text:
Study skills

Define topic
Study skills are quite important. There is a wealth of information out in this world, and if you have no way of absorbing it, it is of little use, and you will probably not be too successful at absorbing and utilizing the information that is there. Study skills are quite important in that they allow you to absorb the information that exists in an efficient and effective way.

A lot of study skills are a matter of practice. Just like everything else, practice makes perfect.

In your academic career you will need a variety of skills.

Absorbing information
You should be able to understand how different thought systems relate to one another. This comes at more advanced levels of school.

In the beginning, firm discipline is key. Much of education is rote memorization. Methods that help with memorization are repetition and flash cards. Write what you need to memorize down over and over. Have some one help you.

Ideally when learning you want to go beyond simple memorization. To actually understand the concepts underlying the material will not only help you to have a better understanding of a topic, but it will also allow you to memorize it better.

To be successful in a class, ideally you want to have intrinsic motivation. That is, you want to be successful because it makes you feel good. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is a factor that is almost always there that will help you succeed. This includes a desire to get an "A" because others want you to be successful or you want money from a good job. Both forms of motivation are useful. Ideally, a combination of both are best - innate interest in a topic along with peer pressure from outside sources to be successful are quite motivating factors.

Learning can be fun. It can be exciting to learn about the world's constructed thought systems. There are whole areas of study that study the nature of knowledge. Is all knowledge a social construction? We digress, but the point is that if you are highly motivated you will absorb the information better.

When reading text books, taking notes on the material you are reading can help you be successful on tests. Copious highlighting can also help you absorb information and know what the important parts of the text are for future reference.

Study guides are helpful too. If you have access to practice tests, utilize them! They will help you succeed on the real thing.

Time management
PLAN ahead! Be prepared.

Note taking
Take good notes when needed. You can use an outline form, or more loose forms. Find your own style of note taking that works best for you. The act of writing what is being lectured to you down not only allows you to have it for later reference, but also the mere act of writing it down reinforces the information into your brain.

Library seaching
Libraries are obsolete. Just kidding! While much of the function of libraries is going online - like reviewing academic literature there are still many uses for books and other things at library. When searching through the cataloge for information on different subjects, it is helpful to know authors of books on your topic of interest, titles of books related to what you are interested in, and keywords related to what you are interested in finding.

Once you have a general idea of what you need to research, go to the search computer at your library and start plugging in search terms. Once you find a variety of books that may suit your topic write their call numbers down. Then go find the books. If you have trouble finding the books or understanding the system, then consult your librarian. They are there to help.

How library indexing works
Libraries either use the Library of Congress Classification system or the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

Internet searching
Use Google and Wikipedia. Know what topic you want information on. Type in keywords related to the topic that you want information on. Be creative. You can limit your search to different domains in Google's advanced search options.

title: Study skills


text:
Draft:Archive/2024/Assembly language/ARM

Dear friends,

There are several [*Topic:Assembly language|Topic:Assembly Language]].

In this course we will be learning ARM assembly language. We assume you already have a little experience in some other [*Portal:Computer programming| programming language]].

Most 32 bit processors sold in 2005 used the ARM assembly language.

Introduction
'' ... more about ARM assembly language here ... ''

Interpreter project
As an example of a relatively large assembly language program, we will implement a Forth interpreter.

 * HLL = High Level Language
 * Code = Low level instructions
 * Pseudo Code = Intuitive text

ARM 920T has a 32 bit instruction set, but also has a 16 bit "Thumb" set. Thumb has lacks like the leading 4 bits of conditional codes. However "Extended" Thumb is so "complete" it will do easier and faster code than 32 bit ARM.
 * fact}}

MacroAssemblers are belabored, need manuals. "Forth" HLL is intuitive, max leverage , only takes a few minutes to learn from an asssembly listing. I'll create a Forth G.U.I in time. Forth Primative command [ SEE MyProg ] disassembles the [ MyProg ].... if G.U.I., you will see a Movie ...icons move about the LCD to show the action.

 * 1) Port Forth to new H/W by creating a partial assembler that uses only the clever instructions.

 * 2) Next create code frags ( aka "Primatives ") that allow assembly without using Forth assembler ( built in).

Everything is in a dictionary that is searched to link the code. Apps link Midlevel, who link primatives , who link assmbly code. No forward references. No [Vocabs], No STATE , No STACK. Prim's use a STACK, you cant. Forth has no STACK, uses modern data structures even at low level. Use one level hashing in the Dict' and MRU to build a faster search method. Users dont see a File/folder system, Forth manages all objects. No ObjectOrientedProgramming. All Objects have a header that allows fast search. Thus objects can be linked to the max. Multi-task : 1 ) prior' 1 device tells kernel what size time slice to give to Prior' 2 . Kernel calcs who gets time from this . 2) Hardware IRQ's are allways disabled.
 * 3) Use these primatives to create "midlevel" subroutines. Your application calls these MidLevels.
 * 1) Users can script, a
 * 2) "booter" SU can boot/shut down only.
 * 3) owner can do anything with his key.

All code is reentrant, but why would you make such a mistake ! Learn better programming !

Code can easily be unrolled ( nix CALL/RETURN) for speed.

... unfinished ...

Contributers

 * Thomas Lloyd Scott

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
User:Hillgentleman/study2

Edit.

Questions
1. What is the time now?

2 How many schools are there in wikiversity? How do you know?

3. Find a school in your field of interest and sign up. Join a topic or start a new one if you cannot find one that interests you.

4. What is a custodian? Name a custodian.

5. What do we discuss in Colloquium?

5.1 What is the law of causation?

6. How long is the Planck length?

7. Write down Schroedinger's equation.

8. What is the first line of <>?

9. Who were awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006?

10. What is a pottery knife for?

11. What is the opening sentence of Sun Tzu's <>?

12. Who wrote <>?

13. What does VB6 stand for?

14. How do you greet someone  in Arabia? German? Spain? France? Japan? Quenya? Russia?China?

15. What is peer review?

16. Describe Wikiversity in a sentence.

17. Can you host your research project here?

18. How did  the Hezbollah learn about the Israeli troop movements during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict?

19. Name an on-going research project on wikiversity.

20. What is The Question?

21. How old is our solar system?

22. Give an example of an eukaryotic organism.

23. Sign your name here.

title: User:Hillgentleman/study2


text:
User talk:Anthonyh~enwikiversity

Welcome to Wikiversity! Hope you enjoy the place. If you have questions, please feel free to come to my talk page, or to post them on the Colloquium. I look forward to seeing you around! --HappyCamper 13:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Anthonyh. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Anthonyh~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:28, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Anthonyh~enwikiversity


text:
Portal:Visual art

The Visual Arts encompasses a wide variety of media, geographic locations, moments in history, and cannot be limited to a finite list. Below are some media that are traditionally considered "Visual Art." Feel free to add more!

 * Sculpture
 * Found Object
 * Relief
 * Stone
 * Ceramics
 * Vector Drawing
 * Drawing
 * Botany Ink Drawing
 * Graphic Design
 * Painting
 * Oils
 * Watercolor
 * Acrylics
 * Gouache
 * Printmaking
 * Photography
 * Other
 * Collage
 * Photomontage
 * Hypergraphy
 * Situgraphy
 * Art

title: Portal:Visual art


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Observational astronomy/Image processing

A CCD (Charge-coupled device) imaging system is a type of digital camera that is very sensitive to the dim light from distant objects. The CCD camera is attached to a telescope and the images are stored on a computer where they can later be analyzed. Astronomical images are stored in a computer file format called FITS. These images can be opened and viewed by using computer software that understands this file format.

Browsing the sky
We will start by using a program called the Aladin Sky Atlas to retrieve images taken with a telescope and study them.

 * Open another window in your web browser by clicking on this link to the Aladin previewer program.
 * In the text box enter the name of the object that we are interested in studying. Type M101 and then click the Plate view (or Go) button.

This image shows an area of the sky that includes a galaxy. Where did this image come from? Aladin allows you to retrieve images from a number of different sources. This particular image was taken as part of the Palomar Sky Survey. The galaxy is the small spiral shape near the upper left. The galaxy is much more distant than the individual bright stars in this view. To get a closer look at the galaxy let's take a look at a more magnified view.

 * In the Aladin window click on the back button to return to the search page. Then click on the Default image button to retrieve a closeup image of M101.

