challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of technology availability on traditional and evolving learning research output and trends by using bibliometric tools of analysis. Exponential growth in education and learning research output occurred as of the first half of the 1990s with the introduction of the World Wide Web. Rather than becoming an integral part of learning research, the support of network technologies for learning has grown into a research stream which is separate from traditional research areas such as formal and informal learning. It is affiliated with the sciences, including the medical field, more strongly than with the natural home of educational studies, the social sciences. Keyword analysis indicates terms of broad interest, yet their occurrence in the research publications shows the divergence between traditional learning and technology-based research streams. The community of technology-assisted learning research is undergoing evolution. We provide recommendations to promote a more cohesive research community to better navigate in a borderless digital world where learning occurs formally and informally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article based on an empirical study was conducted in a qualitative and holistic approach. It examined how students had used formal and informal strategies, styles and situations while improvising and composing for the research task. Eighteen research groups made up of a total of 40 males and nine females had participated in improvising in their choice of popular styles of music. An average of four participants to each group ranged in ages from 12-13 years, 13-14 years, 14-15 years and 15-16 years participated in the task. Participants were chosen from three different Australian school settings: a public Sports High School, a private Anglican School and a Catholic Systemic School so as to avoid bias in the data. The task was an unstructured one. The participants chose to use any of the following: audio-technology such as iPods, instruments, singing, or "Garage-Band" the compositional software. The data were collected from the pre-questionnaires, midi-files, as well as semi-structured interviewing which was then sorted, coded and collated through triangulation processes. The interpretation of the results indicated the importance of participants' learning improvisation in a paralleled, systemic formal and informal approach so free improvisation is reached in a logical and intelligent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preservice teachers' professional vision is an important indicator of their initial acquisition of integrated knowledge structures within university-based teacher education. To date, empirical research investigating which factors contribute to explaining preservice teachers' professional vision is scarce. This study aims to determine which factors are related to preservice teachers' incipient professional vision and may constitute necessary conditions for development processes. The participants were 55 preservice teachers who completed a questionnaire investigating their individual characteristics and opportunities used for learning and a video-based tool assessing their professional vision regarding generic pedagogical knowledge of teaching and learning. We conducted multiple regression analyses to identify relevant factors. The results showed that the number of attended courses on teaching and learning and the level of interest in the content are closely related to higher levels of professional vision. No relation was found with practical experience. It is concluded that professional vision is related to conditions of content-specific knowledge acquisition, as provided in formal teacher education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article reports the findings of a small-scale investigation into the perspectives of Chinese school leaders (school principals and deputy principals) on their leadership learning opportunities. The research draws on key policy documents and semi-structured interviews within a phenomenographic framework based on a cluster sample of ten school leaders located in Fuqing municipality, Fujian. Three overarching ‘categories of description’ emerge from the data: perspectives on formal learning, informal learning and the influences of systemic-contextual factors. The findings indicate that while there has been both an increase in investment and significant developments in school leadership training and continuing professional development, provision has been top-down and primarily focused on raising awareness of educational policy and reform. The study gives voice to the perceived learning needs of the school leaders themselves, arguing that these need to be addressed by policymakers if improvements in the quality of education are to be achieved in line with government expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Current information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to bring further changes to education. New learning techniques must be identified to take advantage of recent technological tools, such as smartphones, multimodal interfaces, multi-touch displays, etc. Game-based techniques that capitalize on ICT have proven to be very valuable. This paper presents a study aimed at validating a new educational format, inspired by the Discovery Learning technique, which integrates educational games, designed to be played on large multi-touch displays, with other types of formal and informal learning. Six classes of a primary school were involved in the study. The results showed that the proposed educational format is effective and that games on these novel multi-touch systems engage pupils very much, stimulate their collaboration and help consolidating knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to bridge informal and formal learning by leveraging on affordance structures associated with informal environments to help learners develop social, cognitive, and metacognitive dispositions that can be applied to learning in classrooms. Most studies focus on either learning in formal or informal contexts, but this study seeks to link the two. The paper proposes three tenets to augment de-contextualized learning in schools by putting back the: (a) tacit, (b) social-collective, and (c) informal. This paper seeks to advance the argument for a consideration of how formal learning might be made more authentic by leveraging the affordances of informal learning. Two case examples are illustrated. The first case shows learners operating in a virtual environment in which-through the collaborative manipulation of terrain-adopt the epistemic frame of geomorphologists. The case seeks to illustrate how the tacit and social-collective dimensions from the virtual environment might be incorporated as part of the formal geography curriculum. In the second case, interactions between members of a school bowling team highlight the contextualized and authentic metacognitive