A galaxy is composed of stars and the brighter parts of the image indicate places within the galaxy where there is a greater concentration of stars, for instance in the spiral arms. The common name for this object is the Pinwheel Galaxy. Astronomers also refer to it using a designation in an astronomical catalog. The Pinwheel Galaxy is number 101 in a list of objects catalogued by astronomer Charles Messier.

 * Now use Aladin to retrieve a color image of M101 by clicking on the RGB image button.

The cameras used by astronomers only capture greyscale images. To produce a color composite image requires taking separate exposures through color filters - usually red, green and blue. The three exposures are then combined to produce a final color image. In the color image of M101 you can see that the three separate exposures are not perfectly lined up which is why there is a purple border around the edge.

 * Click on the New query button in Aladin. Just below the search text box there is a list of examples.  Retrieve images of some of the other galaxies listed such as the Triangulum Pinwheel by clicking on M33.

Take a look at types of galaxies and galaxy classification as you look at the images. Try to classify each galaxy. Is it spiral, elliptical, or another type?

Creating color images

 * Open another window in your web browser by clicking on this link to the Aladin Sky Atlas home page.

There are three different versions of the Aladin program. The version used in the first activity is the Aladin Previewer. The Previewer is a convenient tool for browsing images but it does not allow for editing the images. For this activity we will need to use the full version of Aladin.

 * To get started quickly just click on the Start Aladin applet link to run Aladin in a browser window. (You can also Download Aladin on your machine and run the program from your desktop.)

 * Start Aladin and click on the Load... button. In the Server selector window click on DSS.  Pick a server to retrieve the images from, for instance DSS from STScI.  In the Target box enter M101 and then choose POSS1 Red for the Survey.  Click Submit.

The image of M101 will now download and open in the Aladin multiview window. Notice that the image is displayed as a negative, ie. the bright stars appear black and the dark sky appears white. This is an image taken through a red filter. Next we will download a second image taken through a blue filter.

 * Go back to the Server selector window and choose POSS1 Blue for the Survey. Click Submit.  You can now Close the Server selector window.

We will now combine these two images to create a color composite.

 * In the Aladin multiview window click on the icon labeled rgb. In the RGB image generator window use the pulldown menu to select the images for each color.  For Red choose the image name that includes POSS1_Red.  For Green leave it set to none.  For Blue choose the image name that begins POSS1_Blue.  Click on the Create button.

A third image will now appear in the Aladin multiview window. This type of image is called False-color because the colors do not exactly match what the human eye would see when looking through a telescope.

 * You can use the Zoom button below the thumbnail image to change the scale of the main image. A zoom setting of 1X will give you the largest image that can be displayed, without loss of resolution.  Clicking on the thumbnail will center that spot in the main window image.

Supernova

The Observational astronomy/Supernova page has images of galaxies where a supernova has been observed recently. In this activity we will retrieve images taken before the supernova occurred, and compare them to the new images.

 * Start Aladin and click on the Load... button. In the Server selector window click on DSS and select an image server.  In the Target box enter the name of the galaxy which is UGC14 and then choose POSS1_Red for the Survey.  Click Submit.

 * In the Aladin multiview window click on the icon labeled pixel. In the Pixel mapping popup window click on the Reverse button to change the image from a negative to a positive.

 * To find out when this image was taken click on the icon labeled prop and look for Date-Obs: which indicates that the image was taken Aug. 11, 1953.

 * Compare the image displayed in Aladin to the image shown at right. Click here (or on the image) to see a larger version and to find out when it was taken (the Date is 2007-01-02T23:03Z.)  This supernova was first seen on Dec. 12, 2006, so it will not be visible in the earlier image displayed by Aladin.  Do you see the supernova in the recent image?  If you are unsure, click here to see another version of this image that is marked to show which star the supernova is.

 * More images of this supernova can be found in Category:Supernova Images or at the Supernova 2006sr in UGC 14 webpage. Compare images taken on different dates to see if the supernova has changed brightness.  The difference will be very subtle in images taken a week apart.  It is more obvious after about a month.

Readings
Background information:
 * Observational astronomy
 * Telescope


text:
Talk:OLPT

Any objection to changing the name of the page to something like "One Laptop Per Teacher"? --JWSchmidt 19:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

No --Ian Kennedy 19:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC) I will do it now.

It is now done and at this stage I noticed the MOVE tab! Ian Kennedy 20:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:OLPT


text:
User:Deiv

DEIV
My name is David and I reside in Christiansburg, Virginia. I have a bachelors in Urban Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and I am nearing completion of my Masters in Architecture at Virginia Tech. I have a lifelong love of learning and I believe deeply that knowledge should be freely shared with the world to help all rise from obscurity to be able to actively participate in a goodly future. I am interested in many subjects and hope to contribute what knowledge I have gained in my life to others.

For more information on myself or my career, visit my website at http://www.deiv.net

title: User:Deiv


text:
User:SoLune~enwikiversity

Hi everybody,

I'm an user on the french Wikiversity.

My main contribution on this Wikiversity is to writte "fr:..." on the bottom of the articles.

fr:Utilisateur:SoLune

title: User:SoLune~enwikiversity


text:
Category:Film Scoring Lessons

In the filmmaking and music departments, there are courses that can all be grouped into a unit called Film Scoring.

title: Category:Film Scoring Lessons


text:
Talk:Observational astronomy/Image processing

This is the start of a series of activities in observational astronomy. The idea is to learn astronomy by going through the same process that astronomers use. I chose the Aladin program because it is easy to learn and is also able to do more advanced analysis. The first few activities will use images taken at major observatories, but later I can upload raw images taken with telescopes that I have access to. I hope that people who use the lessons will participate by editing questions into the page which I can then answer, or posting suggestions on this talk page.--mikeu 19:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Is this Aladin program a free software, or do you need to buy it?--Rayc 20:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

 * It is not open source, but it is free. You can either use a java version from within a web page, or you can download it.--mikeu 21:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I should develop a list of all free software we are having people use here, make it into a central hub (or portal). A tutorial like Mad Max's - Computer Set Up for Film Scoring] would be nice. 'll play around with this if I get some free time.--Rayc 00:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia image links
How do I include a thumbnail of an image on wikipedia? For instance, to this .--mikeu 16:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

 * You have to either upload it here or on commons. I'm not sure of the fair use criteria on software screenshots, though.--Rayc 00:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Take a look at the fair use copyright for the Photoshop screenshot.--mikeu 15:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

 * A better example is Template:Software-screenshot.--mikeu 15:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded a screenshot of Aladin and also created a category for astronomy images. Should I have used Category:Astronomy instead? --mikeu 13:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

FITS file uploads
Speaking of uploads... Eventually I'd like to upload images that I've taken through a telescope. The raw images are in the FITS file format. The file contains metadata such as the date and time the image was taken. The Aladin software then uses the metadata when the image is analyzed. For instance, the program uses the metadata to map the pixels in the image to the coordinates in the sky and generates a grid over the image to measure the position of stars. The FITS format is not a standard format that a web browser would understand how to render. Is there a place here to upload such files that are not standard jpg or png images? I noticed that there is a Media: link that is used for sound.--mikeu 12:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Virtual Moon Atlas
This appears to be a nice program. Designed for use with a telescope in observing the moon and has a lot of information packed into the program about specific lunar features. http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualmoon/ It is open source under the GPL. Mirwin 23:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Cool. Have you tried the program?--mikeu 15:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Didn't google do something like that? Also, I've found another program, http://www.stellarium.org/, "a free open source planetarium for your computer." I'm thinking that Category:Free science software is a very good resource.--Rayc 02:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

 * http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/ast3722/ast3722.htm
 * In Observational astronomy on 2011-09-04 07:37:45, 404 Not Found
 * In Observational astronomy on 2011-09-11 07:37:50, 404 Not Found

--Mu301Bot 07:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

comment
Astronomy is the best subject ever. Like it.

good exercise but needs updating
The Aladin website has changed a fair bit since the last updates were done (2016? earlier?) Just wondering if anybody is watching this page (or this project) before I go ahead & attempt to make changes. Redwidgeon (discuss • contribs) 03:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm watching the page though I haven't done much work on it recently. Please do contribute - that would be greatly appreciated! --02:36, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


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One Laptop Per Teacher

This is co-operative research work on a learning project for in-service technological training of teachers.

This page contains the 10 page version of the cut-down 6 page version accepted for the real conference, SITE 2007. This is V0.34 --146.141.15.223 06:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)--Ian Kennedy 05:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

One Laptop Per Teacher: Content and Curriculum for (in-service) Teacher Training

Ian Kennedy PhD PrEng *, Delia Pass Ed.D.**, Roxan Cadir***
 * *University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
 * ** Rutherford County Schools, USA
 * *** University Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique

Abstract

"The economy depends on education. A major problem exists with the quality of education in developing countries. The major problem lies in teacher education. ICT can provide an answer in delivering on-site education to teachers, but requires overcoming teacher resistance. One promising medium is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) when used by the teacher, and which is here called the One Laptop Per Teacher (OLPT). This paper proposes structure and content for in-service training of teachers in the use of OLPC, using the OLPT. The operation of the OLPC works with activities being the central concept; this is contrary to the MS Windows approach, where applications are the central concept. This and other differences must be conveyed to tutors, teachers and pupils. A key point with the OLPC is for pupils to build each other up by co-operating and collaborating using the mesh networking facilities built into the OLPC. So too, a key point is for teachers to build each other up by co-operating and collaborating using the Internet. The curriculum for the child is envisaged to be provided from three sources: the international teaching community co-op; the national and cultural norms of the country; the parochial quirks of the local community and environment. So too the curriculum for teaching teachers technology is provided from the same three sources. The paper concludes by pointing out that unless teachers (and their tutors!) become lifelong learners and embrace technology, their pupils will not. So the problem is really one of encouraging tutors of teachers to adapt to and adopt technology. It is recommended that a suitable phased introduction could follow the ARCS model: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. Towards this end, Wikiversity was used as the repository to keep the current master copy of material prepared by the community for the course (here called a Learning Project) for in-service teachers."

Keywords: in-service teacher's training, professional development, Learning Project, Learning Group

Introduction
It is 2007. The moment has come in a rural school in Nigeria. The teacher whom the children call Fat Fingers (for she does have very fat fingers) has told the class of 39 they can now open their packages. As each member of the class receives one laptop per child (OLPC), the teacher keeps back the 40th laptop for herself.

She experiences the excitement that her children experience as they open the packaging and try to solve the puzzle of how to open the latches to part the screen from the keyboard. But, she also experiences trepidation. Will she cope? Will her fingers manage to operate the keyboard with the smaller-than-usual pitch? Will the children still respect her now that she is no longer the source of all knowledge? What extra knowledge should she possess to help her pupils? Does this mean more work?

This paper addresses the problem of introducing teachers to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). How can we best prepare tomorrow's teachers to use tomorrow's (2007's) technology?

Learning Projects in Learning Groups in an E-Learning Community
In the Wikiversity,  Learning Projects are the equivalent of what traditional universities call "courses" or "units". Learning Projects are relevant to achieving the particular goals of a  Learning Group. A learning project is a means for members of a Learning Group to advance their professional development through systematically following organized learning activities based around a key work-related theme. A learning project is over an extended period, and it is a considered, concerted, conscientious endeavour to master the material. It is composed of a course of closely related endeavours to help the individuals to master the material. A learning project is effectively a themed container for lessons. In scope it might require about eight hours of work spread over half a year. In our context, a Learning Group is a group of in-service teachers who communicate and collaborate to form a virtual group for the purpose of professional peer education. The goal of joining a Learning Group is to help teachers to achieve their goals and objectives and to help them in learning to live in this world that is changing so rapidly. The Learning Group typically meets on-line every week and the Learning Group provides teachers with an opportunity for mutual support and challenge.

It is the reminder that they are not alone in their endeavours to advance professionally. In the lonely night as each teacher studies, with the room lit only by the light of the OLPT screen, each teacher can be comforted by the thought of that self-same light lighting up countless similar rooms.

Wikiversity is one example of a Learning Community. A learning community is a group of people and hopefuly at least one educator who are motivated by common vision and volition, and who for a period are engaged in the pursuit of acquiring knowledge, abilities, and changing attitudes. A learning community is characterized by active teaching and learning, collaboration, belonging, shared decision making, and a strong sense of democratic participation. According to Wikiversity itself, in the policy proposal document What_Wikiversity_is_not, Wikiversity "is a university in the sense of a transnational community of teachers, learners, and researchers ... dedicated to lifelong learning."

In-service learning projects for teachers
In our case, the group is composed of in-service teachers, and their goal is to learn how to introduce OLPCs into the class and make the best use of them. (We avoid the use of the word classroom, as the class may be held under "the tree". (See Figure 1.)

The in-service teachers are supported by material provided under the learning project [Collaborate_and_Create_In-service], and as part of preparing this paper, the authors have created a framework for the material that will be provided in the learning group collaborative [Collaborate_and_Create_In-service]. The repository has been called "Collaborate and Create In-Service", and this Learning Project Learning_project is located at Wikiversity. This measure provides free hosting, and enables the worldwide community to contribute to the learning project.

Review of Teacher Training Literature
This section dips into history to establish precedents and parallels from which we can learn.

An initial warning
Ehrmann (ca 1991) warns us of the importance of asking the right questions. "It takes just as much effort to answer a useless question as a useful one." So we take care to pose a useful question. Our useful question is: How does the introduction of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) impact the way we teach teachers?

A good basic approach
Chickering & Ehrmann (1996) speak about higher education. We are interested in developing the teacher as a professional.

For the school environment, we paraphrase them.

A Good Practice will:

 * 1) Encourage contacts between children and teachers
 * 2) Develop reciprocity and cooperation among children
 * 3) Use active learning techniques
 * 4) Give prompt feedback
 * 5) Emphasize time on task
 * 6) Communicate high expectations
 * 7) Respect diverse talents and ways of learning.

We believe that teaching with the OLPC can follow these practices and that learning with the OLPT should also follow these practices.

Ehman et al. (2002) believe: "Important factors include classroom-based curriculum projects, teacher choice, systematic reflection on practice, reports by teachers of their work to other professionals, and impact by teachers on others in their schools." Surely today these are still valid factors in ensuring the success of in-service training of teachers in technology?

The authors Moursund, D and Bielefeldt, T. (1999) ask," Will new teachers be prepared to teach in a digital age?" http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/11/5a/3c.pdf

Most institutions had IT available in K-12 classrooms for student teaching, but IT was not used routinely during field experiences. With the OLPC, this changes things completely, as the OLPC is highly portable. It is designed to be lightweight, small, robust, rugged with a long battery life. Thus it is eminently suitable for field expeditions. By the same token, the OLPT is ideal for the teacher to take home, to school and into the field. For example, the teacher can use it to gather photographs of the neighbourhood of the teacher for inclusion in the local lesson plan.

The vision has come to pass
The major prophet in the field is the visionary Papert (1993), whose wonderful vision for the one computer per one child ratio is translated on the project by his colleague Nicholas Negroponte, the creator and mentor of the [OLPC initiative http://www.laptop.org/] which is only coming true and being vindicated as this paper is being written: [Papert (1993) The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. New York, NY: BasicBooks,] In this book, Papert looked back over a decade during which American schools acquired more than three million computers and assessed the progress and resistance to progress. He was able to give stories about visionary teachers who had used computers to enrich learning which provided a glimpse of their potential, but the school as an institution resisted. The school only regarded Technology as an add-on to a preconceived system of education. His book was particularly critical of the schools' way of isolating the computer in a separate room where computer literacy becomes just another subject, or computer-aided instruction was used as a new technology for teaching the same old curriculum. In his proposed vision, the computer will be as much part of all learning as the pencil and the book were in the past.

With the new OLPC, children will now master areas of knowledge that were inaccessible. Self-directed work will allow children to adopt an unprecedented diversity of learning styles and there is now the opportunity for pupils to learn to take charge of their own learning.

So too, the OLPT provides a heaven-sent opportunity for teachers to follow their own learning styles and to seize the opportunity to take charge of their own learning.

Further information on the topic of teacher training in technology
Further information on the topic of teacher training in technology is easily accessible from Google's Scholar by feeding it the three keywords.  and from ERIC: []

A key author in the field is Brush (2003) [], who identified problem areas as being in pre-service and in-service training as well as at teacher's education colleges where the tutors taught without exemplary technological practice. Pre-service practicals by teachers present a good opportunity for intervention, but affect only the fresh intake.