demands placed on learners/bowlers, and how these demands are re-contextualized-through metacognitive brokering-to the formal curriculum. Productive linkages are made between informal and formal learnings and anchored through learners' authentic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are facing severe cuts in funding and a transformation of both the economic model underpinning higher education and the relationship between students, tutors and universities and the traditional forms of support for students’ learning may be eroded. At the same time, mobile communications, instant messaging and social networking are now widespread amongst students and offer possible opportunities for developing new models of support. This paper reports on the use of instant messaging amongst peers, as part of a study of digitally-mediated communication and collaborative activities, crossing formal and informal boundaries, amongst campus-based undergraduate students, at a large university in the UK. It is argued that instant messaging conversations offers a means of sustainable peer support for students by demonstrating how they emerge from everyday practices, drawing on existing relationships and shared histories and redrawing the boundaries between formal and informal settings and practices. The importance of time is highlighted, showing how longitudinal, dialogic conversations were important for both practical and empathetic support. The potential of the instant messaging conversations in supporting the co-creation of artefacts, meaning making, motivation and affective support are also demonstrated, drawing on detailed examples of authentic conversations. However, such peer support practices remain largely invisible and therefore need acknowledging, fostering and encouraging, working alongside students to understand and develop these ideas so that peer support in universities can build on the existing practices of students themselves. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The ways that schools are currently envisioned and designed are consistent with ideas and norms that have existed for centuries. Educational spaces continue to be a collection of classrooms lining a common hallway. While these spaces might now regularly include the latest in electronic gadgetry and Internet connections, they are not designed or organized in ways needed to meaningfully engage learners. Callously, one might state that classrooms are more intended to house learners, like so much livestock, rather than provide these learners with innovative ways to connect to whatever topics under consideration. Moreover in this enduring state of educational architecture it can be construed that schools and classrooms are more teacher workspaces than they are student learning-places. This presentation will propose investigating a broad collection of formal and informal settings in which learning happens, and that in the diversity of museums, alternative schools, and supermarkets it will be possible to identify methods that foster students' exploration, invention and creative expression. It will be further proposed that when schools adapt and adopt such means classrooms can be converted to more authentically endorse and enhance meaningful learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major challenges in second and foreign language education, is to create links between formal and informal learning environments. Mobile City and Language Guides present examples of theoretical and practical reflections on such links. This paper presents and discusses the first considerations of Mobile City and Language Guides in language centres, upper secondary schools and universities. The core concept of Mobile City and Language Guides is geotagging. Geographical locations can be geotagged either through GPS or by marking positions directly in, e.g., Google Earth or Google Maps. Students or teachers can add various kinds of information to geotags: Photos, audio, text, movies, links, vocabulary and various language tasks. This allows the student, in self-defined learning contexts, to down- and upload location-based materials with his or her mobile phone, for immediate or later processing. More and more students are able to afford mobile phones with multimedia and broadband Internet. The potentials of user-generated mobile- and web-based content are increasing. In these years, the internet is moving from the so-called Web 1.0 to the more user-centered Web 2.0, i.e. Weblogs, YouTube, Google Maps, MySpace, FlickR, etc. In an educational context, Web 2.0 represents an interesting development of the relatively monologue Web 1.0, where traditional homepages often only allow minimal interaction with the site content. This paper investigates the opportunities that Mobile City and Language Guides seem to give second and foreign language students to learn from informal, location-based, experience-based and authentic materials; and discusses how language centres, upper secondary education and universities can involve informal learning contexts through student use of mobiles with broadband and Internet technology supporting second and foreign learning. Mobile City and Language Guides is only of several possible mobile and Internet-based language educational scenarios. The challenge for the future, therefore, is to develop and implement new, meaningful and exciting scenarios that strengthen the linkages between formal and informal learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the findings of a two-year study investigating student, parent and teacher perceptions associated with the positive and negative aspects associated with the transition from 8th grade to high school. Data reported in the paper are drawn from questionnaires administered in the 8th and 9th grades to participants in the study. Four key findings will be reported. Recommendations and implications for future research and practice are provided. A comprehensive list of references is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Outreach activities increased primary school students' knowledge of microplastics. • Low and high scorers of Preservation, Utilization, and Appreciation benefited. • Preservation, Utilization and Study Group predicted knowledge. • Hands-on activities enrich science education in-school and out-of-school. Microplastic pollution is a growing issue of concern requiring appropriate classroom instruction. Educational initiatives within this context are supposed to provide relevant background knowledge, raise awareness, and ideally lead to sustainable behavior. We implemented an identical educational module within two different learning environments: formal (in-school) and informal (out-of-school). In both settings, 444 primary school students self-reliably completed hands-on activities at workstations. We monitored students' short-term (directly after the module) and long-term (after six weeks) cognitive achievement. Additionally, when examining the participants' environmental