The OLPC
Although pupils might use mainly Microsoft products in the commercial world, we are not a technical training school for commerce. The whole idea is to make an OLPC that "pays nobody no royalties and nobody no profit-margins" to make it affordable. A "WIntel" machine will cost $400, meaning that we would instead have to share one "WIntel" laptop among 4 children. Initially, the OLPC project is aimed at rural communities in less affluent countries. (Each participating country can only participate if they agree to buy a minimum of 1 million OLPCs). Obviously urban shack-dwellers and rural private schools do exist, but as the OLPC project does not concentrate on these, we just mention them in passing. We do realize that there should be benefits of this study to teachers in these circumstances, because teachers there can tap into the same international resources. We assume that we do want to teach teachers how to use the technology e.g., the hardware, the software such as the operating system, the networking and multi-media facilities (possibly with some face-to-face lectures?). We propound therefore the need to develop a generic course. The course will be online and be downloadable or can be put onto an SD card and carried around.

We realize in the big picture that material for the child / teacher can be categorized into three segments: what is an unquestionable international common core of knowledge; the national and cultural aspects that are peculiar to each country; the parochial peculiarities of each local community. The curriculum for the child is envisaged to be provided from three associated sources: the co-operative effort of the international teaching community; the national and cultural repositories of the country; the parochial quirks of the local community and local environment. So too, the curriculum for teaching teachers about technology is provided from the same three sources.

Delimitations of this work
This paper prepares the framework for a course, but deliberately stops short of completing this course and steps back so that the community can step in. The benefit of this work is that it lays the foundations for teachers to be taught the technology to enable them to use this technology to teach any subject in any area of learning.

This includes:
 * How to find data on the Web

 * How to download data

 * How to communicate with other teachers (e.g. by Voice over IP, E-mail)

 * How to present data (e.g. using freeware substitute programs for Microsoft Word / Excel / Powerpoint)

We have made the following deliberate delimitations in order to limit the ambit of this work:
 * The material we consider will be material for the training of qualified teachers (i.e. it covers in-service training only). We realize that the number of qualified teachers is different in developed, developing and under-developed countries.
 * We have concentrated on in-service training of teachers to give our paper focus, but realize that there should be benefits of this study to teachers on campus, because students there can tap into the same international resources.
 * A obvious corollary in order to make any progress is that we have to make the following assumptions: We assume the target teachers already have acquired the required knowledge about learning theory etc. and that they can actually teach.

Method
This section analyses and catalogues teaching plans with a view towards inclusion in in-service teacher technology training, analyses the wants and needs of in-service teachers, and then proposes the OLPC be populated with learning projects for the in-service teacher to use, and prepares a framework for such training tomorrow's teachers in tomorrow's technology.

An analysis and cataloguing of in-service teacher technology training
A Web search has revealed a wealth of teaching plans that are available (even for teaching the teacher!). So one contribution of the paper is to map out their existence and prepare a meta-analysis of their structure and fields. A key point is that we need to get the teacher actively involved successively through: 1. Using stock lesson plans 2. Learning from this what goes into a lesson plan 3. Modifying someone else's lesson plan 4. Researching, Preparing, Testing and Debugging the teacher's own lesson plan 5. Contributing it to the community.

An important early lesson plan is a lesson plan in making lesson plans! Other lesson plans of importance include:

 * Teacher's guide to the OLPC (self-study)

 * Child's guide to the OLPC

 * Photography

 * Audio recording

 * Introduction to wikis Introduction_to_Wiki

 * Learning to learn a wiki way Learning_to_learn_a_wiki_way

 * Scholarship Wikiversity_scholarship

 * Citing sources Cite_sources

 * If you have one, give one (lesson plan); If you need one, take two hundred.

Repeatedly using the 80:20 principle to identify the major problem in teacher training
Using the 80:20 principle, we reason that since the majority of teachers are already in the system, and the majority are reluctant, the focus of integrating interventions should be aimed at this target group. As they may be over-worked, fully occupied, part-time workers or disinterested, it necessary to get the interventions out to the in-service teachers. Because of limitations in resources, digital delivery seems to be mandated.

Case study: The problem on-the-ground in Mozambique
This sub-section gives a shocking summary of the extreme numbers and the situation on the ground in a specimen country, Mozambique. It is based on work done by Cadir (2006). Primary education schools have the largest enrolment. Primary school teachers are formally trained after a minimum formal education, completed in specialized centres located in a few main places in the country. After this formal training the teachers are left alone completely at their appointed locations with no further training. Re-training or even a complementary training of the teachers represents a huge financial burden to the ministry of education and is unsustainable for the current state of the economy. The effect of the financial burden can be seen in Figure 1 and Figure 2, which present extreme conditions of classes and classrooms. Classes are dogged by large enrolment numbers, multiple sessions, part-time and inadequately trained teachers, and inadequate classrooms.

Figure 1: Teaching in a crowded, non-conventionally built classroom in Cabo-Delgado province of Mozambique

During the turbulent war (which ended in 1992), more than half of the schools were destroyed. Even with substantial efforts by the government to build new schools and provide education to all members of the population, there are still many children studying under very poor conditions or even under a tree as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: A teacher teaching his class in Mozambique under the tree (no classroom)

Most of the schools lacks on resources like water and electricity. The problem is worse in rural areas, as can be seen in the figure, where the students have to attend classes under a tree. The water supply to the school is considered vital input for the welfare of pupils and teachers. In one of the most populated provinces of Mozambique, viz. Zambezia, the water is supplied only to 13% of the existing schools. The student / teacher ratio reaches stunning values in average of 69 for rural areas and 57 in urban areas.

Electricity is of great importance for the efficient resource operation of a school. Often night shift classes reuse existing classrooms and teachers. In Zambezia province, the percentage of schools with a supply of electricity is only 6%, and almost one fifth of those with electricity have a solar panel as the source of electricity. Therefore, any training strategy to be adopted for teachers in rural areas should take these vital factors into account.

The automatic assumption that Web access will be available to every child is as flawed as are the assumptions of solid classroom walls, running water and a stable electricity supply.

Field research has shown that there are some distance training methods which covers certain parts of the country but these are limited to printed materials, which are delivered to the schools. Once a year a group of examiners go to the schools to evaluate the learning progress. Rarely have other technologies such CDs, radio, or video tapes been used. Since IT and computer education programs have been slowly introduced into teachers training institutions and a project initiated to connect all schools nationwide to the Internet and e-learning programs, there seems to be a promise for providing continuous training for in-service teachers. Widespread deployment of ICT is seen as the only solution to rapidly improve the quality of education and related outcomes.

What teachers want and need today in in-service technology training
It is not enough to simply provide student access to technology in schools. Instead, a quality-learning environment in which these technologies are used must be implemented, and this environment must begin with the teachers. Involving the teacher from the beginning helps the teacher to "buy-in" to the concept.

Thus it is important to investigate what teachers want in technology training, as plans to integrate technology for learning often fail (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001). Teachers want resources to integrate technology into the classroom that are easy to use and readily accessible. Training should be on-site with continuing support by experts and training must not be complicated or time consuming to develop and implement. These wants are at odds with the provision of teacher training using pure distance education.

To be successful, continuing teacher professional development to integrate technology need best-practices that will promote teacher self-efficacy and positive attitudes about computers, collaborative learning, and building proficiency in technology through hands-on experience. Empirical studies have demonstrated that employing these activities does encourage technology integration. So many school reform initiatives actively involve teachers in the design, cooperative planning of student lessons, and provide sustained support to ensure that the changes become part of teachers’ daily routines. (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001). These needs are not at odds with the provision of teacher training using pure distance education.

A study by Mills and Tincher (2003) addresses the needs for provision of technology professional development activities which focus on instructional strategies and methods to integrate technology into student learning rather than on activities to increase skills in using computer hardware and software applications. We must not train operators, but must train students to be users of technology. Their study found that integration skills must be embedded in the operations training and demonstrated that the characteristics delineating differences among the teachers were more sharply defined by those who were novice users than those who were facilitators and integrators of classroom technology. The study showed that teachers were progressing toward expertise in technology integration knowledge and skills (Mills & Tincher, 2003), and concluded that through the establishment of a well-defined set of pedagogical standards and indicators, higher levels of technology integration in classrooms can be identified and achieved. The lesson to us is that clear standards are essential. When teachers know how to use and actually do use technology, the potential for student learning is increased. The author's recommend further research to examine how teachers develop expert teaching practices with technology in ways which encourage the integrating use of technology by students. The time is now just right to start research into how the OLPC becomes integrated by the children into their learning activities.

Proposing One Laptop Per Teacher as a solution
The One Laptop Per Teacher (OLPT) is an OLPC additionally loaded with content for teaching the teacher how to teach with the OLPC. Since it is functionally like the OLPC, it provides an ideal means for the teacher to learn how to teach children to use the OPLC. The OLPT is not an alternative to a whole classroom of OLPCs, but a simultaneously delivered adjunct to them.

If the teacher can discover that the OLPT can help the teacher with administration, this might be enough motivation for the teacher to investigate other ways to use the OLPT. As the smallest example, it can be used to record the attendance and grades of the children. In the bigger picture, the OLPT can be used to download fresh HTML, PNG, Audio, MPEG clips and associated driving computer programs via wi-fi to the OLPCs on a daily, weekly, term or annual or on an ad hoc basis as appropriate. (It is a happy accident that the mesh network that interconnects the OLPCs uses a protocol that is known as an ad hoc networking protocol.) The OLPC (and by extension the OLPT, is an "eBook" and an "encyclopedia". The OLPT is a "tape-recorder", "music player", "story teller", "camera", "video recorder", "video player", "mirror", "typewriter", "word-processor", "typesetter", "game console", "drawing board", "notebook", "diary", "calendar", "clock", "calculator", "collaborator", "class and mark register", "communicator", "educator". It is obviously not just an attendance register.

Lessons, homework, assignments and school newsletters and school reports are downloaded from the OLPT to the OLPCs. In the reverse direction, the OLPCs upload the completed homework and assignments to the OLPT, leading to a virtual paperless administration.

Of all the OLPCs, only the OLPTs are likely to have all three USB ports used simultaneously, e.g. flash key-disk, printer, and modem. Physically then, the only requirement to turn an OLPC into an OLPT is to augment its memory with a flash-memory key-disk. The next most important peripheral developed for the OLPT will be the low-cost USB data projector, as the laptop purposely does not have VGA port.

In general, the targeted children are from developing countries or part of rural and poor communities. They will not have dial-up or any other Web access from home, but may be lucky to have the ability to download from the Web via the OLPT at school. The OLPC has 1/2 Gigabyte of flash memory and will sometimes be networked to the Web at school, from where downloads can be made. Not all of the 1/2 Gigabyte of flash memory will be available for "user data", because the start-up program, operating and filing system, and programs such as the browser, compression software and the ad hoc networking software will all need part of the memory budget to make a functional computer.

Syllabus, Content and Learning Material for training tomorrow's teachers in tomorrow's technology
This sub-section prepares a framework for delivering distance education about the OLPC through the medium of the OLPT. This work stops short of providing the entire content, as we believe that this should be accomplished through teacher collaboration as part of the Learning Project. The interventions are envisaged to be delivered in the wrapping of a Learning Project. The framework for Learning materials is made up of the following components:

 * Study plan
 * Study guide
 * Study timetable
 * Links to Lessons
 * Assessment (Successful uploading of an original Lesson Plan to Wikiversity)

The study plan and study guide will consist of lessons provided to OLPT participants in a usable format depending on location and immediate resources. A timetable for developing and implementing lessons based upon the individual teaching curriculum of teachers who are involved in the project will be outlined in a distance learning format. On-line resources will contain information for the development and dissemination of completed lessons to share with other teachers and for student access (when Internet is available). This on-line resource may be updated to users who do not have Internet access on a timely basis.

Professional development websites created for teachers to use as resources for developing technology-rich lessons may be shared among the teaching community.

For example, the grade level section posted on The Learning Page disseminates teacher-created lessons using Internet resources that are of a reasonable length for students K-5:

Teacher created grade level lessons: http://www.cge.rcs.k12.tn.us/TLP/grade_levels.htm

The Collaborate and Create website is a resource for teachers to use to learn to develop lessons based on their specific curriculum using Internet resources as a source of information. The Collaborate and Create website focuses on blended learning by providing a resource for teachers aligned with a hands-on in-service training within our school, but this information may be accessed by teachers for on-line learning and training purposes.

Teacher Resource website: http://www.cge.rcs.k12.tn.us/CollaborateCreate.htm

The Learning Page website is a student resource of themes and lessons developed by teachers in a collaborative process that includes a hands-on in-service and access to the on-line resource website, Collaborate and Create. The teacher-created student lessons are disseminated through e-mail, but has the potential to be developed and maintained as an on-line distance learning resource.

Student resource The Learning Page website: http://www.cge.rcs.k12.tn.us/TLP/index.htm

The Learning Project will contain a framework that includes an outline for developing technology-rich lessons for teachers to access with students online. This project, Collaborate and Create, will be a resource for teachers to learn how to develop and implement computer technology lessons with their students, and will include examples, lessons, and Internet resources.

This learning project, Collaborate and Create, is in the developmental stages, beginning with an outline for learning. Collaborate and Create In-service

 * Downloadable key references

 * Annotated Bookmarks

 * e.g. Major lesson plan sites, here arbitrarily arranged according to the length of the URL:

 * http://lessonplan101.com/[]
 * http://www.lessonplans.org/[] NB
 * http://www.lessonplanz.com/[]
 * http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/[]
 * http://atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans/[]
 * http://www.lessonplanspage.com/index.html[]
 * http://www.cbv.ns.ca/sstudies/english/eng.html[]
 * http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/[]
 * http://www.getworksheets.com/samples/lessonplans/index.html[]

Conclusion
A revolution in teaching the child requires a revolution in the way teachers learn and that in turn requires a revolution in the way that tutors teach teachers. Involving the teacher from the beginning is a must as it helps the teacher to "buy-in" to the concept.

A Web search has revealed a wealth of teaching plans that are available (even for teaching the teacher). One contribution of this paper was that it mapped out the existence of the teaching plans and prepared a meta-analysis of their structure and fields. Specimens of teaching plans and their URLs have been noted. A key point is that we need to get the teacher actively involved successively through a staged process which ends with the teacher contributing to the community.

So an important early lesson plan is a lesson plan in making lesson plans. This paper has recommended in the body, other lesson plans of importance.

Recommendations
Further work should be undertaken to populate the OLPT with course material for the teacher to use learn. It is recommended that a suitable phased introduction could follow the ARCS model: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. This paper is also a call for participation in populating the framework we have proposed and set up at Wikiversity OLPT Materials put there can be roughly translated from English by Altavista's Babelfish or Google's Translate services, but need polishing by native speakers before use by speakers of other languages.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to recognise useful early discussions with Mary Metcalfe, Gavin Marchant and Rex Van Olst. Thank you.

Possible additional references

 * TeachersToolbox

 *

 * Self-citations to authors' relevant supporting works e.g.:

Pass, D. (2006). Collaborate and Create: Computer Technology Integration in the Elementary Classroom. In T. Reeves & S. Yamashita (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006 2292-2299. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

OLPC (and therefore OLPT) Design philosophy references
Activity basis, not Apps

OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/Core Ideas:

OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/Activities:

Ubuntu:

Sugar, the core of the OLPC Human Interface:

Books
Jamie McKenzie, How Teachers Learn Technology Best.

title: One Laptop Per Teacher


text:
Talk:One Laptop Per Teacher

OLPT
The paper currently contains roughly 85% content from me (Ian), 10% from Delia, 4% pulled out of Roxan's Masters thesis, 1% questions from Gavin. Co-authors who persist in a state of breathless silence will be excluded from the author line next week. The author line is still open for anybody wishing to contribute. It is not a closed user group. Since it is going to reside at Wikiversity, any nitpicking, discussing and editing would be welcome and will be acknowledged. The deadline for submission to SITE2007 is 15 December 2006! Wikiversity has enabled co-authors around the world to work around the clock on assembling and writing it. --Ian Kennedy 19:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It is also a call for participation in populating the framework we are proposing, which can link off our paper. --Ian Kennedy 17:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

How to get your head around what we are doing
Material towards our real abstract follows. --Ian Kennedy 09:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

We identify a problem
OLPC training and training of in-service teachers

We offer a generic solution
In-service training will be hosted provided at Wikiversity as a learning project. This is to be downloaded or supplied to the teacher on a SD card, to be inserted into the teacher's OLPT. It is envisaged that the teacher will study the material it slowly over 6 months, working cooperatively with the teacher's cohorts. The study will in all probability best be done simultaneous with the teacher teaching the children ways in which they can use the OLPCs.

This requires encouraging creativity, and curiosity, rewarding discoveries by letting the whole class (and the wider community) know about the discovery. For example, the first task could be to see which child can be the first to discover how to open the laptop. (The child has to unlatch both antennas, which double as case clips.)