values (Preservation, Utilization) and the Appreciation of Nature, the program similarly appealed to all students independent of the environmental values' intensity. Preservation, Utilization, and the Study Group predicted knowledge levels after program participation; Appreciation did not. While Preservation positively influenced knowledge, Utilization did the contrary. Subsequent implications on learning strategies based on our results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the challenges facing us when we try to bring commercial materials such as video games into the classroom to be used as educational tools is to identify appropriate strategies of collaboration with teachers, families, and even industries. This paper explores how multimedia contexts can be created in which children become active participants in a digital universe where multiple technologies are present (so that video games are just one of several digital tools). We present several examples derived from specific projects carried out in formal and informal educational contexts, in action research and from ethnographical perspectives. As participant observers in and outside the classroom, we designed workshops as innovative educational contexts; all the sessions were video and audio recorded. Our analysis adopted a socio-cultural perspective. Several preliminary results clearly appeared: (a) Children playing commercial games inside and outside classrooms produce different writing texts depending of the context in which they are generated; (b) using video games combined with other digital technologies seems to be an effective way of introducing children to the content and structure of games considered as dynamic systems; (c) using and reflecting on video games in and outside the school, via discussions in digital media such as blogs or pictures, can contribute to the development of digital literacies as a way of using multimodal discourses. Our main goal at this moment is to design digital materials capable of supporting teachers’ and families’ use of games and in particular, to reveal the rules that organize their structure, codes and symbolic universe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Formal learning, which ranges from university courses to targeted training to perform a single task in the workplace, has typically provided the knowledge and qualification base for professional and skilled workers and could be described as a hierarchical, standardised, centrally controlled, vertically integrated approach to the transmission of knowledge through organised curriculum modules. The technological revolution of the late 20th Century has catapulted us into an unpredictable complex world that is fast paced, information rich, networked and horizontally integrated. The formal approach while useful may not fully equip adult learners or the organisations in which they work for such a dynamic competitive environment. Informal learning is more horizontally integrated, dynamic and occurs when people make a conscious effort to learn from their experiences and engage in individual or group reflection (Burns, 2002; Foley, 2004). The contention of this paper is that formal and informal learning have not been consistently or effectively linked and that the outcomes of professional development could be enhanced by such synchronisation. This paper, based on results from an interpretive study investigating professional development in large Australian organisations in 2007, explores adult learners' experiences with formal and informal learning in the workplace. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, using mixed methods, were conducted with staff from all levels of three diverse organisations to investigate the relationship between adult learners' professional development and organisations' change agenda. Participants were asked to describe and evaluate their experiences with work related formal and informal learning. Results indicated that formal and informal learning played extensive but often isolated roles in professional and workforce development. This paper provides examples and argues that professional development could be enhanced through the overt strategic linking of formal and informal learning in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The workforce of growing globalization has led to a large number of expatriate employees working overseas for short term employment. An expatriate assignment is strongly correlated with a variety of difficulties that affect expatriates' adjustment abroad. Therefore, the aim of this article is: (1) to determine the challenges encountered by Chinese expatriates in Pakistan and (2) to determine the role of cross-cultural training for a successful international assignment. The paper adopts a qualitative approach by conducting semi-structured interviews; the interviews were conducted with 22 males and eight females, forming a total of 30 Chinese employees with the average age of 34.5 years, working in different Chinese organizations in Pakistan in 2018. The findings of this study revealed that the most significant challenges faced by Chinese expatriates in Pakistan were cultural differences and language barriers in both work and non-work factors, whereas, those Chinese expatriates who were trained through formal and informal learning techniques could facilitate their cross-cultural adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensors for environmental radioactivity based on two novel setups using photodiodes, on the one hand, and an advanced tablet-based hybrid pixel detector, on the other hand, are presented. Measurements of four kinds of terrestrial and every-day radiation sources are carried out: Airborne radon, a mineral containing traces of uranium, edible potassium salt, and an old radium watch. These measurements permit comparisons between different types of ambient radioactive sources and enable environmental monitoring. Available data comprise discrimination between α - and β − -particles in an energy range of 33 keV to 8 MeV and under ambient air conditions. The diode-based sensor is particularly useful in portable applications since it is small and sturdy with little power consumption. It can be directly connected to a smartphone via the headset socket. For its development, the low-cost silicon positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diodes BPX61 and BPW34 have been characterised with capacitance versus voltage (C-V) curves. Physical detection limits for ionising radiation are discussed based on obtained depletion layer width: (50 ± 8) μ m at 8 V. The mobile and low-cost character of these sensors, as alternatives to Geiger counters or other advanced equipment, allows for a widespread use by individuals and citizen science groups for environmental and health protection purposes, or in educational settings. Source code and hardware design files are released under open source licenses with this publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]