Target Output
Brief paper (Proceedings length: 6 pages maximum); Theme: PT3: Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology at SITE 2007. March 26-30, 2007. San Antonio, Texas SITE 2007 is the 18th annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education. This society represents individual teacher educators and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty / staff development. SITE is a society of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Editing protocol
Initially, please leave all references in situ (with their calling text). This way if we change our minds and delete text, we will delete the reference also. I am now moving the references of printed material to the reference section, where they really belong. Our standard is twofold:
 * Cite paper references traditionally (Harvard style) so that the paper can be refereed and offered to printed journals or conference proceedings.
 * Link Web pages from the references section: Link so that the reader can quickly visit as many on-line references as the reader wishes. --Ian Kennedy 16:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Dual Publication
We are preparing this paper for 2 audiences: As far as copyright goes, the conference gets copyright for the print version, and anybody can use the hypertext version under GFDL. As far as I know it is OK for material to have two copyright (different) holders if the media are different (e.g. video and print).
 * The traditional conference paper. This audience cannot click on links, so they get the inferior experience. (This will help to convert the unconverted!)
 * The on-line community who believe that even quality on-line research should get financial recognition.

The conference also will get the copyright for the powerpoint.

---

Feedback
Greetings, and thanks for adding this paper to Wikiversity - particularly in order to invite co-authors and comments. I'm afraid I haven't yet had a chance to fully read the paper, so I can't comment myself - and it looks like I won't be able to before the deadline for submission. It might be an idea for the future to add a paper slightly longer in advance, and to publicise it wider, in order to ensure timely feedback. It's already difficult to track every movement on this young wiki! Anyhow, all the best with the submission, and hopefully we can work on common issues together - possibly centralised on School:Education or even Portal:Education... Cormaggio talk 21:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Also, just to say that a page named "Test" has been moved to One Laptop Per Teacher/Test - just in case you were looking for it. If this page is no longer necessary, you can let me know on my talk page, and I can delete it. Cheers. Cormaggio talk 22:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the note on my talk page, Ian. I've only been able to scan the paper - this week is a very busy one for me. The paper looks good - I might tighten up the sequence from the introduction to the paragraph about Wikiversity, which doesn't seem to flow, but that's just me. Overall, if, as it seems, you're going to use Wikiversity further to act as a space for teachers to collaborate and learn from eachother, and possibly even set up activities for their students - this would be very exciting. I'd love to help out in this regard, and would be fascinated to find out more. So, let's keep in touch - cheers! Cormaggio talk 10:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hope you do not mind.
I quoted your abstract at Google Scholar in Wikipedia article wikiversity preparing to meet notability requirements of pedantic Wikipediasts attempting to delete article on Wikiversity as non notable or some such nonsense. I think they may accept that the steam engine is a good idea and here to stay but I have not checked on the Fulton or steam related articles or stubs. If you dislike how the quote or link have been used there feel free to modify or delete. I am "Lazyquasar" there so you will not hurt my feelings. By the way I am excited your team has chosen to publish your material and collaborate here at Wikiversity. I just bought an OLPC under the get one give one program for me, my nephew and some African child to play with. Hopefully future generations will get down to the $100/laptop goal or better. Thanks for your efforts in helping launch this critical initiative. Mirwin 07:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:One Laptop Per Teacher


text:
Age of the Earth

This is a learning project for exploration of scientific methods that have been used to measure the age of the Earth.

Background
Until the Scientific revolution there was no way for people to systematically explore the age of the Earth. People in some cultures imagined that the Earth was very old (maybe even infinitely old) and others imagined that it was young, possibly only a few thousand years old.

Even after modern science began to develop in Western Europe, exploration of topics such as the age of the Earth was inhibited by cultural momentum. When Galileo was led by his astronomical observations to "radical" ideas such as the Earth moving around the Sun, he was ordered to abandon his heliocentric ideas. This religiously-motivated ban on advocacy of heliocentrism lasted more than 100 years. Ernst Mayr suggested that new discoveries such as recognition by astronomers of the large distance to the stars was important in allowing Europeans to begin to think about both vast space and long durations of time. In response to astronomical observations made using telescopes, some philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (1755, Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven) eventually began to discuss cosmological theories in which the universe might have "infinite extent, both in space and time".

study project
Which cultures around the world have favored either short or long ages for the Earth?

Geology
During the 1700s geologists began to interpret evidence such as sedimentary rock strata as being consistent with vast periods of time during which erosion produced layers of sediments that were compacted into rock. Buffon thought it likely that the Earth was hundreds of thousands of years old, but such estimates were based on indirect arguments linking observations of recent geological processes to interpretations of observable rock strata.

study project
What are the deepest known sedimentary rocks?

See also: Geological structures of fossiliferrous bearing material.

Biology
Along with careful analysis of sedimentary rock strata came recognition that different types of fossil organisms are found in the various rock strata. Charles Darwin's intuitions about the time required for biological evolution made him comfortable with an interpretation of the geological evidence consistent with Earth being billions of years old.

study project
When were the first microscopic fossils recognized?

Reading: Solution to Darwin's dilemma: Discovery of the missing Precambrian record of life by J. William Schopf See also: Bacterial fossils

Physics
In Darwin's time, physical scientists such as William Thomson performed calculations on physical processes such as the cooling of the Earth and the burning of chemical fuel by the sun. They concluded that the Earth might only be tens of millions of years old. These estimates, based on seemingly irrefutable physical principles deeply troubled Darwin. How could the geological record and a gradual evolution of the great diversity of living organisms be made compatible with such a young age for the Earth?

Marie Curie and her collaborators eventually discovered radioactivity. Radioactivity provides a source of heat for the Earth that was unknown during Darwin's life time. Nuclear fusion was eventually recognized as a natural energy source that could keep the sun burning far longer than any chemical fuel.

study project
Assume that the Sun is made of coal. Estimate how much longer the Sun could burn at its current rate of energy release.

Radiometric dating
Radiometric dating makes use of the existence of radioisotopes. An example of a useful radioisotope for dating very old rocks is uranium. Uranium-238 is the most common isotope of uranium, accounting for more than 99% of uranium atoms in rocks on Earth. Uranium-238 nuclei are not stable: uranium-238 has a half life of about 4.5 billion years. Uranium-238 decays to lead-206. There are some minerals such as zircon which incorporate uranium but not lead. Most of the lead found in zircon comes from decay of uranium, so a determination of the ratio of uranium to lead allows estimation of the age of zircon-containing rock. This method was used as early as 1907 by Bertram Boltwood, who found that some Earth rocks appeared to be well over a billion years old.

Nucleosynthesis and the age of the universe
Since the best estimates of the age of the Earth come from studies using radiometric dating, it is worth asking where radioactive isotopes such as uranium-238 come from. Cosmologists estimate that the universe is about 14 billion years old (see: age of the universe). About 14 billion years ago, most of the atoms of our universe formed and have remain unchanged as hydrogen and helium atoms. Most heavier atoms such as uranium apparently formed inside stars during the past 14 billion years (see: Supernova nucleosynthesis). Nucleosynthesis of uranium inside stars was followed by release of that uranium when stars exploded. The Sun is classified as a third generation star because of its relatively large amount of high atomic number atoms. The vast majority of atoms in the universe are hydrogen atoms. Stars such as the Sun fuse hydrogen atoms and produce helium atoms. An estimate of the age of the Sun can be made based on the ratios hydrogen and helium. The large amount of helium in the Sun (about 25%) is consistent with the solar system being several billion years old.

Study project
At the current rate of hydrogen --> helium fusion, how long will it take to increase the helium content of the Sun from 25% to 50%?

Limitations on the use of radiometric dating of Earth rocks
There are some serious limitations on the use of radiometric dating of Earth rocks as a way to estimate the age of the Earth. There may have been an extended period of time during which the Earth existed without solid minerals and rocks. It is widely assumed that when the Earth was young it was too hot to allow formation of a solid crust. Estimation of the age of the Earth by radiometric dating of Earth rocks relies on the formation of minerals under relatively cool conditions and the persistence of those minerals at cool temperatures until the time they are processed for radiometric dating.

An additional problem is that the Earth remains geologically active. Rocks and minerals near the surface of the Earth are at risk of being subjected to subduction, heating and removal of any once accessible radiometric record of the past.

Radioactive Isotopes decay at an average rate. Therefore, an accurate half life is unknown for small samples, and thus age estimates are not as reliable as are often claimed. Does it matter if we can precisely date the Earth? One reason to try to find and date the oldest rocks is to compare when they formed to the age of the rocks with the oldest fossils.

Radiometric dating of meteorites
When the solar system formed, mineral condensations formed in space millions of years before the Sun ignited. Meteorites have been dated by radiometric methods, providing estimates of how long ago the Earth probably began to form by a process of accretion.

Time
Tests with atomic clocks have shown that the flow of time is related to the speed of an object. Current theories suggest that the universe is either accelerating or decelerating (depending on who you believe). If this is true then it is safe to say that the Universe is expanding at a different speed than it was 1 billion years ago, i.e. as the earth is in a non-central position in the universe, it is moving at a different speed than 1GYa. This would lead to the conclusion that the flow of time (i.e. the length of 1s) was different 1GYa which leads to decay rates being different and, ultimately the age of the Earth being different that that which can be calculated. Once the varying speeds of the progression of the Galaxy through the Universe, the varyiance in the rotational speed of the Galaxy as well as those of the local cluster and solar system, the actual age of the Earth could be very different from the 4.54GYa quoted.Kendroche 07:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Study project on time dilation
Motion of the Earth: what is the current best estimate of the velocity of the Earth? Use the equations of time dilation to calculate the difference in time, had the Earth been stationary during its entire history. See Time dilation.

Reading

 * Age of the Earth - Wikipedia article (needs more citations to good sources)
 * The Age of the Earth by Brent Dalrymple. Stanford University Press 1994. ISBN 0804723311
 * Bursting the Limits of Time by Martin J. S. Rudwick. University of Chicago Press 2005. ISBN 0-226-73111-1

Activities

 * Develop Geology

title: Age of the Earth


text:
Cardiovascular fitness

Welcome to the Wikiversity Center for Cardiovascular Fitness.

The Center for Cardiovascular Fitness is a Wikiversity content development project where participants create, organize and develop learning resources for cardiovascular fitness.

These resources are meant to educate participants in the ways of cardiovascular exercise. That is, any exercise that heavily involves the use of the heart and lungs.

Participants will be introduced to the various types of cardiovascular exercise, from the broad to the slim, so to speak. Cardiovascular exercise is very important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but as always, if you don't adhere to a proper nutrional diet it will not be as effective.

Ways to increase your cardio vascular fitness
Cardiovascular refers to the system in your body which moves blood around. The heart is the main organ in your body that moves blood around. EXERCISE is the primary method of improving cardio-vascular fitness. In essence, to increase cardio-vascular fitness you get YOUR HEART RATE up. That means that you make it beat faster and work harder than it might normally would. So you Do THIS by MOVING around. FASTER. So RUN. Running, BIKING, SKIING, SNOWBOARDING, some types of YOGA, MARTIAL arts, and other sports all have the potential to increase your cardiovascular fitenss. CONSULT your doctor BEFORE engaging in a exercise plan. Improving cardiovascular fitness can also help you lose weight if desired because it can help you to burn calories. and slows the time you have to stop and rest.

title: Cardiovascular fitness


text: Category:Time

title: Category:Time


text:
Software testing/Results

intro
Here we will show results that we observed during the course.

English Wikipedia: few articles on design techniques from category white box testing
There is need for more white box testing articles in Wikipedia and/or other Wiki projects (see Software testing:White box design techniques). Please help.

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Talk:Software testing/Results

Inter-lingua

 * The discussion in German.

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Exploring science through fiction

Welcome to Exploring science through fiction.

This learning project uses science fiction to introduce and explore topics in physics, biology, computer science and sociology.

Reading
Ordered by date of addition, recent changes go first:

The celestial plot, by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It is a short story about multiple universes, 10 years before the scientific theory. A soldier travels to an alternate present.

The Garden of Forking Paths, by Jorge Luis Borges. It is a short story about parallel universes too, with a symbolic labyrinth.

Paths to Otherwhere by James Hogan - the Many-worlds interpretation and quantum theory. If there are "parallel universes", how would we ever know?

Stephen Baxter's Manifold Trilogy) - do stellar gamma-ray generating events seriously impact the evolution of biological organisms?

Marvin Minsky's The Turing Option - artificial intelligence as compared to biological intelligence. Will it ever be possible to "download" a human mind into a man-made computer?

Assignment Nor'Dyren by Sydney J. Van Scyoc - introduction to genetic and social engineering. Would it be possible to use genetic engineering to create an optimal social structure?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. A common theme of science fiction is speculation about the ultimate effects of technology on human existence. Some authors have imagined that all technological discoveries and changes will be accomplished in the distant future while others have suggested that technological change is a fundamentally exponential process that will culminate in the relatively near future (Technological singularity). Many such speculations involve a role for intelligent devices that might be able to catalyze technological change at a very rapid pace. Douglas Adams turned such speculations on their head and wrote about computing deices of the future that reveal the ultimate truth of the universe to be an absurdity. Why is it natural for people to imagine that there are fundamental questions about the universe that we should be able to answer using technology? See:The Question.

Greg Egan's Oceanic, etc, freely on-line at.

Projects
Projects devoted to using fiction writing as a tool to explore science.

AI in fiction
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a common topic found in science fiction. Although, in reality, we are very far from attaining true AI, fiction tells stories about conscious robots, cyborgs and different artificial intelligence entities. Currently, the state-of-the-art of AI has achieved some goals:

Current AI (feel free to correct/add)

 * Text to speech technologies: it is the ability of a computer to pronounce a text with proper intonation and punctuation. It is famous the text-to-speech engine by Microsoft, L&H speaking engines (seen in Power Translator Delux 1.0 and then sold to Microsoft, for Encarta) and Loquendo software. Loquendo software is very advanced; it possesses many voices and most of them are very understandable for humans.
 * Writing spoken language: the counterpart of TTS technology. It is the ability to "understand" what humans say and write it in a text file. Dragon Naturally Speaking is a famous program who can do that. The user only has to train it once, for a few hours and then the program is ready to write what it hears. The software is built on an artificial neural network, so it learns and improves, according to the user. The newest version has support for many users.
 * Chess: in 1997 Deepblue AI, by IBM, won Grand Master Kasparov, from Russia, one of the best chess players in the world, with an ELO above 2800.
 * Industry robots: current technology allows robots to build cars and many automated tasks in the industry.
 * Humanoid robots: Japan is leading this technology and has made a baby robot and several male and female robots who can engage in a conversation and move their muscles, like humans. Obviously, they still lack conscience.
 * Mathematical demonstration software: there has been software which has been able to demonstrate theorems that humans could not.
 * Expert systems:

Fiction AI

 * Understanding of natural language is completely achieved. See the robots series by Isaac Asimov, like Robots and Empire and Foundation series.
 * Universal computer AI: The Last Question is a short story showing the advance in computers, particularly in the AI field, until the building of a universal computer which can be thought as God.

Getting outside the box
One of the exciting aspects of science is the seemingly endless parade of "revolutionary discoveries". "New ideas" can become part of the scientific world view and open up entire new domains of science. Two examples of revolutionary discoveries are the idea of radioactive decay and plate tectonics. In contrast to such successful new scientific ideas, some "old ideas" seem to endlessly resist the methods of science. For example, ideas about the possibility of "psychic" and "supernatural" phenomena have existed in many cultures for thousands of years. As discussed in the Wikipedia article Science fiction and fantasy, science fiction generally avoids topics such as the "supernatural" while fantasy stories are more likely to incorporate supernatural elements. However, since new elements of science continue to be discovered, how do we know where to draw the boundary between science fiction and fantasy? If "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," how do we know that science will not some day include explanations for "psychic" and "supernatural" phenomena? Are some ideas such as time travel always going to remain outside of the domain of science? Are scientists too constrained by preconceptions about what is and is not possible? Does current scientific thinking and beliefs about what is not possible unreasonably constrain scientific investigations of the world? Can fiction play a useful role in stimulating scientists to "think outside the box"? Has fiction played a useful role in promoting technological advances and scientific discovery in areas such as space exploration? See Science Fiction Challenge, a learning project for exploring the nature and boundaries of science through science fiction writing.

Related resources

 * Fiction writing support group
 * Portal:Writing Center
 * How Life could Evolve in a Red Dwarf Star System
 * Aurelia and Blue Moon
 * The Near Death Experience as Possible Evidence for any Afterlife

External resources

 * Paul Brians - teaching resources
 * Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas
 * Online course with James Gunn
 * William Warner - English 192, Science Fiction
 * Early history of SF courses
 * Science & The Imagination Syllabus Honors Course at Oral Roberts University

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User:Batikha

Joined
December 5, 2006.

What's New about me!

 * I'm learning German! Sometime, I might be able to promote myself to de-5 if I have even more time to learn German.

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User:Batikha/Is at school at the time

Batikha is at school at the time and might not be active.

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User:Tjakov

Hello!

Me!
Welcome to my userpage on wikiversity. I am a 20 year old student from Norway who currently live and study in Bergen. I very interested in television, movies, soccer, music and computer games.

My studies
I follow studies at: School:Computer Science School:Media Studies (There is not much currently at that school)

Database
Here is a database i made in the database topic in computer science:

Favorites database

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Time management

This unit is used in: First Line Management and Survey research and design in psychology

Overview

Time management is a somewhat ambiguous term.

Time itself cannot be "managed", but an individual can manage him/herself and the way that s/he deals with time (Claessens, Eerde, Rutte & Roe, 2007; Cannon, 1996).

Time management refers to strategies which support successful executing of behaviors required to effectively achieve goals. Thus, time management aims to maximize individual productivity.

Time management strategies include planning and prioritizing, allocating time, setting goals, monitoring time usage, and self-organization of one's time particularly with regard to performance of multiple tasks within a certain time period (Claessens et. al., 2007). Ineffective time management affects productivity in the workplace and has detrimental consequences on an individual's private lives.

A meta-analysis found that time management behaviors are associated with increases in job satisfaction, health, and stress reduction. However, they noted that the findings in regard to work and academic performance were unclear. Where effects on performance were found, they tended to be positive; however, they were often of small effect size or inconsistent with regard to statistical significance. Time management can also be a useful strategy for coping with stress.

Parts of time management are art, and parts are science. Also, be aware that time management is a multidimensional concept that can be dissected into many skills and behaviours.

Step 1 - How much time do you have?
First, we have to know how much effective time we have available. For instance, if we want time to manage our day at work, we have to figure out how long is available for the work.

This is harder than it appears. You may work an 8 hour day, but it is doubtful that you have 8 hours of effective working time in that day. Meetings, trips to the water cooler, discussions about last nights TV shows all cut into your working time. Many people are interrupted by others when they are working - this can be in the form of phone calls, personal visits or urgent e-mails. If you don't know how much effective time you have, you can do an informal time study. Underestimating the amount of time a task will take (e.g., by failing to account for setting the up, travel time to the location, etc.), or overestimating the amount of time one has to complete the task is a cognitive mistake consistently at the heart of poor time management.

Step 2 - What are the tasks?
This is the simple step - you simply record what you have to do. This can be done on a piece of paper, in an electronic organizer, or in some other form. Make sure it's not just in your head, though - while you might have a fantastic memory, we need the information in some form so we can manipulate it. Pick the form that you are happiest with, as it'll be you that has to work with it.

Step 3 - Prioritisation - What is important?
The next step is to ranking the tasks by their importance.

One method is to make three lists, A, B and C:
 * A is the list of items to do today;
 * B are things that need to be done in the next week or so, and
 * C are in the next month or so.

Next, put a number (starting at 1) beside each A list item.

We won't order the B or C list right now.

Importance Of Time
Do not play carelessly with time. No man can ever make up a second of lost time. The only real capital is time. Most people would be shocked at the findings if they measured the amount of time they waste every single day.

Time moves on its own pace regardless of whether we make use of it or not. Never take time for granted. All the money in the world can’t buy a wasted moment back.

Time is the one thing that can never be retrieved. The hours that are lost in idleness can never be brought back. The time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you use it.

Conditions can change in no-time. The very next moment they could be different altogether. Value the current time. Make use. Get down to work immediately.

Always ask, "Ey, brain, what’s the best use of my time right now?" to yourself. There will always be only one answer to this question. Your ability to answer this question accurately from time to time and getting down to that work immediately will play a very important role in your success.

Step 4 - How much time will each task take?
Go through the list A of tasks and estimate how much time they will each take. Don't worry too much about being perfect, just be as reasonable as you can.

Step 5 - Planning a schedule
Based on the working time available and the estimate of how long each one will take, schedule an order for the tasks.

For example, after meetings and daily tasks, let's say we have 5 hours we can do work. We have 20 tasks, 8 of which are on our A list. Give the 8 tasks an order, and estimate that it will take 1 hour to do each task.

Now, from our plan, we know that we won't finish our A list today. So, we review to see if any of the bottom 3 items is due today (if they were, they should have been a higher priority, but we double check) and then we finalize the ordering, drawing a line after the 5th item (5 items giving us 5 hours of effective work).

Step 6 - Do the work
Do the work. If you find yourself drifting off, put yourself back on track. If you find yourself drifting onto the same distraction, limit it! If you find Youtube videos distracting, put a time limit on them using a browser extension.

However, don't waste time. If a task is too difficult or too boring to do now, do a different task and return to that task in a different context later. Maybe there were birds migrating outside your window whilst road-works where in full blow and children were screaming at each other. Don't waste that time doing a focus-dependent task. Try something that does not need as much focus. You can always return to that focus-dependent task a little later (not too much!!).

Step 7 - Review the progress
As soon as we can, after our effective time is up, we review our progress.

For example, maybe we only got through 3 items - item A2 (maybe it was that focus-independent task from earlier) was 2 hours instead of 1 hour, and just as we got started on item A4 we got pulled away for the rest of our effective time for an emergency (maybe the children had fallen into the tar and you needed to help the construction crew take them out).

We learned a few things in this example. First, we underestimated item A2 - so similar items should get more accurate in the future. We also learned that 5 hours is the maximum time that we have available, but we might have less. We can cross 3 things off of today's list.

It is important at this stage to avoid thinking of these misestimations, or of the undone tasks, as failures; they aren't, at least not when you go beyond looking at the directly-visible results and into the less visible results. They are, in fact, successes in that they constitute new and important information that you have gained regarding how long those tasks take. This information will be useful to you in the future.

Impacts
Sirois (2014 ) found that students who chronically procrastinate over tasks usually thrive under pressure. As a result, their stress levels do not dramatically increase when deadlines are imminent because they work best in that state (Sirois, 2014).

Häfner, Oberst, and Stock (2014 ) found that when students were taught and implemented TM skills, such as planning, procrastination was prevented.

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First Line Management/Health & safety plan

People responsible for developing health and safety plans in a workplace able to: identify responsibilities for the workplace arising out of health and safety legislation; develop a health and safety plan for a specified workplace; report accidents and occurrences of serious harm in a specified workplace; and prepare to manage emergencies in a specified workplace.

This unit is used in:
 * First Line Management

Learning support and accreditation
The following formal learning institutions offer learning support for this unit, and may offer assessment and certification.
 * Otago Polytechic, New Zealand offers assessment of prior learning, as well as face to face and online learning support for study of the (New Zealand) National Certificate in First Line Management.

Content
Read through, contribute to, and comment on the following information relating to health and safety plans. Be sure to do 1 of the listed projects in section 3.

Identify health and safety responsibilities.
Identify responsibilities for the workplace arising out of health and safety legislation.

Clauses that address health and safety issues in employment are identified in current legislation.

Employee's responsibilities in respect of the employer are outlined with reference to legislative requirements.

Employer's responsibilities in respect of the employee are outlined with reference to legislative requirements.

Policing of the Health and Safety in Employment Act is explained in terms of who is responsible and what are their roles and responsibilities.

Actions required to be taken by employer and employee when a notice is issued by an inspector are identified.

Develop a health and safety plan
Develop a health and safety plan for a specified workplace.

Health and safety responsibilities are cited for a specific workplace, with reference to legislative requirements.

Health and safety plan developed for the specific workplace meets the legislative requirements.

Report accidents and occurrences
Report accidents and occurrences of serious harm in a specified workplace.

one accident and one occurrence of serious harm.

Accident register is completed for an accident in the workplace.

Accident register is completed for an occurrence of serious harm in the workplace.

Prepare to manage emergencies
Prepare to manage emergencies in a specified workplace.

Possible emergencies are identified within a specified workplace.

two specific emergency situations, which may include but are not limited to - injury, fire, earthquake.

Emergency procedures are described that deal with the specific situations and meet legislative requirements.

A specified workplace emergency is analysed and recommendations are made which minimise the likely effects of and/or the likely recurrence of the emergency situation.


text: First Line Management/Positive workplace relationships


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First Line Management/Team building

About unit topic...

This unit is used in:
 * First Line Management

Content
Link to Team Building article in Main Wikipedia.

Team_building

title: First Line Management/Team building